Maria Cantwell defends funding to prevent wildfires

April 21-- Apr. 21--U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell is pushing to preserve funding for wildfire prevention despite cuts to the program in President Donald Trump's proposed 2020 budget.

In a recent hearing for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Cantwell pressed U.S. Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen on how the department might handle the upcoming fire season. According to the latest report from the National Interagency Fire Center, the Pacific Northwest could be hit hard this year after a dry and mild winter.

The forecast says there's an above-normal potential for larger fires in Washington and Oregon in April, May, June and July -- especially jarring because the fire season doesn't usually hit its peak until August and September.

"You get my attention any time the map basically targets Western Washington and Southeast Alaska, and basically says in early June we could be above normal for fire season. That's not normal," Cantwell said.

Christiansen affirmed Cantwell's assertion, adding that of the 60 large wildfires in Washington this year, most have been on the west side. That's a change from the year prior, she said.

"Particularly on the western part of the state," Christensen added, "that is very unusual this early."

In the hearing, Cantwell said she wanted to assure that money set aside for wildfire risk reduction -- $546 million in last year's omnibus budget -- would actually be spent on risk reduction, instead of waiting to spend the funds on firefighting costs.

"Can you basically assure me that that's going to happen? That you're going to spend fuel reduction money that Congress has given you? Or are we going to keep setting it aside as we previously have, and just wait to spend it on the fires themselves?" Cantwell asked.

A big piece of risk management comes down to hazard fuel reduction, or selectively thinning vegetation that, left unmanaged, could potentially lead to more devastating forest fires.

Released in March, Trump's 2020 budget preserved funding for hazard fuel reduction but recommended cuts to other fire prevention programs.

The president's proposed budget isn't binding. Rather, it's a declaration of his priorities, and a starting point for Congress.

"In preparing this budget, the 2020 budget, we followed the instruction of this administration in reducing, at whole, by 5 percent. We made some tough choices and forest treatments -- to improve forest conditions and hazard fuels -- was the highest priority," Christiansen said. "As you know, that meant other programs were reduced."

"We are not going to wait, and I assure you we are going to invest those funds in the most critical places in the highest risk," Christiansen told Cantwell.

Released earlier this month, the National Significant Wildland Fire Potential Outlook indicated the potential for above-normal fire activity in southern Nevada and Utah, Hawaii and southeastern Alaska, in addition to Western Washington and northwest Oregon.

Snowpack can help ease the fire risk, as a slower-melting snowpack means that high-elevation areas stay inflammable later into the season.

Already, some early warm spring weather this year has sparked a few small fires around Southwest Washington, mostly near Yacolt and Longview.

Looming heavy in Clark County's memory is the 2017 Eagle Creek Fire, when a single firework ignited dry brush in the Columbia River Gorge and ignited a 49,000-acre blaze.

Last year saw Oregon bear the brunt of the wildfire season. By October, the burned acreage within the state roughly equaled the size of Rhode Island.

In Washington, the fires were less extreme, though smoke intermittently clogged the sky in August and September.

"We might not have been the epicenter of the fires as much as Oregon was, but we certainly had a lot of impact," Cantwell said. "We haven't even seen what August will look like, but we definitely want to get ahead of this."

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