|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
By Gary Giacomo
The Wildland Fire Mitigation & Management Commission, charged with creating recommendations to address nearly every facet of the federal wildfire system, released its final report to Congress this week. The Commission’s report includes 148 specific recommendations for actions that Congress should take, organized in seven areas. The seven areas are: Creating the Foundation for Success, Protecting Public Health, Responding to Fire, Recovering for Resilience, Building a Comprehensive Workforce, Integrating Modern Science and Technology and Investing for Tomorrow.
Key recommendations in the Responding to Fire area include greater involvement by native American tribes, improvements in expedited resource deployment and reimbursements to local agencies.
In the Building Comprehensive Workforce area, the top two recommendations call on Congress to increase wages and benefits for the federal wildland fire workforce and establishment of efficient pathways to support a more diverse workforce.
Other recommendations include integrating local input into decisions surrounding wildland fire prevention strategies including prescribed burns and land use policies. In addition, recommendations include adoption of new technologies and processing systems to produce value added, and demand-driven innovative wood products and for expanded use of off-season grazing for fuels reduction.
The 50-member Commission was established by Congress in 2021, and given the urgency of the wildland fire problem, was given one year to review the federal wildfire system and produce this comprehensive list of priorities and recommendations.
Collectively the Commission urges Congress to take swift action to advance the holistic solutions needed to reduce the risk of wildfire to the nation, noting that, “Only through comprehensive action can we hope to prepare for the wildfires of today and, critically, the wildfires of tomorrow.”
See the complete report and its recommendations here: https://drive.google.com/…/1ihzga4aHo4qQWTwy3EqlU7…/view