Interior Secretary Jewell On Wildfires: 'Future Of American West Is At Stake'
COMMERCE CITY, Colo. (CBS4) - Some of country's top officials are warning of a potentially catastrophic wildfire season across the West, and now state forest rangers say they're ready for the worst.
The officials, including U.S. Forest Service chief Tom Tidwell, held a news conference Tuesday at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal Wildlife Refuge to talk about the threat.
Despite all the recent wet weather, fire danger is still very much a concern for Colorado. Things are currently very green in a lot of areas and the wildfire danger is considering low right now. But the problem is, forest rangers say all the green could dry out, leaving that much more to burn.
"We've been fortunate that we have had some very favorable weather here in this part of the country," Tidwell said.
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Tidwell said the Colorado wildfire danger has been pushed back to July, but it's still coming.
"We are going to have another active fire season," he said.
The wildfire outlook puts the areas at the highest risk in parts of California, the Northwest and Southern Arizona, but Colorado's risk is still there.
"It looks pretty nice right now, but when this stuff dries out, it could get bad," Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said.
Jewel and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack also came to Colorado Tuesday to project what may be a tough fire season across the West.
"We've already had over 23,000 fires this year," Vilsack said.
Vilsack says the amount of the Forest Service budget that goes to fighting fires has increased from about 16 percent in 1995 to more than 50 percent in 2015.
"The reality is we could do more, and we want to do more," Vilsack said.
The pair is now calling for change in national wildfire funding to allow the top 1 percent of catastrophic fires to be treated as natural disasters -- and funded as such -- freeing up Forest Service funds for more wildfire recovery and prevention.
"It is catastrophic what happens if you don't do an effective job of repairing landscapes after fire or preparing them in advance," Jewell said.
The change would have to come from Congress.
This year some 10,000 Forest Service firefighters are prepared to deploy, but officials on Tuesday said the most effective fighting may be in Washington.
"The future of what we know as the American West is at stake," Jewell said.
Wildfire Resources
- Visit CBSDenver.com's Living With Wildfire section.
Wildfire Photo Galleries
- See images from the most destructive wildfires (Black Forest, Waldo Canyon, High Park and Fourmile) and largest wildfire (Hayman) in Colorado history.)
