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Federal Agencies Prepare For Fire Season

Stuart Rankin
/
Flickr, Creative Commons

Officials expect to have their hands full dousing a large number of forest fires throughout the West this summer and fall, but federal forecasters expect no more than an average fire year across Northern California.

Meeting in Denver with Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, US Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the nation’s wild lands, especially in the West, face potentially catastrophic conditions, worsened by a changing climate.

“The fire season is longer,” Vilsack said. “Somewhere between 60 and 80 days longer than it has been traditionally. Not only are we fighting more fires, we’re fighting them over a longer period of time during the year.”

Vilsack, whose agency oversees the US Forest Service, said the agency expects to field 10,000 firefighters and have 21 air tankers at the ready this summer.

Fire conditions, already bad in parts of the West, are expected to worsen. Locally, fire risk in the Northern Sierra, Southern Cascades and Trinity Alps will remain elevated through June. Fire danger in Northern California recedes to normal in July, where it remains for the rest of the season. That’s probably little comfort in an area where summer forest fires are endemic.

Further north, a very active season is expected starting next month for Oregon, Washington and Northern Idaho. An above normal season is also expected in the Central and Southern Sierra and throughout the Coastal ranges between San Francisco Bay and the Mexican border.

Vilsack and Jewell took the opportunity to urge changes in how congress pays for fighting fires, noting that agencies have run out of money in six of the last 14 years.

Jewell also urged rural residents to take charge.

“If we live in that wild land-urban interface, we’ve got to clear brush and trees and other flammable materials away from our homes,” Jewell said. “It means helping our neighbors and friends do the same.”

Information about protecting your home and property is available online at www.fireadapted.org and through the Firewise and Ready, Set, Go programs.