Report produced by the White House Office of Management and Budget: “Over the last decade, suppression has cost the USDA Forest Service and the Department of the Interior an average of $2.9 billion per year.”
And:
“But according to the analysis, a central estimate across the 10 future climate scenarios shows that lands in the National Forest System would experience a near doubling of the area burned by mid-century (2041-2059). In one scenario, the area burned by wildfire would quadruple (estimates range from a 42% to a 306% increase).
“Suppression expenditures also are projected to rise. A middle-of-the-road estimate is a 42% increase in costs by 2050, to $3.9 billion, while some estimates suggest that costs would increase by 84%. In the decades after 2050, costs could rise by 17% to 283%, with a median annual expenditure of $4.9 billion by late century. The team accounted for inflation by converting all future spending to 2022-dollar equivalents.”
A few issues:
1) As mega-fires burn in the nest 20 years, there might not be lots of contiguous ‘fire-suppressed’ forests left.
2) As those burned areas re-burn, we should see a massive reduction in the amounts of fuels on those landscapes.
3) Burned landscapes should have less fire intensity, but larger acreages.
4) Future fires on burned landscapes should cost less to respond to.
Agree, Larry. As I recall, Rains led a FS assessment of suppression costs circa 2000; would be interesting to have his thoughts on these forecasts.
From my seat in the peanut gallery: 1) advances in technology and equipment contribute to soaring costs – Incident Commanders like to acquire resources and use them – even when/if they are not effective. 2) safety considerations often lead to bigger fires, thus higher costs. (Often warranted in my view. I led the 30Mile Fire investigation and our team felt that the crew took unsafe actions in spite of the fire having escaped beyond their ability to contain). 3) Intentional ignitions (ie backfiring, burning out) can contribute to acres burned and total costs. How is that accounted for?