NEWS

Study: Climate change, development worsens wildfire risk

Megan Cassidy
The Republic | azcentral.com
Firefighter Kathleen Calvin looks around as she sits atop her fire truck while waiting to begin work as smoke from a wildfire fills the sky behind Saturday, July 19, 2014, in Winthrop, Wash. A wind-driven, lightning-caused wildfire racing through rural north-central Washington destroyed about 100 homes Thursday and Friday.

The cost of fighting wildfires has nearly quadrupled since three decades ago, and to feed the mounting expenses, the U.S. Forest Service has been forced to tap into funds that would help mitigate future fire damage.

A new study by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that federal fire-management efforts are disproportionately skewed in favor of fire suppression, costing more than $1 billion every year since 2000.

The study, "Playing with Fire," posits that climate change is "producing hotter, drier conditions in the American West, which contribute to more large wildfires and longer wildfire seasons.

"The risk to people and their homes is rising as a result, a growing danger made worse by the increasing number of homes and businesses being built in and near wildfire-prone areas."

According to the study, the share of the Forest Service budget dedicated to fire management grew from 13 percent in 1991 to more than 40 percent in 2012.

The study bolsters legislation currently proposed to Congress.

Researchers and federal officials in a conference call with reporters on Wednesday discussed new efforts to spread out the financial responsibility for some of the West's costliest disasters.

"I think it's very clear that these fires are getting bigger, they're getting hotter and they're getting more damaging," U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said.

In December, Wyden and Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, introduced bipartisan legislation to reform wildfire funding that would treat the nation's most damaging wildfires as natural disasters. Doing so would allow officials to dip into federal disaster funds reserved for hurricanes, floods and tornadoes.

"Dollar for dollar, this is a lot better way to proceed," he said. "We raid the prevention fund, and the problem gets worse."

The measure would cover only the top 1 percent of wildfires, Wyden said. The Forest Service and the Department of the Interior estimate that those massive fires consume 30 percent of the federal firefighting budget each year.

President Barack Obama said in February that the White House backed the proposed legislation, according to news reports.

The plan, however, does not have unanimous support.

Three Western senators — including two from Arizona — proposed competing legislation that would "expedite forest treatment projects across 7.5 million acres of federal land and promote the use of private industry under forest stewardship contracts."

The bill would additionally require the Forest Service and the Interior Department to budget for 100 percent of the suppression costs.

The legislation was introduced by U.S. Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz.; John Barrasso, R-Wyo., and Jeff Flake, R-Ariz.

"I watch my home state of Arizona burn every summer," McCain said in recent testimony. "I'm frustrated beyond words with the slow pace of forest thinning projects across the West."

McCain said he had concerns about the administration's proposal, as it "essentially throws billions of dollars at wildfires year after year and still fails to address rising suppression costs."

In Arizona, McCain said, officials are struggling to thin about 2.4 million acres of forest land but so far only 15,000 have been thinned under the Four Forest Restoration Initiative.

Representatives from McCain's office confirmed Thursday that work is being done to compromise and merge the two bills.

More than 1,200 reported wildfires have scorched 173,000 Arizona acres to date in 2014, compared with about 1,200 in all of 2013, burning about 91,000 acres, according to the Arizona State Forestry Division.

The 10-year, year-to-date average is about 1,900 wildfires and 340,000 acres. The average is skewed somewhat by seasons that had megafires, said state fire prevention and information officer Carrie Dennett.

The threat of wildfires have become an increasingly prominent reality for many residents of Western states. For many, researchers say, the risk is outweighed by the natural beauty afforded by having a national forest as a backyard.

Meanwhile, researchers say, climate change has produced hotter, drier conditions in the American West that contribute to wildfires and stretch fire seasons by up to two months.

Since 1970, regional temperatures have increased by 1.9 degrees, according to the study by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Additionally, the average Western wildfire-season has grown from five to seven months.