The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) has begun transferring funds to supplement its shrinking firefighting budget through a practice known as “fire borrowing.”
USFS fire suppression activities were funded at $1.01 billion for the 2015 fiscal year; only $174 million remains and the service anticipates funds will be exhausted before the fiscal year ends on Sept. 30.
So on Aug. 25, USFS announced that it would shift $250 million from regular service operations to fire suppression activities. That amount includes $30 million from the State and Private Forestry account, which will have a significant impact on its activities with states.
Western Governors have worked in recent years to fix the problem of “fire borrowing,” which occurs when the Forest Service takes funds away from forest health and fire prevention activities to help pay the costs to fight current wildfires.
Ryan Maye Handy of the Colorado Springs Gazette reported that for the first time in the Forest Service’s 110-year history, firefighting makes up more than 50 percent of the agency’s overall budget.