US Forest Service stiffs CA $18 million for firefighting; CA may stop fighting fires on fed lands

[Liberty Belle]

The Trump administration apparently wants to be rid off all those pesky trees and wildlife on federal forest lands, so it will be easier to do drilling, fracking and cattle leasing. Or they're just cheap and don't give a damn if our forests get destroyed. They are refusing to pay an $18 million bill for reimbursing our state and local govts. for money they paid firefighters, specifically, local volunteers who have for years been paid if they are asked to travel out of town to battle raging forest fires:

http://www.10news.com/news/fiery-rhetoric-from-california-to-feds-over-18m-fire-debt

The new motto should be "Burn, baby, burn" for California and probably other western states. Cal Fire, our state firefighting agency, says it may stop fighting fires on federal lands and just let them burn to avoid bankrupting our state. (I wonder if this policy is being imposed on only blue states, or red ones too? Anybody know?)

The timing could not be worse. Our state has already had more acreage burned in the first 6 months than year than in all of last year, or the average of the past 5 years. After heavy rains ended 6 years of drought, all that new growth has dried out and the fire danger is off the charts for even more catastrophic firestorms--and we haven't even hit peak fire season yet, typically late summer and early fall in our region.

If any of you care about national forests (such as those surrounding Yosemite, Sequoia, or our own Cleveland National Forest here in San Diego, or any federal lands across the U.S. that may be next for this treatment) please let your members of Congress and the Senate know that the USFS needs to pay its bills!

[msongs]

1. send the bill to the feds for fires that burn from fed lands to state/county land nt

[Hekate]

6. What they did with the Zaca Fire (225,000 acres or so) was drive it into the back country...

i.e. the forest. The strategy was all about containment and keeping it away from towns, ranches, and so on. They just had to let it burn itself out, ultimately, because of rugged terrain.

If firefighters can save wild land they will, but there's only so much they can do with airdrops, and if humans can't access an area, they have to let it go.

[MindPilot]

2. This problem predates the Trump administration.

"The federal government is supposed to repay local governments within two months, but more than 90 percent of payments from last year missed that deadline. Two-thirds of payments in 2015 were late."

But, that said, A few billion for a wall, no prob...fight wildfires in our national forests? Yeah, no. Too much.

I want to punch holes in the wall.

[Hekate]

3. Watched the fire top the ridge the other night, as the ash fell like a light snow...

Fortunately we are not getting sundowners, so the fires are (as the Fire Chief said) fuel-driven and not wind-driven. All day today we had a light breeze from the ocean, so I was able to open the house and cool it off.

But you never know.

On the first day of this fire that started at Lake Cachuma, all the campers were evacuated lickety-split -- so much so that any number of tents and some RVs were left behind and went up in flames. All the campers -- that is, except the 90 or so kids plus 40 adults who were at a summer camp around a bend in the road. They were trapped and told to "shelter in place." There were some fire-professionals there. And finally, after several hours, they were able to be rescued and some buses from the Chumash Tribe drove in and took them out.

Good luck and good neighbors.

Fires are a fact of life in California. When we had the Gap Fire 7 or 8 years ago it was in the foothills just in back of our tract. Practically a dozen people gathered in my neighbor's driveway to follow its early progress, including a houseful of college students who passed the time landmarking their young lives by the major fires they had witnessed.

Any child knows fires respect no boundaries. Any child knows that firefighters are special, that they risk their very lives to protect us and our homes. That includes the volunteers and the prisoners who volunteer.

The long droughts have weakened the trees of the forests in So Cal, so in many cases they've become infested with bark beetles and are now dead. The Central Coast where I live is a lot of chaparral. It's all fuel.

Fires respect no boundaries. It's all-hands and mutual aid agreements not just in California but throughout the Western states. It's expensive as hell. We need our tax money to come back to us as per agreement in order to manage what Nature deals out.

It takes a special kind of stupid, a special kind of entitled asshole, to squat in Washington appointing Cabinet members tasked with destroying the very departments they are supposed to run.

Gods help us.

[inwiththenew]

4. Doesn't the Federal government own like almost half of all the land in California?

This could become quite a problem for the state.

[Hekate]

7. Yes, and yes. Like I said, it takes a special kind of stupid....

[oasis]

5. Trump gets more disgusting by the day.

[Liberty Belle]

8. there are a lot of fires on Camp Pendleton, a military base here.

Perhaps Cal Fire could stop fighting those until their bill gets paid First time something is blown up, it may get their attention.