The U.S. Forest Service’s firefighting budget is a fraction of what it costs pay firefighters and send fire engines, air tankers, helicopters and water scoopers to fight the fires.
So USFS raids funds intended for other projects, including those intended to prevent fires.
It’s the same problem that plagues America’s roads, rails, aviation and the military: Congress lives in an imaginary world in which it’s not really necessary to spend money to protect people and property, or to promote commerce.
About 56% of USFS’s budget is devoted to fighting fires. In 1995, not even a sixth of its budget was spent there.
“We have a dangerous, worsening cycle,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said on the Senate floor just before California’s wine country became an inferno. “Shoddy budgeting today leads to bigger fires tomorrow, and it needs to stop. … This battle has gone on for years.”