Biden administration promises ‘boots on the ground’ to fight wildfires in California

Responding to criticisms about the federal government’s firefighting efforts, the Biden administration promised Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday that the Forest Service will contribute “more boots on the ground” and other resources to make California’s forested lands less prone to wildfires.

Newsom “has challenged us to do a better job,” U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said, standing next to the governor at an overlook in the fire-ravaged Mendocino National Forest, where the largest fire in history burned last year. “We are prepared to do a better job — if we have the resources.”

Newsom said he welcomes the added support and praised the Forest Service. “We’re partners,” he said as smoke from a new fire, the McFarland Fire in Shasta and Trinity counties drifted through the canyon below. “This is not about finger-pointing.”

Vilsack said the federal infrastructure bill pending in Congress would earmark at least $3 billion in additional funding for the Forest Service. If the bill passes, that will provide “a down payment on resources to make it happen.” He said the money will go for both firefighting as well as ramped-up forest management projects to reduce fire hazards.

Vilsack’s trip to the Mendocino forest — where the August Complex fire, the largest in California history, burned 1 million acres last fall — came barely a week after Newsom, in a video conference with President Joe Biden, criticized what he called the Forest Service’s “wait and see” approach to fighting fires.

In particular, Newsom and others have faulted the agency for not attacking the Tamarack Fire, which is straddling the California-Nevada border, more aggressively in its early days. The Forest Service and other federal agencies control more than half of California’s forestland.

That prompted a new policy directive from new Forest Service Chief Randy Moore, who until recently oversaw the agency’s operations in California, to go after new fires from the start.

But Vilsack said that, without more money, the Forest Service will still have to make choices when new fires start. “We’re going to focus on those fires where there’s the highest risk to life and property,” the secretary said.

‘You only have so many firefighters’

Moore, who accompanied Vilsack and Newsom to Mendocino, said an investigation is under way on the Tamarack Fire, but he added the problem revolves mainly around shortages of resources. “You only have so many firefighters,” he said.

Thom Porter, director of Cal Fire, said it’s welcome news that the federal government is promising to beef up the Forest Service. “They’ve been under-resourced; we’ve known that for years,” Porter said.

He said “it’s been hard to watch” the federal agency operate with less-than-sufficient funding.

Newsom and Vilsack pledged to work closely together to implement a memorandum of understanding the state signed last summer with the Forest Service, in which each side pledged to reduce fire risks on 500,000 acres of forest.

But even those efforts won’t fireproof a state that saw 4 million acres burn last year, the most in a single year in California history.

“It’s going to take a decade, or decades, to fix the forest management problem.”

Case in point — Vilsack and Newsom spent a moment at a memorial to the 15 firefighters who died in the Rattlesnake Fire of 1953, which burned in the Mendocino forest. Last year’s August Complex fire burned over some of the same ground, through chaparral and brush that had grown up in the past few decades.

“Hard chaparral, once it gets big, it’s impenetrable,” Porter said, saying fuel breaks need to be carved into the landscape. “If we don’t put holes in it, it’ll burn everything.”

This story was originally published August 4, 2021 at 11:42 AM with the headline "Biden administration promises ‘boots on the ground’ to fight wildfires in California."