wildfires

The two largest public-lands agencies in the United States, the Interior and Agriculture departments, “signed a memorandum emphasizing cooperation among federal, state, tribal and local agencies in battling wildfires as the main part of the wildfire season arrives,” said The Associated Press. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue signed the memorandum following a briefing at the interagency fire command center in Boise, Idaho.

The Trump administration proposed a $700-million reduction in funding to fight wildfires, but Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue told a House panel that he will press the White House for more money, said Roll Call. At a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing, Perdue said he would "advocate very strongly" for additional funding to prevent and manage fires.

Some 26 million trees in the southern Sierra Nevada region of California have died since last October due to drought, insect damage and hotter-than-normal weather, according to an aerial survey by the Forest Service, bringing the state total to 66 million dead trees. "Tree die-offs of this magnitude are unprecedented and increase the risk of catastrophic wildfires," said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

In parts of California, the historic drought is creating a new breed of wildfire that burns so hot that the scorched soil left behind erodes instead of reseeds, says Lisa Morehouse, who reported on one farming community’s efforts to revive its land after last year’s 70,000-acre Butte Fire. The story was co-produced by FERN and KQED’s The California Report.

Since 2000, the wildfire season has grown longer and more severe. A record 10.125 million acres were burned by wildfires in 2015, breaking the record set in 2006, said the USDA, which spent $2.6 billion on firefighting, its most expensive fire season ever.

"In a smoldering letter to lawmakers," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Congress failed to enact a long-term plan to pay the cost of fighting forest fires, despite giving the Forest Service a healthy increase in funding this year, reports the Washington Post.

The Valley fire that destroyed up to 1,000 buildings in Lake County, about 100 miles north of San Francisco, "threatened to scorch the California wine industry at harvest time," which begins in late summer, reports the New York Times.

Wildfires have burned 6.51 million acres so far this year, with 51 large fires active in 11 states this weekend, says the National Interagency Fire Center.

For the first time, the Forest Service will spend more than half of its budget fighting wildfires, says a USDA report that predicts wildfire suppression will consume two-thirds of the agency's annual budget a decade from now.

Due to hotter weather and more days without rain, the length of forest fire season has grown by 19 percent over the past 35 years, says a team of researchers.