The Ralson fire in the American River Watershed is costing more than money as its effects will be seen in the run-off (quality and quantity) for years to come.
The money losing partly result from resistance to a forest thinning approach supported by logging companies but resisted by environmentalists.
An excerpt.
Investigative report: Budget going up in smoke
Billowing toward a record high, Forest Service firefighting costs threaten to drain funds from other programs, including reforestation
By Tom Knudson - Bee Staff Writer Published 12:00 am PDT Sunday, September 17, 2006
Four years after the most expensive fire season in history, two years after an exhaustive federal report on high firefighting costs, the U.S. Forest Service still is burning through dollars like wildfire through chaparral.
Last month, tax dollars flew out the agency's door at an average of $12 million a day -- $500,000 an hour. By the time you finish reading this paragraph, $1,250 more will be spent.
This week, if current patterns hold, 2006 will become the most costly year ever, exceeding the $1.27 billion spent in 2002.
The pace of the spending, which has drawn the concern of Congress and the White House Office of Management and Budget, threatens to siphon money from other programs, among them reforestation efforts designed to help the land heal from fire.
The cost has been aggravated by the nature of this year's fire season, which began early and so far has crackled across a record 8.8 million acres -- including 145,000 acres burning in California on Saturday. But that's hardly the only reason for the soaring tab. Others include:
• A blank-check budgeting process that prompts Forest Service managers to throw money at fires but neglect the thinning projects that reduce their size, ferocity and cost. "There are no effective incentives" to corral costs, says an internal Forest Service memo obtained by The Bee.
