US plans $50B wildfire fight where forests meet suburbia
ABC News
The Biden administration plans to significantly increase efforts to stave off catastrophic wildfires that have been torching areas of the U.S. West by more aggressively thinning forests around areas where nature and neighborhoods collide
BILLINGS, Mont. -- The Biden administration plans to significantly expand efforts to stave off catastrophic wildfires that have torched areas of the U.S. West by more aggressively thinning forests around areas called “hotspots” where nature and neighborhoods collide.
As climate change heats up and dries out the West, administration officials said they have crafted a $50 billion plan to more than double the use of controlled fires and logging to reduce trees and other vegetation that serves as tinder in the most at-risk areas.
They said work will begin this year and the plan will focus on regions where out-of-control blazes have wiped out neighborhoods and sometimes entire communities — including California’s Sierra Nevada mountains, the east side of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, and portions of Arizona, Oregon and Washington state. Homes keep getting built in fire-prone areas, even as conditions that stoke blazes get worse.
“You're going to have forest fires. The question is how catastrophic do those fires have to be," Agriculture Sec. Tom Vilsack told the Associated Press in advance of a planned public announcement of the administration’s wildfire strategy at a Tuesday event in Phoenix.
