The Biden administration on Tuesday announced a 10-year plan to reduce the fire risk on up to 50 million acres that border vulnerable communities after a year that included one of the largest wildfires in California history and an early-season blaze that became the most destructive ever seen in Colorado.
In order to reduce the danger of catastrophic fires in dozens of spots in 11 Western states, the federal Agriculture Department said it would use controlled burns to get rid of dead vegetation. The plan would triple the government's land treatment efforts.
Tom Vilsack, the agriculture secretary, said at a news briefing on Tuesday that the government needed to change the trajectory of the wildfires.
He said the goal is to make forests more fire-adaptive.
The number of fires in the West has not changed in the past decade. Their scale has not changed.
Several large fires were 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 The Bootleg fire in Oregon was the largest in the state's history. The second largest fire in California's history happened in Northern California.
The preventive measures will be taken on land in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, South Dakota, Utah and Washington.
Global warming has made forests more prone to burn due to the dry weather. More than a century of management policies that called for every fire to be extinguished, no matter how small, also contributed to the problem by allowing dead vegetation to accumulate and add fuel to fires.
The Biden administration decided to use intentional burning to restore forests to the way they were in the past, when fire was a regular part of the forest life cycle.
The plan is partially funded, but it is expensive. The first five years of the plan will see the department spend $655 million on forest management. The US Forest Service had already allocated $262 million to the task for this year.
The $1 trillion infrastructure bill was signed into law in November.
The spokeswoman said it would cost $50 billion to carry out the plan on 50 million acres. The government spent over $1 billion on wildfire suppression.
Michael Wara, the director of the climate and energy policy program at Stanford University, said he was worried that the agency had taken on an enormous challenge that it did not have the money to complete.
He said he was concerned that the Forest Service was overcommitting itself.
If the plan succeeds, fire seasons could be less catastrophic.
Mr. Vilsack said that the Forest Service would work quickly in vulnerable eras, as fire season is now a year-round menace with fires burning into the winter. The Marshall fire was one of the most devastating fires in Colorado's history.
The agency has taken preventive measures in the highest-risk areas after working with private landowners and Native American tribes.
He said that the Agriculture Department had not paid attention to underserved communities in the past, but would make sure they were included this time.
The link between forest fires and climate change was dismissed by the previous administration. In the summer of 2020, Mr. Trump denied federal disaster aid to the state of California.
Mr. Trump said at the time that he needed to clean his floors and forests. There are many years of leaves and broken trees that are so dangerous.
Experts say that Mr. Trump was correct to say that more aggressive forest management is needed to address the fires.
At the news briefing, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona said that it was time to focus more on strategies to prevent wildfires.
He said that they can't keep doing the same thing under worse conditions.
The plan would not stop fires from happening, but it would make them less catastrophic. The Forest Service would inform the public of its progress throughout the decade.
After 10 years of proposed efforts, the Agriculture Department said it will make a plan to maintain the lands where preventive measures were taken.
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