What they had to say

BOISE -- Two members of President Bush's cabinet were in Boise Wednesday to meet with workers at the National Interagency Fire Center.

One of those men is Secretary of Interior Dirk Kempthorne and the other is Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff.

Chertoff is visiting NIFC to better familiarize himself with the agency's roll in wildland fire support and coordination.

But this meeting goes beyond fires.  Chertoff is also here to discuss how NIFC plays a roll in the national response framework, and take a look at the comprehensive national plan for responding to disasters and emergencies.

The tour of NIFC comes at a critical time as crews continue to battle wildfires across California.

It is Chertoff’s first visit to the agency and he hopes his visit here will spark a plan for all government agencies to work together when it comes to natural disasters, modeling their plan after firefighters and how they are able to get to fires to put them out and make a strong unit.

He hopes this model will used for hurricanes and other natural disasters around the U.S.

“Our use of the incident management system and the incident commander system across a host of emergencies at the national, federal level is modeled on the work that’s done by firefighters,” said Chertoff.

Last year, 2.5 million acres across the U.S. were burned by wildfires.  So far this year, about 400,000 acres have been charred, but officials say the California wildfire season started a month earlier this year and they expect this to be a very bad fire season.