Arizona Budget Cuts Could Hurt Anti-Wildfire Efforts

MESA, Ariz. (AP) -- High-priority projects to protect Arizona communities from wildfires would have to be delayed or scrapped unless Congress restores money to thin overgrown woods outside of national forest boundaries, a state official says.

With forested land in the state already dangerously overgrown, any delay in thinning forests heightens the risk of another devastating blaze like the Rodeo-Chediski fire, the largest wildfire in state history, which ravaged eastern Arizona in 2002, said state Forester Kirk Rowdabaugh.

''The need is immediate,'' Rowdabaugh told the East Valley Tribune. ''We can't do enough fast enough to avoid the danger of a Rodeo-Chediski. The threat is real. The need to move as quickly as we can is real.''

Ballooning federal deficits and political pressure to control runaway spending have led to tight budget proposals for federal agencies that are not directly involved in defense or homeland security.

The president's proposed budget would cut U.S. Forest Service funding about 5.8 percent, to about $4.07 billion, in the 2006 fiscal year which begins in October.

To help meet that target, the proposed budget for the Forest Service would cut about $30 million from the State and Private Forestry program run by the Forest Service.

Money in that program goes largely to states and local communities to pay for fuel treatments on private or public land adjacent to national forests. Federal grants are matched with state or local funds to pay for forest thinning needed to protect communities from runaway wildfires.

There is a move in Congress to restore the funding to current-year levels, which allocate about $101.8 million for the program.

Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said he agrees with the president's efforts to trim overall agency spending. But the budget plan has its priorities wrong, said Flake, a member of the House Resources Committee's subcommittee on forests and forest health.

Hank Kashdan, budget director for the Forest Service, said complaints that the president's budget shortchanges forest thinning are not valid.

He said the plan does reduce the grants to local communities but increases spending on hazardous fuels reductions within the forests by $19 million

There also are other grants available through other agencies, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to help protect communities outside the forest boundaries, he said.