BOISE - The acting chief of the U.S. Forest Service says there's a sense of relief at the agency for the billions of additional dollars made available by lawmakers over the next decade to fight catastrophic wildfires but also a duty to spend it wisely.
Vicki Christiansen says the money will help the agency avoid raiding other parts of its budget and allow work to prevent wildfires while also tackling a backlog of trail and road work.
"We didn't' have any ability to do road maintenance or road reconstruction to get into some of these critical areas to do the fire prevention and forest health treatment. Now, we have that," said Christiansen.
She was joined at a news conference Wednesday by three U.S. senators and Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson.
Simpson says the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act approved this year is the most important law affecting the Forest Service in the last 50 years.
"The Forest Service was the only agency in government we gave the authority to borrow money from every other account to fight wildfires," said Simpson, R-Idaho.
The agency last year spent $2.4 billion fighting wildfires, more than half its overall budget.
The funding fix helps stabilize the Forest Service budget and allow for additional federal funding that can be accessed by both the Forest Service and the Department of Interior if they do go over their firefighting budget.
"No longer will fire prevention get short shrift in the West," said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon.
The new funding plan will go into effect in 2020.
"Now, this natural disaster, and we in Idaho know this is a natural disaster, is going to be treated like other natural disasters around the United States," said Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho.