August 22, 2014 - This week, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Tom Vilsack released a report titled The Rising Cost of Fire Operations: Effects on the Forest Service’s Non-Fire Work, which highlights the United States Forest Service (USFS) firefighting budget reductions and how USFS non-fire program budgets have suffered as a result of “fire borrowing” to pay for the costs of fighting wildfires.  Since 2000, wildfire suppression funding has exceeded the budgeted amount in all but four years, and as a result, shortfalls have been covered by “borrowing” or “transferring” funds from various USFS programs that have already suffered devastating cuts. 

In 2014, it is estimated the USFS will spend approximately 42 percent of their Budget on fire suppression.  Just twenty years ago, they spent 16 percent.  USFS fire personnel staffing has increased by 110 percent, while staffing levels for forest management activities has declined by 35 percent.  This shift has substantially altered the allocations for other forest service activities.  Some key activities have experienced significant decreases in funding including:

• Vegetation and watershed management has suffered a 22 percent reduction in spending;
• Facilities are down 67 percent;
• Roads are down 46 percent;
• Trails are down 14 percent;
• Fisheries are down 17 percent; and,
• Deferred maintenance is down 95 percent.

The Secretary reported that the funds are not merely being “borrowed” as they should be, but are being incompletely replenished by Congress, creating a larger and larger shortfall each year.  Moreover, even when the funding is replaced, it is often too late to re-start or begin a forest management project, which then defers that critical maintenance or fire prevention activity to another year.

One solution highlighted by the Secretary is support for a system that would allow for the costs of fighting the most expensive, catastrophic fires each year to be funded out of a special allocation, as laid out by the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act.  This would eliminate the so-called “fire borrowing,” protecting the base funding for fire prevention, forest and watershed management, and other key USFS activities currently being devastated by the existing funding mechanism.

“Lightning strike fires are no different than tornadoes, hurricanes, and floods,” said Secretary Vilsack, “[the current funding mechanism] is only paying for the pound of cure instead of the ounce of prevention.”

RCRC continues to support an alternative funding method for wildfire disasters which would ensure that forest management activities are maintained.  The complete USDA report can be accessed here.