U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) joined a bipartisan group of senators to increase federal funding to upgrade U.S. Forest Service (USFS) firefighting equipment that could better aide against wildfires in Colorado and the western United States.
“The intensity and duration of the past successive fire seasons confirm the reality that the wildfire suppression workload has grown in severity and complexity due to hotter, longer burning seasons and the expanding wildland-urban interface,” wrote Sen. Gardner and his colleagues in a Nov. 2 letter sent to Vicki Christiansen, chief of the USFS.
Among the eight members joining Sen. Gardner in signing the letter, which also was sent to James Hubbard, Undersecretary for Natural Resources and Environment at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, were U.S. Sens. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) and Michael Bennet (D-CO).
Such factors, the lawmakers wrote, “will only worsen future wildfire disasters so it is time that Congress and the executive branch proactively upgrade firefighting assets in order to protect the lives and property in communities facing these massive wildfires.”
The senators highlighted the need for a modern, highly-capable large air tanker and water-scooper fleet — which according to the letter is among some of the most effective responses to decrease wildfires from becoming uncontrollable mega-fires.
Currently, the available aircraft now being used for such missions are retired ex-military/ex-civil aircraft that have been repurposed for air tanker operations and flown by small private contract firms, according to their letter.
“Age and diminishing structural service life drive safety concerns and limit the number of aircraft available for deployment,” the senators wrote.
The lawmakers added that as members of Congress address recovery in the states devastated by flooding this year from Hurricanes Florence and Michael, “we also need a fire supplemental appropriation to take action to invest in modern firefighting assets.”
The letter follows a bipartisan push in March led by Sen. Gardner and Sen. Bennet to pass into law a long-term, bipartisan funding solution to stabilize the USFS budget that will take effect in 2020, according to a statement from Sen. Gardner’s office.
The deal secured as part of the omnibus spending package is based on the framework from the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act, H.R. 2862/S. 1842, introduced in 2017 and supported by Sens. Gardner and Bennet to restructure how the USFS pays to fight wildfires, ends fire borrowing and provides budget certainty through fiscal year 2027.
According to Sen. Gardner, their so-called fire fix is two-fold: It freezes the 10-year average cost used to budget for wildfires at FY 2015 levels and establishes a separate account for fire suppression that can be used once the cost exceeds these levels.
Gardner said in March that their provision included in the omnibus bill “will ensure the Forest Service has the necessary funding for cleanup and prevention efforts that will help reduce the amount of catastrophic wildfires the Forest Service has to fight.”