200
US Army soldiers to fight wildfires in Western states as budgets
shrink
With
dozens of wildfires raging in multiple Western states, the US Army is
preparing to deploy 200 soldiers in order to help firefighters. The
federal government is quickly burning through its annual budget as it
struggles to keep flames from spreading.
RT,
18
August , 2015
The
move marks the first time since 2006 that troops have been sent out
against fires. It has not been decided where exactly the Army troops
will be deployed, but all 200 will head out to the same fire, the
National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho told Reuters. The
soldiers will be split up into 10 firefighting crews, with each one
composed of 20 individuals.
Meanwhile,
National Guard troops were mobilized to fight fires in Washington
State, the Military
Times reported.
There are roughly 95 wildfires currently burning in seven states,
according to the Interagency Fire Center.
‘Jaw-dropping’ #California wildfire consumes 60,000 acres (PHOTOS, VIDEO)http://t.co/cSZSweqnkihttp://t.co/1erDbjkB4A
— RT America (@RT_America) August 4, 2015
Although
there are more than 29,000 civilian firefighters currently battling
flames in states such as California, Idaho, Oregon and Washington,
fires have managed to burn through more than 1 million acres. Severe
drought conditions and high temperatures have made wildfire season
worse as well, with the average now 78 days longer than they were 40
years ago, according to NBC
News.
More
than 100 houses have also been destroyed in Idaho, Oregon and
Washington in the past three days.
Army
troops will grant much needed help wherever they are deployed, since
state resources, as well as those of the US Forest Service, are
quickly shrinking. The Forest Service is burning through more than
$100 million every week and that the entire yearly budget for
fighting wildfires will be spent this week.
"We're
out of crews, we're out of engines, we're out of helicopters," Carol
Connolly of the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center, which
coordinates firefighting efforts inside Oregon and Washington with
the state and federal governments, said to NBC.
How many #wildfires & acres have burned across the US & CA this year? Check out the latest numbers#cawxpic.twitter.com/zZbIZySveA
— NWS Sacramento (@NWSSacramento) August 17, 2015
In
Idaho, several fires near the Clearwater River have decimated at
least 50 houses and taken the life of one woman in the last week or
so. Homes in the vicinity have been evacuated and the fire has blazed
through more than 50,000 acres, according to Reuters, but fire
managers have had little luck in terms of bringing in more aircraft
or crews to fight the flames.
"Our
resources are stretched very, very thin," Clearwater
command spokesman Ryan Greendeer said. "Each
incident is having to make do with what is available, not what's
needed."
As
RT noted earlier
in August, the Forest Service has already battled more than 36,000
fires across 2015. For the first time in its history, more than half
its budget is being allocated towards wildfires. That means hundreds
of millions of dollars are not going towards other agency projects,
including initiatives that could potentially prevent fires from
igniting in the first place.
State of emergency in California as large wildfires burn through more than a dozen countieshttp://t.co/IFp28AoOM3pic.twitter.com/OyTCOodbi9
— RT America (@RT_America) August 1, 2015
Another
issue complicating the Forest Service’s capabilities is that people
have continued to build on property that is much closer to forests
than in the past. Since houses are in much closer proximity to
wildfires, more homes are threatened and more property can
potentially be destroyed when a fire occurs.
"We
now have more communities that have been located in and around one of
our forests," Agriculture
Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a statement. "Hazardous
fuel build-up has increased in part because of climate change. We see
drier conditions."
As
a result, Vilsack is urging Congress to reform the way the government
fights fires. Currently, the Forest Service can receive federal
disaster funds only after it depletes its firefighting budget, but
Vilsack and other critics say this is only a stop-gap measure, since
firefighting funds will continue to make up the bulk of the agency’s
budget. The agency said that at the current pace, 62 percent of its
budget will be spent on fighting wildfires by 2025.
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