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U.S. NEWS Wednesday 19 January 2022
US plans $50B wildfire fight where forests meet suburbia

By MATTHEW BROWN Asso- federal, state, tribal and the atmosphere. However, fires are a part of and intentionally set fires to
ciated Press private lands, said Vilsack The impact stretches far the natural cycle for most clear undergrowth that are
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The spokesperson Kate Waters. beyond the western U.S. forests, so putting them out called prescribed burns will
Biden administration plans Vilsack acknowledged because massive smoke leaves stands of trees that make the forests healthier in
to significantly expand that the new effort will also plumes at the height of don't burn surrounded by the long run while reducing
efforts to stave off cata- require a "paradigm shift" wildfire season in the U.S. dead wood, underbrush the threat to public safety.
strophic wildfires that have within the U.S. Forest Ser- and Canada spread the and other highly flamma- Forests thinned near Lake
torched areas of the U.S. vice, from an agency de- health effects across North ble fuels — a worst-case Tahoe and its tourism gate-
West by more aggressively voted to stamping out fires, America — sending un- scenario when blazes ig- way community of South
thinning forests around ar- into one that uses what healthy pollution last sum- nite. Lake Tahoe were credited
eas called "hotspots" where some Native Americans mer to major cities from San Critics have said U.S. agen- with slowing the advance
nature and neighborhoods call "good fire" on forests Francisco to Philadelphia cies are too fixated on of the massive Caldor Fire
collide. and rangeland to prevent and Toronto. fighting fires and that try- last summer that destroyed
As climate change heats even larger blazes. For decades the primary ing to solve the problem by almost 800 homes and
up and dries out the West, Forest Service planning approach to containing cutting more trees will only prompted evacuations of
administration officials said documents indicate the and extinguishing forest harm the forests. In South tens of thousands of resi-
they have crafted a $50 bil- work will focus on "hotspots" fires was to try to stamp Dakota's Black Hills, for ex- dents and tourists.
lion plan to more than dou- that make up only 10% of them out. The efforts have ample, government bi- A similar phenomenon
ble the use of controlled the fire-prone areas across been similar to massive, ologists have said that too played out during Ore-
fires and logging to reduce the U.S. but account for military-like campaigns, many trees dying from a gon's Bootleg fire last July,
trees and other vegetation 80% of risk to communities including planes, fleets combination of insects, fire which burned more than
that serves as tinder in the because of their popula- of heavy equipment and and logging have made 600 square miles (1,500
most at-risk areas. tion densities and locations. thousands of firefighting current timber harvest lev- square kilometers) but did
They said work will begin The recently-passed fed- personnel and support els unsustainable. less damage in forest that
this year and the plan will eral infrastructure bill put workers dispatched to the But Vilsack said a com- was thinned over the past
focus on regions where a down payment on the fire zones. bination of tree thinning decade.q
out-of-control blazes have initiative — $3.2 billion over
wiped out neighborhoods five years that Vilsack said
and sometimes entire will get work going quickly.

communities — including Wildfire expert John Abat-
California's Sierra Nevada zoglou said lessening fire
mountains, the east side dangers on the amount
of the Rocky Mountains in of land envisioned under
Colorado, and portions the administration's plan
of Arizona, Oregon and is a "lofty goal" that repre-
Washington state. Homes sents even more acreage
keep getting built in fire- than burned over the past
prone areas, even as con- 10 years across the West.
ditions that stoke blazes get But Abatzoglou, a Univer-
worse. sity of California Merced
"You're going to have for- engineering professor, said
est fires. The question is the focus on wildfire haz-
how catastrophic do those ards closest to communities
fires have to be," Agricul- makes sense.
ture Sec. Tom Vilsack told "Our scorecard for fire
the Associated Press in ad- should be about lives
vance of a planned public saved rather than acres
announcement of the ad- that didn't burn," he said.
ministration's wildfire strat- Dealing with western wild-
egy at a Tuesday event in fires is becoming increas-
Phoenix. ingly urgent as they get
"The time to act is now if more destructive and in-
we want to ultimately over tense. There have been
time change the trajectory rare winter blazes in recent
of these fires," Vilsack said. weeks, including infernos in
Specific projects weren't Montana and Colorado,
immediately released, and where a wildfire on Dec.
it's not clear who would 30 tore through a suburban
pay for the full scope of area and destroyed more
work envisioned across al- than 1,000 buildings, leav-
most 80,000 square miles ing one person dead and
(200,000 square kilometers) a second still missing.
— an area almost as large And there's no signs of a
as Idaho. Much of that let-up in conditions that
area is privately owned keep the risk of wildfires ex-
or controlled by states or tremely high. A long-term
tribes. "megadrought" is gripping
Reaching that goal would the region and scientists
require an estimated $20 forecast temperatures
billion over 10 years for work will keep rising as more
on national forests and $30 climate-changing carbon
billion for work on other emissions are pumped into