Let’s Hope This Is Only a “Pause”

The new administration has “paused” funding for federal grants across the board, including those previously approved to assist rural communities in becoming better prepared to deal with wildfires. Reports indicate that some analysts believe that “pause” is a euphemism for “cancel.” If that is correct, then this action will effectively crush what has been a heartening commitment by local leaders in states both red and blue to try to get a handle on an increasingly out-of-control, climate-boosted environmental situation that now regularly sparks ever-more-destructive wildfires that kill, maim, and render people homeless. And it’s not just in California.

During the past decade or so, we have seen a marked increase in large wildfires in places that historically have not often burned. We’ve watched news coverage of huge conflagrations in Europe, Canada, and Australia. In the U.S., big fires have erupted not only in the traditionally-flammable West, but even in the Northeast and the Great Plains. In many locations that didn’t burn directly, smoke filled the skies for weeks, sometimes months, driving people indoors to flee poor air quality. It’s been bad enough to capture the attention of local officials unaccustomed to considering such things.

Nebraska, for instance, took the initiative to develop statewide Community Wildfire Protection Plans. Ninety-two of the state’s 93 counties assessed their preparedness levels and cooperated to create regional plans that identify areas most susceptible to wildfire and develop action plans to reduce their communities’ vulnerabilities.

Local government budgets are unable to pay for all these needed activities, some of which are expensive. Many landowners work on their own to thin flammable woody fuels on their properties, but not all can afford to do so. This leaves a patchwork of treated and untreated land that may protect individual properties but is less effective than continuous fuel breaks that can help contain regional megafires. Local volunteer fire departments need contiguous firebreaks to help them respond effectively.

Under both Republican and Democratic administrations, federal programs administered by the U.S. Forest Service have helped American communities prepare for and recover from large wildfires. Most recently, Congress authorized, through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, assistance in the form of Community Wildfire Defense Grants (CWDGs) to help at-risk local communities and Indian tribes plan and mitigate against the risk created by wildfire. These grants prioritize at-risk communities in areas with high wildfire hazard potential. CWDGs help create fire-adapted communities and improve wildfire response. This program had already begun to protect lives and property. For now, at least, all of this is frozen.

Is this just another “shock and awe” distraction designed to keep Americans cowed, hyper-politicize issues that should not be at all political, and keep the new administration front and center in the headlines? Is this providing an image of our entire country going up in both real and metaphorical flames? I don’t know, but it affects real people and real communities, and it saddens me deeply.

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