10 Ways that the Climate Crisis, Wildfires and Militarism are Intertwined
The war on wildland fire is simply an extension of our country’s extreme militarism – a place where veterans of foreign wars, wanna-be cops, and other conservative-minded men, mostly, can assemble, bond, and wrap themselves in a narrative of strength, heroism and sacrifice. There is a place for men and women to suppress fires near homes and vulnerable infrastructure. However, claiming glorious victory when fires are easiest to suppress, go out on their own, or when a break in the weather moderates conditions is disingenuous.
THE SKY’S THE LIMIT: THE SOBERANES FIRE SUPPRESSION SIEGE OF 2016
The Soberanes Fire Suppression Siege offers an extreme example of excessive, unaccountable, budget-busting suppression spending that is causing a fiscal crisis in the U.S. Forest Service. It demonstrates the absolute necessity for Congress to perform critical oversight of wildfire suppression spending by federal agencies.
Other Than Full Suppression
This essay was written in response to a recent post at Wildfire Today: Wildfire News and Opinion, titled, “Are we experiencing a “new normal” of wildland fire behavior?”
FUSEE Releases New Instructional Guide for Citizens to Access Wildfire Information Online
Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology (FUSEE) released their new report, FireWatch: A Citizen's Guide to Wildfire Suppression Monitoring, that provides easy step-by-step instructions for accessing a number of different internet sites that track wildfires.
2018 California Incident Management Team (IMT) Workshop Notes
Notes from the 2018 California Incident Management Team (IMT) Workshop.
Flying Blind: Federal Misuse of Airtankers Adds to Skyrocketing Fire Suppression Costs Accountability and Reform Needed
Wildfire suppression expenditures have averaged over $1 billion per year since 2000, but with a 71 percent increase in spending in the last five years the annual average is now $2.9 billion.. Firefighting now accounts for 61 percent of the Forest Service’s total discretionary budget.8 While suppression cost-containment has been a stated goal within the agency and a keen interest among Members of Congress for the last 15 years, there are no legal or policy mandates requiring Forest Service line officers or incident commanders to limit costs, and they have tremendous discretion in suppression expenditures.11 Recent research challenging the costs and effectiveness of different suppression strategies, tactics, and resources all beg the question—what are taxpayers getting from the billions of dollars spent fighting fires?
Getting Burned: A Taxpayer’s Guide to Wildfire Suppression Costs
Wildfire suppression costs are soaring to over one billion tax dollars per year. This is causing a fiscal crisis in the Forest Service which has exceeded its suppression budget almost every year for the last 20 years. The agency now spends nearly half of its total appropriated budget on firefighting, and has been forced to transfer billions of dollars away from several non-fire land management programs to pay for suppression. Recent legislative changes to suppression funding (e.g. the FLAME fund) may provide better accounting for suppression costs, but do not impose firm budgetary limits on suppression spending, nor absolutely prevent continued transfers of funds from other management programs to pay for firefighting.