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In the wake of the unprecedented hurricane in the United States, President Joe Biden meets Wednesday with Western governors, members of the cabinet and federal emergency services to prepare what experts warn is one of the strongest droughts and wildfire weather here.
The president has already pledged to increase firefighters’ salaries from the current $ 13 per hour, which he called “very low pay”.
Experts are looking to see if Biden can prepare the U.S. for another year of extreme fire and extreme heat, as well as managing forests and climate for that.
But he warns that, in the short term, the accident has already begun.
“As for this year, there is little we can do but make sure firefighters have what they want, and the FEMA agency [Federal Emergency Management Agency] and Forest Service and BLM [Bureau of Land Management] is as closely linked with state governments as possible, ”said Michael Wara, director of the Climate and Energy Policy Program at Stanford University.
“No matter how hard governments try to address the risk, it can take several years for the problem to continue,” said Chris Field, director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.
Why is wildfires on the rise?
Wildfires are already on fire in Arizona, California and other areas, and water reservoirs are in vogue.
The western US has been around for decades to cut which has not been seen for 1,000 years, scientists say. Climate change exacerbates the drought by altering the water cycle and causing water surges to rise above the existing low oxygen level.
This means the longest period of wildfires this year and in the years to come, experts explain, because decades of poor preparation have left dry forests and plants already dry and ready to burn.
A firefighting helicopter will show a drop of water in Los Alamitos, California, on June 14th [File: Mike Blake/Reuters]
Landmark of a the ground is heated and wildfires have increased dramatically since the 1970s, Reuters reports, and the US is now facing a “megafire” – which burns 100,000 hectares (40,000 hectares). In 2020, wildfires burned 10 million acres in the western US.
Humans are the main instigators of wildfires, and the increase in the number of people in the West and the number of dormitories in the area where fires are causing serious fires. All of this has contributed to deadly fires and health problems such as heart disease and asthma from secondhand smoke.
What should Biden do?
Experts know the following: US forests it is very thick and we need to reduce it properly using a vacuum cleaner and a proper burn. To do this, the US Forest Service needs a lot of money.
Last year, the Forest Service was severely cut to reduce fuel costs, Wara said. Prior to the outbreak, it cost more than $ 300m per year, but was reduced to less than $ 100m per year in 2021. Its cost was raised by 2022 but still less before the epidemic.
“We need to think differently about this problem, and the Forest Service in their 2022 budget is not thinking differently,” Wara said. “It’s the same.”
The Forest Service wants to reduce the fuel by two to four times as much as it is today, Wara said, but he really needs to do it more often.
Governments and governments can prevent future economic damage by investing now, Field said. He used California as an example: in 2019, California is struggling Economic damage has exceeded $ 30bn in wildfires, but could cost $ 5bn to $ 10bn a year over the next five years to start a wildfire. However, California still spends very little money; its 2022 wildfire budget is $ 1bn.
“The cost of maintaining a stable and stable environment cannot be compared to what was lost in one devastating fire year,” Field said.
Smoke billowing from the wild fires descends on the Uinta Mountains of eastern Utah on June 21, 2021[File: Jim Urquhart/Reuters]
Experts believe we need to get back to the way the Native Americans used before being forcibly deported. The idea is to restore the “good fire”. A few hundred years ago, less fires were often burning and passing through the forest, and the Indians used the clocks they designed to keep the environment healthy. When the settlers took over the place, the rules were inconsistent and dangerous.
John Bailey, a professor at Oregon State University’s Forestry College, was a firefighter in the 1980’s. in large areas.
In the 1990’s, policies to protect endangered owl habitats led to deforestation and forest management in the west, but Bailey said we really needed a “better fire” to rehabilitate the area. “Fire is destructive power and a way to help things grow, and that’s the way we need to be if we want to keep them, “Bailey said.
Although there is less fire in the U.S. than a few decades ago, on average, if a domestic fire had been mentioned, residents could die today more than 40 years ago. Read the new NFPA & #FPRF Fire in the US ‘report of information: https://t.co/G7zgqLJDC3 #saka #moto # fire house pic.twitter.com/8nvSzKg2aV
– NFPA (@NFPA) June 29, 2021
“There needs to be a fire, a good fire, a ground fire, a forest fire every ten years or more, maybe every 20 years,” Wara said. “And that means we have to do about 10 percent of our space every year. We’re not around that – we’re about halfway down.
Wara added that Biden’s supervisors had to pay more before the fire through FEMA.
Workers in the new forest
Wara said Forest Service workers are paying a lot of money and most are seasonal. “In order to do this job, they need new employees.”
The way the modern system works is that, in the dry season, people are given the task of removing harmful fats, and in the event of a fire they work to put out the fire. Because the fires are now more and more intense, they begin the firefighting process early, and after the fire season, they need a break to heal mentally and physically, and they need to see their families. This means that no harmful fats are occurring.
“It’s not a consistent model,” Wara said.
Bailey requested the use of federal agents to oversee forests, similar to the Civilian Conservation Corps, a public welfare program in the 1930s and 1940s.
Wara said there is a “great opportunity” to integrate Native Americans in a new and more efficient manner, because many areas lack border reserves. He said policymakers should consider restitution of land to Native Americans for oversight.
“If we want to save more space, we need to think about this in a different way that takes into account the injustices between the tribes and the killings that have taken place as a result of the current state and state ownership practices,” he said.
“The wildfire problem is something we can control, but we have to be tough and ambitious,” Field said.
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