Fight looms over federal wildfire funding after devastating year

After the costliest of wildfire seasons ravaged the West last year, with three catastrophic blazes ripping through Lake County, the U.S. Forest Service may be headed for a showdown with Congress over how to cover the surging bill.

President Obama’s proposed budget, released this week, calls on legislators to allow the Forest Service to use disaster funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to pay its firefighting tab.

Vilsack told a group of California forest managers during a Bay Area visit last weekend that if the agency’s wildfire funding runs out this year, as it has in seven of the past 14 years, he won’t “raid” other department accounts to fill the gap and will demand Congress pony up.

With Obama leaving office next year and Vilsack’s appointment on the line, the agriculture secretary said it’s time to take a stand for the financial future of the Forest Service.

Last year, as a record 10.1 million acres burned nationwide, the Forest Service went $700 million over its $2.6 billion wildfire allocation, forcing it to divert funds from watershed protection, habitat restoration and recreation.

Forest Service officials worry that fire management will become even pricier and eat up more of the agency’s budget as the climate warms and development continues to infringe on the nation’s wildlands.

The president’s proposal for funding the agency, which both Vilsack and the administration unsuccessfully pushed for last year, lays out a framework in which fire is treated like other natural disasters.