And there is no sign of easing of conditions which are increasing the risk of wildfires to very high levels.
“There will be wildfires, the issue is how disastrous they will have to be,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told the Associated Press in an interview.
Vilsack acknowledged that the new efforts will also require “paradigm shift” within the US Forest Service from an agency committed to fighting fires to an agency that seeks to use what some Indians call “good fire” in forests and pastures to prevent even bigger fires.
Forest Service planning records suggest that work will focus on “hotspots” which make up only 10% of the fire areas in the US but represent 80% of the danger to communities due to their density and location.
A long-term megadurnum has gripped the region, and scientists predict that temperatures will continue to rise as more climate-altering carbon emissions are pumped into the atmosphere.
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“The negative impacts of today’s largest wildfires far outpace the scale of efforts to protect homes, communities and natural resources,” Vilsack added in the release.
A firefighter carries a water hose to the site of the Caldor fires which burned near South Lake Tahoe, Calif.
