House panel approves extra wildfire money
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dwhee ...@ipns.com (Daniel B. Wheeler)
From The Oregonian, p A4 House panel approves extra wildfire money A committee votes to add $700 million to fight the season's ferocious blazes By ALAN FRAM, The ***ociated Press WASHINGTON - A House committee voted Tuesday to provide an extra $700 million for battling wildfires that have raged across more than 3 million acres this year, mostly in the West.
The Republican-led House Appropriations Committee approved the funds by voice vote, although lawmakers and aides said the Bush administration opposes the extra money. The White Housethinks federal agencies have all the resources they need, legislators said.
"I'd suggest to OMB (the White House Office of Managmeent and Budget) that they smell the smoke and recognize this is a serious problem," said Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin, the committee's top Democrat.
The full House meanwhile, p***ed byvoice vote a measure that extends legal protections to foreign firefighters enlisted in the battle in one of the worst wildfire seasons in history.
The legislation, not yet taken up by the Senate, would make foreign firefighters employees of the federal government for the limited purpose of shielding them and the countries that send them from lawsuits.
Posted as a courtesy by Daniel B. Wheeler www.oregonwhitetruffles.com
lhfotow ...@hotmail.com (Larry Harrell)
This will also have MAJOR effects on how the USFS works the rest of this fire season. Money is now being funneled away from critical fuel reduction projects and most other departments of the USFS. TEAMS is restricted from signing any new contracts for both planning and implementation projects for work all across the country. While I applaud the seriousness of this emergency reaction, it is just a symptom of the overall problem.
Our forests can't survive even mild droughts.
Is this the legacy that preservationists want their children to inherit? What will happen after 10 YEARS of drought? It's time to save our forests through management of both live and dead fuels while saving the all-important core of big trees within them. I hate to say it, and I don't want to come off as a hard-core timber beast but, we do have to log our forests in order to save them. "Reverse high-grading" and thinning projects are needed to make more water available to the trees we want to save. Controlled burning is finally being shown to not be a viable alternative to reducing fuels (without first removing a portion of them through timber sales).
Again, I am NOT in favor of taking the big trees out but, I am in favor of including a small percentage of mid-sized trees to pay for the removal of sub-merchantable trees that clog the understory and make controlled burns impossible.
Larry
lhfotow ...@hotmail.com (Larry Harrell)
July 11, 2002 The Arizona Republic Forest Service freezes funds Costly fires mean delays for other work By Judd Slivka, The Arizona Republic Blaming the most severe fire season in decades, the U.S. Forest Service is freezing all spending not directly related to fighting wildland fires or to day-to-day operations, according to a memo received Wednesday by Arizona officials.
That means campgrounds that need work won't see repairs, Forest Service employee travel is halted, and pending contracts will be delayed until at least Oct. 1, when the agency receives its next round of funding from Congress.
"If there's an environmental-impact study going on, you stop work on it," said Alice Forbes, Forest Service director of operations at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. "The bottom line is that any kind of contract that hasn't been made official yet, we're not entering into it for a while. This is going to have a major impact all across the agency. And it's all because fire season started . . .
early." The Forest Service originally had budgeted $321 million of its $4 billion annual budget to fight fires this year. But costly blazes throughout the West over the past three months - the "Rodeo-Chediski" fire in east-central Arizona cost more than $43 million to fight -
have raised the bar. At the end of June, the agency forecast that fire suppression for the year would cost $966 million, or nearly 25 percent of its annual budget.
Comment: Will the USFS use me and my GS-7 ( $30,000 per year, if I worked all year long, which I don't ) wage in fire camps to p*** out radios or issue equipment or will they use GS-11 ($40,000 to $60,000 per year) folks, like usual? Fire camp jobs are cherished and hoarded by the local bigwigs as ways to make big overtime bucks from the fires. With budgets being funneled into fire suppression, can the taxpayers afford high-priced Forest Service "executives" to do fire camp jobs that anyone can do?
Also, good thing ALL travel isn't banned.....I'd be walking back from South Dakota, reliving the Lewis and Clark expedition.
Larry, hoping bigwigs don't see this
dwhee ...@ipns.com (Daniel B. Wheeler)
Pointing out that fire expenditures are gravy for the camp fire folk, Larry.
BTW, will they now rename Arizona to Arid Zone-a? <hopeful G> Ya gotta keep a sense of humor of this thing...the PNW is next. Sure glad we got some rainfall last week.
Daniel B. Wheeler www.oregonwhitetruffles.com
mil ...@hotmail.com (Mark Dressler)
For FY 2002, $395 million out of the $2 billion National fire plan was appropriated of on the ground fuel reduction projects. At $250-450 per acre for mechanical treatment, some land managers thought they could hire a contractor to revove everything 9" DBH and less so they could at least break even.
Problem is tha tthe public sees this as an excuse to log. I predict that with all of the monied intersts behind this, congress will soon change the laws to allow logging-to-save-the-forest projects to proceed with minimal public nuciances.
________________________________________________ For Immediate Release: Contact: Marnie Funk/Tracey Shifflett July 10, 2002 202-226-9019 USDA Reports Nearly Half of 2002 Projects to Reduce Wildfire Risks have been Blocked by Appeals - Usually by Environmentalists Forest Subcommittee Holds Hearing Tomorrow on New Statistics Washington, D.C. - The Forest and Forest Health Subcommittee will hold an oversight hearing tomorrow on "Wildfire on the National Forest: An update on the 2002 Wildland Fire Season" at 10 a.m. in 1334 Longworth HOB.
USDA reports that delays caused by the appeals have significantly slowed efforts to pull tinder-dry overgrowth out of federal forests.
These delays have contributed to the West's worst fire year on record.
To date, with nearly half of the 2002 fire season left, more than 3 million acres have been scorched by wildfire.
The Departments of Interior and Agriculture have spent nearly $400 million on fire suppression - virtually all the funds appropriated for the activity.
A USDA internal report outlining reasons for delays in reducing fire hazards will be discussed at tomorrow's hearing. In Fiscal year 2002, the USDA proposed cutting down excess small trees that could fuel forest fires in 326 instances across the nation. Nearly half - 155 -
of those projects have been delayed by administrative appeals. A score of these cases ended up in court.
In Arizona, a state plagued with wildfires, 75 percent of the fuel load reduction plans were appealed. In Montana, another state buffeted this summer by fierce fire, 100 percent of the fuel-reduction plans were appealed.
Chairman Scott McInnis: "For those who have spent the last several weeks down playing the impact of appeals and litigation on forest management, this report is a bucket of cold water in the face. These numbers are a scathing indictment of the process that governs management of the nation's forests, and a harsh reminder of just how relentlessly ideological some environmental litigants have become. The American people can expect a decades long cycle of destructive wildfires if this crusade against forest management continues.
"If ever there were a case for reforming the arcane and litigious way in which we manage our forests, this emphatically is it."
Michael Hagen mha...@olympus.net
An acquaintance is a honcho in CDF - the California fire dept- and goes to every fire and disaster you hear of on the news. A consequence is that he gets so much vacation time he apprentices as a river rafting guide (a freebie) to do something on his mandatory time off. These guys put in their years on the gruntline already and are very good at what they do now. That's not where money is to be saved.
If you've done fire time you know about the fire square, right?
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