Western Wildfires 2012: Feds Spend Millions On Immediate Post-Fire Effects

Nearly $25 million has already been spent to prepare for the immediate aftermath of this year's wildfires, putting the U.S. Forest Service on track for another possible record year of spending on burned-area recovery efforts. So far, nearly all of the money is going toward building water bars, removing hazardous trees and spreading seed across hundreds of square miles in southern New Mexico. The state recorded both its largest and its most destructive wildfires in the last two months. Scientists weigh everything from weather forecasts and topography to the location of streams and the severity of the burn when determining how much will have to be spent on each acre to keep the damage from getting worse. In New Mexico, about $14 million in Burned Area Emergency Recovery funding has been spent on a lightning-sparked fire that raced across more than 465 square miles of the Gila National Forest. Another $9 million is being spent on shoring up water ways and removing debris in the wake of the Little Bear Fire near Ruidoso, where more than 240 homes were destroyed. "With the kinds of intensity we've seen on some of the recent fires, there is, for all practical purposes, permanent impairment of the ecosystem," said Wally Covington, director of the Ecological Restoration Institute at Northern Arizona University. He pointed specifically to last year's Las Conchas Fire near Los Alamos, which burned through hundreds of square miles of tinder dry forest, destroyed dozens of homes and threatened one of the nation's premier government laboratories. Flooding from the Las Conchas burn scar still remains a concern. On Wednesday night, a wall of water rushed down Santa Clara Canyon, washing away months of restoration work done by Santa Clara Pueblo and government contractors. In the canyon, post-fire flooding has moved car-sized boulders and toppled trees as if they were toothpicks. On the massive Whitewater-Baldy Fire in southwestern New Mexico, seeding started Thursday on more than 26,000 acres and straw mulch will be spread over another 16,000 acres...more

$14 million spent on the Gila Fire, yet on 6/17 Bucky Allred emailed me:

Guess what else we just found out. When we asked the USFS if they would bring equipment to help clean out the White Water Creek channel and others in the Glenwood, Alma, Pleasanton area, they said they could not. No equipment available and no money. When we ask for finacial aid they said no. They are the ones responsible!!!!!!