May 02--The federal government savings account that pays for firefighting efforts for forest fires could end up nearly a half-billion dollars short in 2014, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported Thursday.
The USDA, which oversees the U.S. Forest Service, is the largest player in the federal effort to battle wildfires in places such as the Superior, Chippewa and Chequamegon-Nicolet national forests in the Northland.
Along with the Department of the Interior, which operates National Parks like Voyageurs and Isle Royale, government fire experts project they'll spend $470 million more than is available to fight wildfires if the coming fire season is as bad as expected.
Based on current weather and climate patters, with many of the most fire-prone areas like California in extreme drought as the 2014 fire season approaches, fire experts are predicting they will spend more than $1.8 billion this year to battle fires. They have $1.4 billion in their account.
The fire and budget forecast is required each year under a 2009 Congressional order.
If the money runs out as expected, fires will still be fought. But the federal agencies will be forced to take money from accounts for other programs, such as thinning trees and controlled fires, which, ironically, are practices that would reduce forest fires. The so-called "fire borrowing" also has led to a reduction in federal foresters by 30 percent in recent years, while the number of firefighters has doubled, the annual fire forecast noted.
Fewer foresters also could mean less wood from national forests available for logging companies.
Both the Interior and Agriculture departments have had to divert money from other programs to pay for firefighting efforts for seven of the past 12 years.
In 2013, 34 wildland firefighters died in the line of duty as flames burned across 4.1 million acres and destroyed more than 1,000 homes across the country.
"With climate change contributing to longer and more intense wildfire seasons, the dangers and costs of fighting those fires increase substantially," Rhea Suh, assistant Interior Department secretary of policy, management and budget, said in a statement Thursday.
The Obama administration has asked for more flexibility in the federal fire budget, but those calls have gone unanswered in the larger budget battles with Congress.
While many wildland fires in Minnesota and Wisconsin are battled on state, county or private lands and fought by state and local agencies, the federal government has been called in several time in recent years to battle and cover the costs of major fires, including the 2007 Ham lake fire and the 2011 Pagami Creek fire which burned across 93,000 acres -- the state's largest wildfire in nearly 80 years. The Pagami Creek fire alone cost the feds more than $23 million to fight.
Minnesota and Wisconsin are entering their busiest period for forest fires -- after the snow melts but before summer green-up occurs.
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