Report: Increase in staffing, costs of fighting wildfires
BERKELEY, Calif. (KTVU) - A new government report show the National Forest Service is spending more money to fight wildfires.
The report titled "The Rising Cost of Wildfire Operations: Effects on the Forest Service's Non-Fire Work" says "...this year, for the first time, more than 50% of the Forest Service's annual budget will be dedicated to wildfire."
It points to a 114% increase in staffing to fight fires since 1998. During that same time period the staffing to manage forests decreased by 39%.
"If they don't change how they're managing the forest it will just continually get worse," said Bill Stewart of The Center for Forestry. "What we've done is, in some ways, traded harvesting trees and using the products to just letting them die in the woods, either from drought or from fire."
Stewart says trees are dying at a higher rate because they are competing for limited water resources. That leaves more fuel for wildfire to burn. "We've had areas where we've done thinning where the wildfire came and still burnt through," Stewart said. "But it just might have killed 10% of the trees and not 80% of the trees."
California budgets wildfires differently than the National Forest Service. "We really focus very heavily on fire prevention and forest health," said Cal Fire spokesman, Daniel Berlant.
California has an emergency fund to help pay to fight large fires like the Rocky Fire burning in Lake County, which is now more than twice the size of the city of San Francisco.
Cal Fire's director testified in Washington D.C. to lobby for the federal government to change its thinking about wildfires.
"We are recommending and pushing that they too have the same system," said Berlant. "Because when they don't take care of the forest, it does have an impact on all of us in California."