The Wildfire Funding Breakdown: Time to Change the Paradigm

We need bold, transformative policy action to reduce risks of these catastrophic wildfires. We need a paradigm shift in our investments in forests to reduce risks of catastrophic wildfires, and in communities to ensure that they are more resilient and better equipped to deal with wildfires.

Addressing this challenge over the next 10 years requires an investment surge of $5 billion to $6 billion per year for the highest priority work of reducing wildfire risks and providing communities with much-needed resources for infrastructure and adaptation.

In consultation with experts on wildfire science, policy and practice – from various agencies, researchers, and other organizations – we have specific recommendations for significant investments in federal programs. But we also need increased awareness that these investments will avoid other costs and create co-benefits, such as jobs, economic opportunities, and healthy lands and waters. A holistic, strategic approach must address the scale of need; an incremental path simply cannot succeed.

While the risks and costs of these fires have grown, U.S. investment in wildfire resilience has lagged. Federal funds have prioritized the suppression of wildfire at the expense of mitigating pre-fire risks. Resources to address the growing costs of suppressing wildfires for many years were taken from the U.S. Forest Service's operating budget, leaving the agency lacking resources to manage our national forests and contributing to a worsening of the underlying risks. Congress partially fixed this issue in 2018 by creating a wildfire disaster fund that the Forest Service and Department of the Interior can tap into. While this fix went a long way toward stabilizing the agency budgets against increasing suppression costs, it did far too little to address low funding for wildfire resilience.

To significantly reduce wildfire risks in the highest risk areas, new fire scenario modeling from the Forest Service suggests reducing overly dense vegetation on 20 million acres of national forest system lands in the West, 650,000 acres of national forest lands in the East, and 30 million acres of all other lands throughout the country.

To meet this challenge, our new report, "Wildfire Resilience Funding: Building Blocks for a Paradigm Shift," identifies funding and priority needs for several federal agencies and programs. These include programs of the U.S. Forest Service, Department of the Interior, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Department of Defense, Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Energy, and others.

This won’t be easy, but the benefits are many. Increased investments and improved focus on enhanced forest health, forest restoration and other strategies will reduce the risks of catastrophic wildfires and result in jobs, economic opportunities, and healthier air, lands and waters.

Realizing those benefits will require a comprehensive approach to improve America’s wildfire resilience – one with input and efforts from all levels of government, the private sector, communities, and other stakeholders – and The Nature Conservancy and the Aspen Institute are launching a collaborative discussion series to drive that approach.

Current strategies and levels of investment are leaving us further and further behind. It is time to change the paradigm and create a new trajectory for how we manage and prepare for wildfire impacts on our country and communities.

Originally Posted in Politico
July 12, 2021