Funds to fight fires going up in smoke

This year's forest fire season has arrived across the West, bringing with it the disturbing trends of ever larger fire suppression costs mostly paid for by the national taxpayer, and often to protect second homes that are only seasonally occupied. The price of fighting forest fires has increased substantially, now accounting for half of the Forest Service's budget and costing taxpayers billions. Just this month, the U.S. House of Representatives unveiled its war-related supplemental spending bill that also includes $250 million for fighting wildfires this summer — funding that is in addition to the $1.1 billion already appropriated for federal firefighting this year. Yet we have failed to address one reason why forest fires have become so expensive: the increasing number of private homes, many of them second residences, near forested public lands. Across the West today, only 14 percent of private land adjacent to forests has homes on it. But this relatively small percentage is tremendously expensive. When combining local, state and federal efforts, the cost to protect homes from forest fires exceeds $1 billion per year. If 50 percent of the forested private lands were developed, firefighting costs could exceed $4 billion. In addition, climate change is expanding the length and severity of fire seasons...DenverPost