Last week in these pages (Opinion, Herald, Jan. 5), state Sen. Ellen Roberts, R-Durango, raised an important issue becoming an increasing threat throughout the West, especially in Colorado: prolonged, persistent wildfires.
Dramatically increased fuel loads on forest floors combined with persistent droughts and a warming climate have increased the frequency and severity of wildfires in recent years. You need look no further than Colorado to see this: The three most destructive fires in our history occurred in the last two years (Waldo Canyon, Black Forest and High Park). Last year’s West Fork fire complex burned 110,000 acres and narrowly missed the towns of South Fork and Creede.
There’s no question we must do everything we can to ensure emergency personnel have all the tools they need to extinguish the flames once fires break out. But as Roberts astutely observes, that’s not enough – we must also look for ways to prevent, or at least reduce, the risk of wildfires on the front-end.
According to the nonpartisan, independent Congressional Budget Office, every $1 in wildfire mitigation saves $5 in future disaster losses. But, despite these compelling figures, funding to prevent wildfires in the first place is being squeezed out.
Over the past 25 years, our fire-suppression costs have quadrupled to well over $3 billion annually – and that’s just federal spending. That does not take into account state and local spending, not to mention the damage to local economies or the loss of life that comes with large wildfires.
In order to meet these escalating costs, the Forest Service is often forced to redirect long-term mitigation dollars. And this year, the administration requested less money, not more, for hazardous-fuels reduction.
It’s a textbook example of penny-wise and pound-foolish. And it has to change.
Targeted investments in hazardous-fuel reduction and common-sense forest health projects can save us from far costlier suppression and recovery spending down the road. That’s exactly what Davey Pitcher, the head of Wolf Creek Ski Area, told us in November when he testified at a Senate hearing we held in Washington on this very issue.
And as Roberts wrote last week, this is a particularly important issue in Colorado, where 68 percent of our land is owned by the federal government. She’s right when she says we must demand better stewardship from the federal landowner.
That’s why U.S. Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., and I are urging the Appropriations Committee to increase mitigation funding in the upcoming budget.
The Farm Bill, which we are currently finalizing in a conference committee, also provides opportunities to enhance our mitigation efforts. Contrary to its name, the Farm Bill isn’t just about farms; it also includes an entire title dedicated to forestry. This year’s bill also includes two important provisions homegrown in Colorado.
One of these provisions – the National Forest and Insect Disease Act – would prioritize the treatment of national forest land suffering from insect epidemics, such as spruce and pine beetles. Another provision, the Permanent Stewardship Contracting Reauthorization Act, would permanently reauthorize stewardship contracting, an important tool allowing the Forest Service to partner with private businesses to help thin trees and reduce fuel loads.
In Pagosa Springs, we are seeing a great example of stewardship contracting: Local businessman J.R. Ford has a contract to treat the forests north of town, reducing the fuel load by removing trees and converting them to electricity.
Roberts also brought up another impediment to mitigation wildfires: federal bureaucracy.
I couldn’t agree more. We must do a better job of cutting red tape and providing greater flexibility to local officials on the ground to implement their own mitigation projects, even if it’s on federal land.
We’ve heard this repeatedly from local officials across the state, which is why I worked with them last year to write the PREPARE Act, a bipartisan, deficit-neutral bill awarding competitive grants to states for priority-wildfire mitigation and preparedness projects on federal, state and private land.
We are also working to reauthorize “Good Neighbor” authority to allow state foresters to do mitigation work on federal lands.
We should look for additional solutions like these making it easier, not harder, for all levels of government to work together and get treatments carried out in the woods. We can’t always stop wildfires from igniting, but we can take this opportunity to put in place a saner, more common-sense approach investing resources up-front, to save lives and money in the long-run.
Democrat Michael F. Bennet represents Colorado in the United States Senate. Reach him on his website www.bennet.senate.gov/contact or through his Durango office at 259-1710.
