The National Interagency Fire Center in Boise reports that there now are 43 active large fires across the West covering more than 850,000 acres. That includes 10 large fires in California, 11 in Idaho, 6 in Oregon, and 5 in Montana. “Nationally, initial attack activity was heavy with over 300 new starts,” the fire center reported Saturday. “Three new large fires were reported and four were contained. Firefighters have made great progress on many fires in Idaho, Utah, Nevada and Oregon. Incident management will continue to move resources as they become available to areas with higher concerns.” While this year’s fires so far are not as vast as last year’s, the US Forest Service’s fire-fighting budget already is depleted. “As predicted this year’s fire season has led to costs that exceed appropriated fire suppression funds and once again we must now transfer funds from other accounts to make up the difference,” Forest Service Fire Chief Thomas Tidwell wrote to regional managers and other senior officials recently. “We will strive to reduce these impacts, but cannot avoid them altogether,” Mr. Tidwell wrote. “I regret that we have to take this action and fully understand that it only increases costs and reduces efficiency. I remain committed to finding a solution that in the future will avoid this disruption to our public service and land stewardship responsibilities and impacts to local economies.”
Posted on: Mon, 26 Aug 2013 19:27:34 +0000
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