November 26, 2000 - National Interagency Fire Center, Boise, ID, announces Congressional funding of $1.8 Billion for 2001

News Release

National Interagency Fire Center gets major funding from Congress

New York Times, November 26, 2000

Boise, Idaho - Flush with $1.8 billion in new financing approved by Congress, five federal agencies are making efforts to better protect rural communities from wildfires like the ones that devastated the Western States this summer.  

"This is the first time in many years, perhaps ever, the federal firefighting agencies have been fully funded," said Don Smurthwaite, fire information specialist at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise.

This money will allow the five agencies, including the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service, to buy more fire engines, helicopters and tanker planes and support equipment for firefighters and smoke jumpers.  It will also allow them to hire more support workers and services.

Money will also be used to increase prescribed burning and tree thinning to reduce hazardous wildfire fuel around rural communities.  Local fire departments will be able to apply for equipment of all types to improve firefighting efforts in remote areas.  

"There were huge concerns in the West last summer when fires were burning really close to communities and we lost a lot of structures," said Jack Sept, Chief of External Affairs for the Bureau of Land Management at the fire center.  "Our people are trained to fight wildland fire and they end up trying to save structures, and the local fire departments are trained to protect structures and they're out there trying to fight wildfire."  

Under the new plan, federal fire officials will form partnerships with communities that are deemed by state fire marshals to be the most threatened by wildfires.  Federal authorities will also help train local firefighters and assist fire districts applying for grants.

"There is a large need for those funds," said Brian Shiplett, Idaho's Chief of Fire Management.  "Some of those small fire departments have to raise money through a bake sale to buy a new fire hose."

Stan Davis, the mayor of Salmon, said he was relieved to see more money for firefighting.  "It was a miserable summer," said Davis, whose community endured 53 days of heavy smoke and threat from the nation's largest wildfire, the 195,000 acre Clear Creek blaze, burning in the nearby mountains.

Sept said the bureau would add 500 firefighters, converting 400 temporary fire season jobs to full time jobs, hiring 20-person crews in Colorado, Idaho, Nevada and Utah.  Additionally, plans are to add 20 smoke jumpers at the fire center.   

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