Wildfires are getting worse, and costlier

Wildfires in the U.S. are getting worse and costlier every year, and "for the second straight year the federal government has run through its budget for fighting wildfires amid a grueling, deadly season and will be forced to move $600 million from other funds, some of which help prevent fires," Darryl Fears reports for The Washington Post. "More than 31,900 fires have burned 3 million acres in the United States this year, according to the Forest Service."(Getty Images: The Rim fire near Groveland, Calif. close to Yosemite National Park)

As of Aug. 19, the U.S. Forest Service "had spent $967 million to pay for firefighters and the equipment that supports them," Fears reports. "That included more than $200 million in the congressional Federal Land Assistance, Management and Enhancement supplemental account known as FLAME. That left only $50 million to control at least 40 fires burning hundreds of thousands of acres in Idaho, Oregon, California, Utah, Nevada, Wyoming, Montana and other states." Since 2002, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which includes the Forest Service, "was forced to transfer $2.2 billion from other accounts to fight wildfires when the budget came up short, according to records provided by the Forest Service.” (Read more)

Why are wildfires more prevalent? Climate change in the West "has heated up and dried out the region, making forests more flammable," Brad Plumer reports for the Post. "Certain forest management and fire-suppression techniques over the past century have also made forests more susceptible to truly gigantic blazes."

Another key is an increase in population, Plumer writes: "Some 250,000 new residents have settled in Colorado’s 'red zone' over the past two decades, for instance. Not only can that increase the odds of a fire starting in the first place, but more crucially, it increases the cost of suppression, as firefighters focus on protecting nearby homes."

And the federal government has been slow to react, Plumer writes. The Forest Service "has proposed new forestry practices to reduce the risk of fires, including a greater use of smaller prescribed fires and 'mechanical thinning' to clear out the tangled overgrowth in many forests. Yet these measures are expensive — the price tag to treat 4 million acres comes to about $1 billion — and the agency is already struggling with funding as is." (Read more)