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Stickpin Fire - suffering the consequence of US budget priorities
Submitted by Tommi on Sat, 29/08/2015 - 7:56am
The majority of the last two weeks smoke and ash in the West Kootenays is the result of the huge 'Stickpin Fire' burning out of control. With utmost respect to the many brave and dedicated people, from both sides of the border, fighting this out of control blaze, it is worth looking at the differences between the way our two countries manage wildfires. According to sources within BC Wildfire Service, there are significant differences in the way BC and Washington State manage forest fires. In the first instance, fire control south of the border is much more labour intensive, as might be expected, they have far greater populations relative to forests than we do. In the second, the area just south of the border in the West Kootenays is, for the US, about as remote an area as you can find outside of Alaska. In other words, not as high a priority as, for example, the Hollywood Hills. Relative to the rest of BC, we who live just north of the border live in one of the most densely populated and developed areas of the province (outside of the lower mainland). Politics aside, it is pretty clear that the BC Government has an open-ended budget to fight wildfires. In Washington State, sadly, this is not the case. According to this article in Seattle Times: The smoke and ash we are suffering through is largely the aftermath of an unusually hot summer following a very dry winter. But it is worth considering we live next to a foreign country with different priorities and policies, and for whom the area under threat of wildfire is about as remote as you can possibly get, in the 'Lower 48'. Town: Rossland, BC Photos:
 
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Most importantly a huge thank you to the firefighters and everyone else involved for doing everything they can to protect people, structures and animals during this horrific season for fires.
Can't help but wonder when the budget was 63 million, and by July 9 it had already reached 96 million, and then add up everything from then till now, where does the Government get the funds from, whats gonna be cut etc.
And if Mother Nature is right and next year could be the same or even worse, I think it's time to do some thinking.
The funding models are not automatically transferable across the border. In the U.S. the federal government has far more jurisdiction over forests than the Canadian federal government. Here the jurisdiction is essentially provincial. So to make a comparison between what a state pays to fight wildfire and what a province pays is really meaningless. Have you factored in what the U.S. Forest Service has paid. Its wildfire fighting budget is well over 1 billion dollars (US). What is the Canadian federal government budget? We don't even have a federal department charged with protecting forests in provinces.
Now is not the time to be divisive. We are in this mess together with our American neighbours and should cooperate as well as we can to the common goal of controlling these fires and lowering the risks.
That should read 3 billion US dollars (approx 4 billion Canadian). There is also funding via the Parks services, although their attitude is largely that fires are part of the natural cycle (which is true). And as for BC's 'unlimited' budget, that is a complete fiction. No jurisdiction can support such an expense. We have an 'ad hoc' funding which try's to allocate our limited fire fighting resources where most needed; essentially like the U.S.