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California, still recovering from a series of devastating January blazes, may not be prepared for the upcoming fire season amid changes made by the Trump administration.
As temperatures soar in the West, experts say that Trump’s weakening of federal agencies that respond to wildfires leaves the state in a potentially precarious situation, according to The Los Angeles Times.
The experts specifically referred to changes at the U.S. Forest Service, FEMA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
State officials believe parts of Northern California, the Sierra Nevada and areas close to the ocean are at risk of “significant fire potential.”
“The level of anxiety is so extreme among people who understand the consequences of converging crises,” Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, told the newspaper.
“It’s every single one of these agencies, departments and entities that would be helping us either preemptively prepare or emergently respond to wildfire events and other kinds of disasters — all of which are dysfunctional at exactly the same moment.”
Trump has requested a 63 percent reduction in the U.S. Forest Service’s budget. This would include a 30 percent reduction in its workforce, amounting to roughly 10,000 employees. The agency is the nation’s largest firefighting entity and oversees more than half of the state’s forestland.
There are about 11,000 firefighters set to work during the upcoming fire season. About 3,500 of those are in the Pacific Southwest.
The newspaper reported that crews that cleared flammable vegetation, scientists who studied fire conditions and employees who managed operations, technology and machinery were not protected from staffing reductions.
At FEMA, Trump’s administration terminated the agency’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities grants. The payouts went to states to prepare for disasters like wildfires. The president has further suggested cutting $646m from FEMA’s budget and eliminating the agency after hurricane season.
Speaking on the budget cuts, Swain said: “The problem is when there is an extreme event or a disaster or an emergency...That’s where people are going to mess up and make mistakes — not on purpose, not due to lack of training or lack of professionalism, but because they’re being asked to do 200 things simultaneously, and all of them are life-and-death critical.”
In January, 12 people died in the Palisades Fire, a blaze that directly impacted Los Angeles. Over 6,000 structures were destroyed and more than 23,000 acres were scorched.
