The US Forest Service recently complained that half its budget now goes to firefighting, squeezing out money for other projects like preventing new fires.
The money for firefighting is a little bitty piece of that.
Thus, it said, spending more on firefighting planes could save money over all.
Stan Davis, the mayor of Salmon, Idaho, said he was relieved to see more money for firefighting.
Complicating it even further is the unintended consequence, that the fund could drain state firefighting funds by sending money to local efforts.
Their proposal would allow the additional money for firefighting to be drawn from the emergency funds used to cover natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes, rather than pulling it from other programs within the Forest Service or the Department of the Interior.
As the wildfire season lengthens and the fires become larger and more dangerous — a trend driven by a number of factors, including climate change — both state and federal natural resource departments are spending more time and money on firefighting and less on other forest management programs that help the land recover after wildfires, or lessen the impact of future fires.
These days, 40 percent of its money goes to firefighting, and that is still not enough to cover the bills.
The nearly $47,000 raised in fees last year at Lake Como went to pay for an employee to direct traffic, to add a lane for boaters entering the lake and more frequent pumping of outhouses, activities that could not have been done because of money diverted to firefighting.
When a local radio station called for money to help defray firefighting costs, people descended on the Redwood Drive-In, known for its malts, shakes and curly fries, and donated more than $4,000.
