This week’s blog post focuses on the cost of wildland fire suppression and the numerous issues that arise that constantly change the amount of money poured into this pit. The paper titled “Getting Burned: A Taxpayers Guide to Wildfire Suppression Costs” by Timothy Inglesbee highlights the numerous facets of federal wildfire suppression and the costs involved, as well as reasons explaining the current predicament. The Forest Service has exceeded its allocated budget for the past two decades and this trend is not projected to stop anytime soon as scientists and researchers forecast longer, hotter fire seasons.
The frequency of large wildfires is increasing which in turn increases the money poured into the respective suppression costs. These large fires account for over 90% of the annual fire suppression costs! However the large wildfires are not the only aspects to blame. Operational, socioenvironmental, and institutional factors have all been noted as contributing to the soaring wildfire suppression costs over the past decade. The increasing expansion of human development in wildland areas, coined as the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI), is one of the biggest concerns moving forward as private property protection is a large source of increased costs over the years. Coinciding with built up fuel loads, this is a major concern moving forward in regards to wildfire suppression.
The culture of aggressive fire suppression that started in the early 20th century has facilitated institutional factors present today that lead to costs rising in suppression. Inglesbee states that the “open checkbook” concept with money for suppression is always cited as an issue with managers that facilitates freedom to spend money with little incentive to contain costs and focus on cheaper solutions that are proactive rather than reactive. Inglesbee also writes that private contractors are becoming the main workforce in fire suppression, which is usually more expensive than federal crews and resources.
This paper was an eye opening read that really gave me some insight into what the critics are saying about wildfire suppression mentalities and costs involved in the federal agencies. It is clear that there can be large sums of money that can be saved, but there is also a drawback in local economies and beyond. I found it interesting that there could be motive behind federal land managers to provide reactive management of wildfires versus proactive management like prescribed burning and restoration activities on the landscape that could help mitigate wildfire risk moving forward. As a young naive natural resource professional about to work for the Forest Service, I feel as if I would want to perform these proactive practices to our landscape for overall forest and ecosystem health, but maybe as my time with the agency increases, I will be swayed to these reactive practices. The more I learn about these issues and perspectives surrounding wildfire management on public lands, the deeper I want to think about potential alternatives, plans, motives, and systematic faults that will continue to be present and if the new younger workforce will change.