Download or read book The Rising Cost of Wildfire Operations written by United States. Forest Service and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 17 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over 100 years ago, President Theodore Roosevelt established the U.S. Forest Service to manage Americas 193-million acre national forests and grasslands for the benefit of all Americans. Today, that mission is being consumed by the ever-increasing costs of fighting fires. This report documents the growth over the past 20 years of the portion of the Forest Services budget that is dedicated to fire, and the debilitating impact those rising costs are having on the recreation, restoration, planning, and other activities of the Forest Service. In 1995, fire made up 16 percent of the Forest Services annual appropriated budgetthis year, for the first time, more than 50 percent of the Forest Services annual budget will be dedicated to wildfire.1 Along with this shift in resources, there has also been a corresponding shift in staff, with a 39 percent reduction in all non-fire personnel. Left unchecked, the share of the budget devoted to fire in 2025 could exceed 67 percent, equating to reductions of nearly $700 million from non-fire programs compared to todays funding levels. That means that in just 10 years, two out of every three dollars the Forest Service gets from Congress as part of its appropriated budget will be spent on fire programs. As more and more of the agencys resources are spent each year to provide the firefighters, aircraft, and other assets necessary to protect lives, property, and natural resources from catastrophic wildfires, fewer and fewer funds and resources are available to support other agency workincluding the very programs and restoration projects that reduce the fire threat. The depletion of non-fire programs to pay for the ever-increasing costs of fire has real implications, not only for the Forest Services restoration work that would help prevent catastrophic fires, but also for the protection of watersheds and cultural resources, upkeep of programs and infrastructure that support thousands of recreation jobs and billions of dollars of economic growth in rural communities, and support for the range of multiple uses, benefits and ecosystem services, as well as research, technical assistance, and other programs that deliver value to the American public. The Forest Service has continually worked to do more with less, seeking to provide for the forests multiple uses with fewer resources and staff. The Forest Service has also worked to appropriately allocate firefighting resources and improve risk management to use those resources safely and efficiently. However, the agency is at a tipping point. Climate change has led to fire seasons that are now on average 78 days longer than in 1970. The U.S. burns twice as many acres as three decades ago and Forest Service scientists believe the acreage burned may double again by mid-century. Increasing development in fire-prone areas also puts more stress on the Forest Services suppression efforts. While the Forest Service and its firefighting partners are able to suppress or manage 98 percent of fires, catastrophic mega-fires burn through the agencies resources: 12 percent of fires consume 30 percent or more of annual costs. Last year, the Forest Services 10 largest fires cost more than $320 million dollars. The cost of fire suppression is predicted to increase to nearly $1.8 billion by 2025. This trend of rising fire suppression costs is predicted to continue as long as the 10-year average serves as the funding model and presents a significant threat to the viability of all other services that support our national forests. This unsustainable problem is made worse because in many years, fighting fires costs more than was planned for that year, requiring mid-season transfers of additional dollars from already depleted accounts to pay for firefighting: a practice referred to as S2fire transfer. S3 In some cases, the agency is forced to divert money away from the same forest restoration projects that prevent or lessen the impacts of future wildfire. While Congress typically provides supplemental resources to replenish the Forest Service budget after fire transfers, transfers remain extremely problematic as they disrupt seasonal work, frustrate partners, and delay vital work.
Download or read book Costs Containment on Large Fires written by National Association of State Foresters. Forest Fire Protection Committee and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Wildland Fire Management Lack of Clear Goals or a Strategy Hinders Federal Agencies Efforts to Contain the Costs of Fighting Fires written by United States. Government Accountability Office and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2007 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Costs of Wildfire in California written by California Council on Science and Technology and published by . This book was released on 2020-10-29 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Rising Cost of Wildfire Protection written by Ross Gorte and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 15 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Wildland Fire Management written by Robin M. Nazzaro and published by DIANE Publishing Inc.. This book was released on 2009-12 with total page 15 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our nation¿s wildland fire problems have worsened in the past decade. The Forest Service and four agencies within the Dept. of the Interior are responsible for managing fires on fed. lands. Fed. appropriations to these agencies for wildland fire mgmt. have more than doubled since the late 1990s, averaging $2.9 billion annually in recent years. Rising wildland fire costs have challenged the agencies to meet their land mgmt. responsibilities. This testimony discusses: (1) the budgetary and programmatic effects of the increasing cost of fire mgmt. activities; and (2) steps the agencies could take to help contain wildland fire expenditures and steps they could take, and Congress could consider, to reduce the need to transfer funds from other programs. Illus.
Download or read book Economics of Wildfire Management written by Michael S. Hand and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2014-03-12 with total page 77 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this age of climatic and financial uncertainty, it becomes increasingly important to balance the cost, benefits and risk of wildfire management. In the United States, increased wildland fire activity over the last 15 years has resulted in drastic damage and loss of life. An associated rapid increase in fire management costs has consumed higher portions of budgets of public entities involved in wildfire management, challenging their ability to fulfill other responsibilities. Increased public scrutiny highlights the need to improve wildland fire management for cost effectiveness. This book closely examines the development of basic wildfire suppression cost models for the United States and their application to a wide range of settings from informing incident decision making to programmatic review. The book also explores emerging trends in suppression costs and introduces new spatially explicit cost models to account for characteristics of the burned landscape. Finally, it discusses how emerging risk assessment tools can be better informed by integrating management cost models with wildfire simulation models and values at risk. Economics of Wildfire Management is intended for practitioners as a reference guide. Advanced-level students and researchers will also find the book invaluable.
Download or read book Wildfire Suppression written by United States. General Accounting Office and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Wildfires and Wildland Urban Interface WUI Fires written by Samuel L. Manzello and published by Springer. This book was released on 2020-07-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This reference work encompasses the current, accepted state of the art in the science of wildfires and wildfires that spread to communities, known as wildland-urban interface (WUI) fires. 171 author contributions include accepted knowledge on these topics from throughout the world, all written by the leading researchers, experts, practitioners, and academics. This encyclopedia is an invaluable reference for newcomers to the field, as well as researchers, students, developers, and professionals who are interested in exploring this dynamic area. General Sections include: Combustion Coordination System Locations Fire Whirls Firebrands and Embers Incident Management Team (IMT) Support Locations Incident Response Support Locations On-the-Incident Locations Soot and Effects on Wildland/WUI Fire Behavior Weathering Effects on Fire Retardant Wood Treatments Wildland Firefighting Locations Wildland Fuel Treatments
Download or read book Costs of Wildfire Suppression written by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Energy and Natural Resources and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Wildland Fire Management Improvements Could Enhance Federal Agencies Efforts to Contain the Costs of Fighting Fires written by and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on with total page 14 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Crown Jewel Wilderness written by Lauren Danner and published by Washington State University Press. This book was released on 2021-06-18 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Remote, rugged, and spectacularly majestic, with stunning alpine meadows and jagged peaks that soar beyond ten thousand feet, North Cascades National Park is one of the Pacific Northwest’s crown jewels. Now, in the first full-length account, Lauren Danner chronicles its creation--just in time for the park’s fiftieth anniversary in 2018. The North Cascades range benefited from geographic isolation that shielded its mountains from extensive resource extraction and development. Efforts to establish a park began as early as 1892, but gained traction after World War II as economic affluence sparked national interest in wilderness preservation and growing concerns about the impact of harvesting timber to meet escalating postwar housing demands. As the environmental movement matured, a 1950s Glacier Peak study mobilized conservationists to seek establishment of a national park that prioritized wilderness. Concerned about the National Park Service’s policy favoring development for tourism and the United States Forest Service’s policy promoting logging in the national forests, conservationists leveraged a changing political environment and the evolving environmental values of the natural resource agencies to achieve the goal of permanent wilderness protection. Their grassroots activism became increasingly sophisticated, eventually leading to the compromise that resulted in the 1968 creation of Washington’s magnificent third national park.
Download or read book Costs of wildfire suppression Congressional Hearing written by and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Our National Forests written by Greg M. Peters and published by Timber Press. This book was released on 2021-11-09 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A complete look at America’s National Forests—their triumphs, challenges, controversies, and vital programs—and the dedicated people who keep them alive.
Download or read book Wildfire Policy written by Karen Bradshaw and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the five decades since its origin, law and economics has provided an influential framework for addressing a wide array of areas of law ranging from judicial behaviour to contracts. This book will reflects the first-ever forum for law and economics scholars to apply the analysis and methodologies of their field to the subject of wildfire. The only modern legal work on wildfire, the book brings together leading scholars to consider questions such as: How can public policy address the effects of climate change on wildfire, and wildfire on climate change? Are the environmental and fiscal costs of ex ante prevention measures justified? What are the appropriate levels of prevention and suppression responsibility borne by private, state, and federal actors? Can tort liability provide a solution for realigning the grossly distorted incentives that currently exist for private landowners and government firefighters? Do the existing incentives in wildfire institutions provide incentives for efficient private and collective action and how might they be improved?
Download or read book Wildland Fire Management A Cohesive Strategy and Clear Cost Containment Goals Are Needed for Federal Agencies to Manage Wildland Fire Activities Effectively written by and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on with total page 12 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Megafire written by Michael Kodas and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2017-08-22 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This bestselling author of High Crimes explores what causes forest fires and captures their danger and the heroism of those who fight them. In Megafire, a world-renowned journalist and forest fire expert travels to dangerous and remote wildernesses, as well as to the backyards of people faced with these catastrophes, to look at the heart of this phenomenon and witness firsthand the heroic efforts of the firefighters and scientists racing against time to stop it—or at least to tame these deadly flames. From Colorado to California, China to Canada, head to the frontlines on the ground and in the air, as well as in the laboratories, universities, and federal agencies where this battle rages on. Through this prism of perspectives, Kodas zeroes in on some of the most terrifying environmental disasters in recent years—the Yarnell Hill Fire in Arizona that took the lives of nineteen elite “hotshot” firefighters, the Waldo Canyon Fire that overwhelmed the city of Colorado Springs—and more in a page-turning narrative that puts a face on the brave people at the heart of this issue. Megafiredescribes the profound global impact of these fires and will change the way we think about the environment and the precariousness of our world. “I don't know any writer better equipped to explain what's gone wrong than Michael Kodas, who shines a light both on the astonishing bravery of the hotshots on the front lines and on the waste and ineptitude of the politicians and bureaucrats who too often fail them, sometimes with fatal consequences.”—Dan Fagin, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation
