Report: 2015 Fire Budget
by United States Department of Agriculture
- Documents the growth over the past 20 years of the portion of the Forest Service’s budget that is dedicated to fire, and the debilitating impact those rising costs are having on the recreation, restoration, planning, and other activities of the Forest Service
- States that in 1995, fire made up 16 percent of the Forest Service’s annual appropriated budget—in 2015, for the first time, more than 50 percent of the Forest Service’s annual budget will be dedicated to wildfire
- Finds that, along with this shift in resources, there has also been a corresponding shift in staff, with a 39 percent reduction in all non-fire personnel
- Finds that, left unchecked, the share of the budget devoted to fire in 2025 could exceed 67 percent, equating to reductions of nearly $700 million from non-fire programs compared to today’s funding levels
- States that this means, in just 10 years, two out of every three dollars the Forest Service gets from Congress as part of its appropriated budget will be spent on fire programs
