News Release: I have joined a fellow western colleague, Colorado Senator Michael Bennet, in a letter to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security to push the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to use a greater share of its mitigation funding to prevent catastrophic wildfires in the coming years. Nationally, wildfires killed 13 firefighters and civilians last year, destroyed over 2,000 homes, and caused an estimated $1 billion in economic losses. Massive fires in both Idaho and Colorado significantly contributed to this national toll. And this summer has brought a fresh wave of new fires, many of which continue to burn. A 2007 CBO study of FEMA’s Pre-Disaster Mitigation (PDM) program found that a very small share of the agency’s funding went toward wildfires mitigation. Yet in the same report, CBO concluded that these infrequently funded fire mitigation projects have one of the highest returns on investment. For every dollar FEMA has spent through the PDM fund on wildfire mitigation, it has saved more than $5 in future disaster losses.
Posted on: Wed, 17 Jul 2013 16:43:34 +0000