Fire: Misplaced Protection

The torrential rains in California watered a bumper crop of brush that will raise fire danger for years. In other Western states, prolonged drought has left an abundance of tinder, ready to explode into wildfire.

President Bush’s fire prevention budget isn’t up to the task. It would cut more funding than it adds. Money to reduce hazardous fuels on federal lands is increased by $22 million in the budget, to $492 million, but funding to do the same on state and private lands is cut by $88.2 million.

The big issue isn’t the amount of money but where it’s going. Fire prevention should be concentrated in the areas where communities abut wildlands. Half of the land in those areas belongs to the state or private landowners, but only 3% of the fire prevention budget goes there -- even though one of the stated priorities of federal fire management is community assistance.

The lion’s share of the money goes to national forests and land owned by the Bureau of Land Management. But only about half the acreage treated on that land is near inhabited areas. Some of the more remote land needs clearing, but it also happens to be where the most marketable timber is. It doesn’t help that one Forest Service goal is to treat the maximum number of acres. That gives it an incentive to work on the easiest-to-clear land, rather than the highest-priority areas.

By far the most expensive part of any fire budget is putting fires out, not preventing them. A more finely honed plan would consider allowing remote wildfires to burn themselves out under certain conditions -- fire is a natural part of wild ecosystems -- and aggressively cut back the undergrowth and dead trees near vulnerable communities.