On Thursday, April 10, 2008, Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano spoke before the House Natural Resources Committee on behalf of the Western Governors Association in support of the Federal Land Assistance, Management and Enhancement (FLAME) Act. The bill, introduced by Chairman Rahall (D-WV), Congressman Grijalva (D-AZ) and Congressman Dicks (D-WA), would provide a permanent fund for fighting the most catastrophic fires, thereby ending the practice of re-directing prevention and restoration funds to pay for fire suppression. “It is time to face reality and address the funding requirements to suppress these mega-fires so that fire suppression does not come from the funds set aside for fire prevention,” the Governor stated.

At present, funds that may have been used for preventative efforts, such as ecological restoration, are being spent on suppression. The FLAME Act would provide dedicated funding for catastrophic fires, separate from Forest Service base funding. Funding would be equal to the average federal wildlife suppression costs over the last five years (likely exceeding $1 billion in its first year, according to Natalie Luna, a spokeswoman for Congressman Grijalva). According to Gov. Napolitano, “The FLAME Act will address the need for distinct funding while protecting the discretionary budget of the Forest Service so they can manage and protect out precious lands from fire. In the long run, this legislation will actually reduce overall firefighting costs.”

In the last decade in the West, large fires that used to burn hundreds of acres have been supplanted with mega-fires that burn tens of thousands of acres. For example, in 2002 the Rodeo-Chediski Fire burned 467,000 acres of east-central Arizona during the course of a month. In 2003, the Aspen Fire in southern Arizona burned 84,000 acres and, in 2005, the Cave Creek Fire ravaged nearly a quarter of a million acres and caused $17 million in damages at the Phoenix city limits. Decades of accumulations of dead trees and overgrowth, and acres of trees ravaged by bark-beetle infestation, have provided ample fuel. The rapid expansion of the wildland-urban interface, persistent drought in many areas of the country, and climate change have combined to increase the threat of mega-fires in the future.

Fire suppression costs have risen exponentially in the last decade. In the 1990s, fire suppression costs of roughly $200 million a year consumed about 20 percent of the U.S. Forest Service budget. In six of the last eight years these costs have exceeded $1 billion, and now represent more than half the Forest Service budget. However, there not only has been no increase in the Forest Service budget, but the Administration is currently proposing an 8% decrease for fiscal year 2009 (http://www.fs.fed.us/aboutus/budget/).

Update: On April 18, 2008 the bill faced a full-committee vote, and easily passed. "I believe this is necessary because agencies of the Interior Department and the Forest Service are having to rob Peter to pay Paul by borrowing funds from other agency accounts to cover the escalating costs of fire suppression," said the chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., who wrote the bill.

Read Gov. Janet Napolitano’s testimony

Read the National Interagency Fire Center’s latest seasonal outlook

4/15/2008