As America burns, Bush guts fire prevention
Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 11:17:08 AM PDT
America is burning--again. This time, it's not my coast. Instead, these fires are ravaging parts of the Carolinas, Virginia and West Virginia, and I feel for anyone whose home is threatened.
It's a feeling I understand well. During California's most recent outbreak this past October--which included an inferno that nearly took the home of Congressional Candidate and Kossack Ron Shepston--my girlfriend's family was under mandatory evacuation owing to the blaze that broke out in Malibu.
That wasn't my first brush with fire. In late 2003, my parents' home was severely threatened by the Old Fire, which could have wiped out their entire town but for a freak snowstorm.
Those of us who have lived under the spectre of wildfire know how scary it can be. How little time you have. How much damage can be done. Those of us who know these areas know that the threat will only get worse.
And yet, Bush's latest budget guts wildfire prevention.
More below.
From the San Jose Mercury News:
WASHINGTON—President Bush's 2009 budget plan would slash money for fire prevention and preparedness in the wake of last fall's devastating wildfires in California, prompting an outcry from Democratic lawmakers who warned of massive layoffs at the Forest Service.
Bush did propose a slight increase in money to respond to fires.
The proposals were in Bush's final, $3.1 trillion budget blueprint, which he presented to Congress on Monday. Majority Democrats quickly indicated that they wouldn't go along with many of his plans.
In the mind of someone like me who has some small knowledge of wildfires and forest fires and why they're getting worse, some of these cuts are mindboggling. But they include:
- A $13 million cut to clearing the debris and small trees that can lead to catastrophic fires
- A $76 million cut in firefighter training and equipment
- A $400 million cut in the budget of the U.S. Forest Service.
All of which can only mean one thing: George W. Bush wants us to burn.
See, out West, anyway, the thing is this: climate change is causing drier conditions across the entire Western United States. Now, less precipation and warmer temperatures lead to increased fire hazards for obvious reasons, but that's not all. At higher elevations especially, much of the forests of the West are conifer (pine) forests. These forests are already under duress because of the dry conditions--they're used to getting their water replenished by winter storms, but that hasn't been happening as much in years past. But there's also another threat:
Bark beetles.
Yes, insects. These insects normally can only gain a foothold in trees weakened by disease or other factors--normally, a healthy tree would be able to produce enough sap to drown an overabundance of attacking bark beetles, in addition to the fact that colder winter conditions create a large die-off in the beetle population. But global warming has altered the equation.
Now that winters are warmer, the beetles aren't dying off--and because of the drought, the trees are weakened and don't have enough water to produce the resin they would need to defend themselves. Bark beetle infestations have already resulted in die-offs that result in huge areas of dead forest--i.e., matchsticks writ large for the next wildfire to sweep the area.
One of the other problems that significantly contributes to massive wildfires is something called Fire Exclusion. Fire exclusion is basically the technique of never letting any fire take hold in a forested area. While this may seem at first to be a sound policy, it is actually anything but. You see, temperate forest ecosystems are in large part dependent on fires for their continuation. Some trees, such as Giant Sequoias, are need fire for their seeds to germinate. This is because low-to-moderate intensity fires at regular intervals (usually sparked by lightning) clears the undergrowth on the forest floor, refreshes the soil and clears space for new trees. Oftentimes, the intensity of the fires is high enough to burn the undergrowth, but not high enough to cause major damage to the trees that dominate the landscape
Fire exclusion changes that equation by allowing for the continued build-up of undergrowth on the forest floor. But when that dry, dense undergrowth finally burns, it does so with a ferocity that can cause cause the trees to go up in flames like pieces of tinder, especially drier areas that have been weakened by drought, as is the case with a substantial section of the forests of the American West.
Modern forest science has come to understand the value of intermittent fire and clearing forest undergrowth for prevention of catastrophic wildfires--which is precisely what makes Bush's budget cuts so mindbogglingly incomprehensible. Now that you have a bit of a background, let's review again what Bush's budget cuts would do:
- A $13 million cut to clearing the debris and small trees that can lead to catastrophic fires
A $76 million cut in firefighter training and equipment
A $400 million cut in the budget of the U.S. Forest Service.
So, first things first: as it is, we're already suffering from a serious shortage in firefighting equipment. Even if circumstances were not deteriorating, it would still be a good idea to increase funds for firefighting equipment in light of recent events.
But the fact is, as global arming's effects continue, things will only get worse. Which means that gutting the Forest Service budget is now triply stupid.
And to top it off, we're cutting $13 million from the funds to clear out (through backfires and other techniques) the undergrowth and debris that fuels these massive infernos in the first place!
And all for what? It's $500 million dollars. At a conservative estimate of $200 million a day, we're mortgaging our security against blazing infernos so we can pay for 60 more hours of miserable failure in our occupation of Iraq.
Disgusting and unconscionable.
Permalink | 14 comments