USDA and Department of Interior Looking to Better Fight Wildfires

USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue joined Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke were in Montana last week looking at the major wildfires that were happening in the state.

Perdue sais they wanted to get an on-site look at what is happening.

“What we want to learn is really how we can get ahead of these forest fires. We can’t do anything about the weather but we can do things about forest management that make sense.”

Zinke agreed with Perdue noting that work needs to be done so the same places don’t have disastrous fires every year.

Perdue said there is one obvious solution.

“The U.S. Forest Service used to spend about 15 percent of its budget on fighting and fire suppression. Now it’s spending 55 percent of its budget. That means we don’t have the monetary resources to manage these forests to reduce the fuel.”

There are bills on Capitol Hill to deal with this problem as well as interagency cooperation on finding solutions.