Editorial: Treat wildfires like other natural disasters
Publisher’s note: This editorial is from the March 23, 2015, Sacramento Bee.
An out-of-control wildfire is just as much a natural disaster as a hurricane or flood. Just ask Californians who fled for their lives or saw their homes burn down in recent years.
But that’s not how wildfires are handled in the federal budget, and it’s taking money away from worthwhile programs in our national forests and parks.
This has to change.
The U.S. Forest Service, the White House, bipartisan supporters in Congress and conservation groups are on the right track. They’re trying to push through legislation (HR167) so that the costs of fighting the few catastrophic wildfires would be paid from emergency funds, just as when other natural disasters strike. The Forest Service and Interior Department would continue to fund routine firefighting from their regular budgets.
Because it’s California and not New Jersey, the Feds didn’t declare the Rim Fire of 2013 a Natural Disaster (what is it then?). The tiny populations in the communities around Yosemite don’t hold enough political clout to get that designation so they and the State were left holding the bag. Typical political behavior that has to stop for the sake of so many other important matters that need funding in California.
Did anyone else notice how the air was filled with ash and dirt when the wind was whipping the other day? Get used to it. It’s California’s Dust Bowl.