Oregon Public Broadcasting

This month, President Obama signed the aptly named FLAME Act into law.

Forest firefighters hope it allows the government to better budget for catastrophic wildfires.

The new rule was attached to the budgets for the Department of Interior and U.S. Forest Service.

From Bend, Ethan Lindsey reports on what the FLAME Act could mean in the fire-ravaged Northwest.

The command center of a major wildfire can be a hectic place.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of people eating, sleeping and, oh yeah, fighting a wildfire.

It’s quite a scene.

Paul Bell: “Well, I get out on almost every fire in Oregon, every summer.”

Paul Bell is the assistant state forester at the Oregon Department of Forestry.

He rattles off the budget lines of a wildfire: fire retardant, equipment, bulldozers, helicopters – even transportation to get firefighters to the fire.

Paul Bell: “And then on top of that, you’re also paying daily wages for those folks.”

Plus, the things you don’t see on the evening news.

Paul Bell: “Providing food, feeding the firefighters around the clock, to match up with the shifts firefighters are working.”

A large fire in Oregon right now averages about $2-3 million, Bell says.

And those costs continually increase, year after year, making budgeting tough.

Vicki Christensen: “Those large catastrophic fires consume 90 percent of the acres, and 85 percent of the costs, but they are only 1 percent of total fire numbers.”

Vicki Christensen is a former state forester for Washington, and is now in the same role in Arizona.

In fact, if a region had a particularly bad and expensive fire year, the Forest Service and others have had to borrow money out of other accounts to pay for the firefighters.

Christensen also represents the National Association of State Foresters, which strongly backed the Flame Act.

She says the borrowed money comes out of thinning and other forward-thinking forest management projects – things that could calm or prevent future forest fires.

For instance, in Washington a few years back, she had promised $1.7 million to help communities thin trees and build-up natural protections against fires.

Vicki Christensen: “And then we say, several months later, ‘sorry we’re withdrawing those funds for you to do what we have pressured you to do, in a way, but now we don’t have the funds because we’ve had to go pay for these other fires.”

Portland Democratic Senator Ron Wyden says the FLAME Act builds an account specifically for catastrophic wildfires.

Sen. Ron Wyden: “And without that, what you are robbing Peter to pay Paul. And, recreation and forest restoration and habitat protection end up getting sacrificed to pay for fighting forest fires.”

That firefighting money could only be touched when cabinet secretaries sign off on responding to a critical wildfire.

Critics say all the law does is add another line item to the federal budget, which could increase costs.

Supporters acknowledge that it may end up as a more expensive solution at the front end, but it could save money over time.

Sen. Ron Wyden: “You always want to put the first dollar into prevention. What you want to do is do everything you possibly can to prevent these huge infernos.”

And Wyden and foresters all say that if they can keep the money to help prep for major wildfires – they can reduce the amount and cost of those big ones.