Massive infusion of federal funding needed in West’s wildfire battles

Friday, July 16, 2021 | 2 a.m.

In the West’s battles against wildfires, our defenses are being strained past their limit.

As of this writing, fires were burning in 10 states. That includes Nevada, where California’s largest wildfire of the year has crept to the state line. In addition, the largest fire in the United States — the Bootleg Fire in southwestern Oregon — had consumed more than 355 square miles and destroyed 21 homes as of Thursday morning and was just 7% contained.

The thousands of wildland firefighters who are putting themselves at risk to protect the rest of us and our environment throughout the West are doing heroic work, but they need help. This is not a problem that they can handle alone, and they’re dangerously short of resources to do their jobs.

Here’s just one example: This week, it was reported that unprecedented shortages of jet fuel are threatening to curtail the use of aircraft and helicopters to drop fire retardants throughout the region. According to The Associated Press, sporadic shortages have been reported at tanker bases in Oregon, Utah and Arizona.

“The worry is that multiple bases go dry simultaneously during what is shaping up to be a very busy wildfire season in the U.S. West,” the AP wrote.

This isn’t the only example of firefighting crews being inadequately supported. Others include mediocre pay and weak benefits for wildland firefighters, which result in low retention and recruitment in the firefighting corps. Mental health resources for firefighters are shamefully inadequate, given the high stresses of the job, which also reduces retention. In some places, benefits like equipment allowances have been reduced or eliminated — a shameful nickel-and-diming of the firefighting corps.

Last year, during the brutal fire season in California that saw a series of major fires simultaneously in the northern and southern part of the state, it was revealed only two firefighting planes were available for the entire state. Under skies orange with smoke, residents realized Californians might die simply because of a lack of aircraft to fight the fires.

Meanwhile, the burdens of firefighting have grown exponentially. Human-generated climate change has created a new normal in which fires break out year-round. Additionally, fires have become supercharged in intensity and scope.

A recent story by Thomson Reuters Foundation News offered a glimpse of how all of this affects firefighters. The story spotlighted Brian Campbell, who despite more than 17 years of fighting wildfires for the U.S. Forest Service earns just barely enough to support his wife and young children. For his $50,000 in pay, he goes long stints without seeing his family, is expected to drive the engine he captains across the country at a moment’s notice and once spent months sleeping in a van while fighting fires in Idaho. It’s taken a toll, and he’s now looking for other work even though he loves his job.

“The seasons are longer, and we’re not being treated any better,” he told a reporter.

The intensification of wildfires has been going on for years, and 2021 is no different.

Nearly 60 wildfires are burning this week from Alaska to Arizona. The National Interagency Fire Center reports that more than a million acres have burned this year, mostly in Western states.

It’s past time to bring national focus to this problem.

We need a massive increase in federal funding to beef up firefighting corps, buy planes and other equipment, and make sure there’s enough fuel for those aircraft, among other items. We also need careful planning about where to stage material throughout the West to ensure adequate equipment is available throughout the region. In addition, we need to review the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s handling of housing issues for populations displaced by wildfires — the current system hasn’t been working effectively.

Our permitting policies for power infrastructure should be reviewed as well. Power companies prefer overhead lines stretching through the wilderness because it’s cheaper than buried lines. But overhead powerlines come down in high winds and cause wildfires. So now it’s common for entire communities to spend days without power as utilities shut down the system because winds kick up. It effectively stops all life in these communities.

It is also crucial for a united and coordinated front on dealing with the handmaiden of fires: drought.

We must rethink everything about how we address the drought. In fact, we need to stop thinking of what’s happening as a drought, which suggests it’s an outlier event. It’s been happening for so long, with no end in sight, that it should be treated as the standard condition of the present.

We need a standing presidential commission to identify existing challenges of various water covenants, distribution policy and water use projections, with the panel empowered to work across state lines toward arriving at an equitable and reasonable solution to looming water conflicts. In addition, federal funds should be made available for infrastructure improvements to increase water capture, purification and reuse.

Look at the monsoon storms that have rolled through Las Vegas and Arizona in the past couple of weeks, which provided opportunities to capture water in populated areas for reuse. While Las Vegas channels rainwater to Lake Mead for reuse, other communities can’t justify the expense on their own and need federal help.

In addressing the climate issues that are stoking the fires, the West can’t rely on state and local leaders to move us forward. Look at what happened recently in Montana, where Gov. Greg Gianforte called on the federal government to declare a drought emergency across the state — a declaration that would make emergency funds available to farmers who suffered losses — despite earlier pulling Montana out of a bipartisan coalition of several states that had committed to uphold the goals of the Paris climate agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In other words, Gianforte wants a federal handout to address a problem his state is exacerbating.

Irresponsible decisions like this affect neighboring states and the entire region, which underscores the need for the presidential commission to facilitate interstate cooperation and solutions.

Meanwhile, states need more federal funding to put toward their own wildland firefighting efforts, as a portion of the West’s wildland firefighting corps are state funded.

For firefighters in federal agencies, some relief could be on the way soon thanks to a bill in Congress that would inject $600 million into rangeland firefighting. The bill would reclassify federal firefighters as permanent workers with improved benefits and would eliminate an overtime pay cap that has hindered retention and recruitment.

There have been similar state-level investments, including California and Washington, but many state agencies still classify firefighters as part-time, seasonal workers with pay and benefits to match. This needs to be addressed across the board, as climate change has relegated the idea of a fire “season” to an anachronism.

We can’t keep treating the escalation of wildfires as a phase that will soon run its course, like a2-year-old’s tyrannical behavior. Nature is making it abundantly clear that until climate change can be ameliorated, it’s a problem that’s here to stay. It’s beyond time to start addressing it with the adequate funding and national focus it deserves.