Last Thursday, the U.S. Senate passed the Fiscal Year 2010 appropriations bill for the U.S. Forest Service. Attached to the bill was a provision that the state forestry community has been seeking for some time: the Federal Land Assistance, Management and Enhancement Act (FLAME Act). The FLAME Act aims to restructure the way the U.S. Forest Service pays for wildland firefighting by establishing a separate fund for large, complex emergency fires and requiring a strategic long-term approach to wildland fire control.
“This is a crucial matter to protecting and managing Washington’s forest resources, especially to reducing wildfire risk and improving forest health in Eastern Washington,” Commissioner of Public Lands Peter Goldmark said following the Senate’s approval.
The House passed its version of the bill (H.R. 5541) in March 2009. The Senate’s action last week was on a bare-bones version of the measure, but it puts the fund in place and provides a necessary starting point.
The bill responds to:
- Funding shifts: The U.S. Forest Service is spending more than half of its budget on fire, up from only 13 percent in 1991.
- Funding reductions: Because federal budgets are constrained, each increase in the size of wildland fire response’s piece of the national pie means a corresponding decrease in other things, like managing the land properly so that fires do not ever have a chance to grow so large and severe. As an example, in the last six years, the available staff for land management on the National Forest System has declined 35 percent.
- Raiding program funds: When the Forest Service over-spends its annual wildfire suppression appropriation, it often “borrows” funds from other programs to pay the bill until Congress can appropriate additional resources. This results in the cancellation of time-sensitive projects and grants, some of which could help reduce fire hazards.
“Senators’ Murray and Cantwell have shown strong leadership throughout the effort to pass this essential legislation in the Senate,” Goldmark said. “The work of Chairman Dicks and Rep. Inslee in cosponsoring the bill and moving it through their respective committees was essential to the House taking action earlier this year.”
See more wildfire photos on DNR’s Flickr photosteam
