Biden administration announces plans to fight the escalating U.S. wildfires

Biden administration announces plans to fight the escalating U.S. wildfires. 

The Biden administration unveiled the 10-year plan for treating and preserving millions of acres of forest across the west of the United States to reduce the intensity of wildfires that occur during the season.

“We’re not going to stop fires,” U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said at a press conference in Arizona together with Forest Service chief Randy Moore. “But what we can do is begin the process of reducing the catastrophic nature of those fires.”

MORE: Germany has indicated it may stop the gas pipelines if Russia enters Ukraine.

The strategy, dubbed”the “wildfire crisis strategy,” is aimed at making fifty million acres (20 million hectares) of forests more resilient and healthier to fires by using treatments such as cutting, thinning, or prescribed burns; the authors said.

In recent years, the number of wildfires across the United States due to decades of federal policy to extinguish fires immediately instead of letting some of the flames continue to burn in a controlled manner and causing a buildup of the fire-prone brush, according to a report about the policy said.

Climate changes have also brought warmer, dryer environments within the American West, making fires more frequent and the brush more easily flammable.

THE REPORT NOTED THAT the U.S. Forest Service has previously treated more than 2 million acres of land in the west of the United States annually.

Under the new program under the new plan, the new project, Forest Service, along with the Department of the Interior and other partners, will be able to treat up to 20 million more acres of National Forest System land and 30 million more acres of federal land, tribal, state as well as private property in the western United States over the next ten years.

The top priority in the areas located in Arizona, Colorado, California, Oregon, and Washington state are most susceptible to wildfires.

The project to build the infrastructure estimated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates will result in many thousands of new jobs. 

It will begin with almost $3 billion in the legislation governing infrastructure. 

However, according to a USDA official, it will require another $50 billion over time to achieve the 50 million-acre requirement.

The record-breaking wildfire season of 2020 was responsible for destroying over 10 million acres across the United States, about half of its Forest Service land. 

Forest Service is one of USDA’s departments. Forest Service is part of the USDA.