Official Warns of High Wildfire Danger in East Texas
Posted/updated on: May 17, 2013 at 12:21 pm
LONGVIEW — A state forestry official says effects of a lingering drought and federal budget cuts are setting up East Texas for a dangerous wildfire season. That’s according to KETK and the Longview News-Journal. “East Texas is a concern for us this summer,” said Tom Spencer, director of predictive services for the Texas Forest Service. “If we get tropical moisture this summer and plentiful rainfall, that would mitigate it.” Add to that concern the arrival of national budget sequestration cuts.
Don Galloway, planning and policy analyst for the Texas Forest Service, said the state agency is poised for a 5 percent reduction in one of three federal funding streams. “We’re just now getting what the impact is going to be on federal funding to us,” Galloway said. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack told the Texas Forest Service about a week ago that sequestration will cost the U.S. Forest Service 500 firefighter jobs. And Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell, speaking with Vilsack on a conference call to the states, described the sequestration cuts as affecting programs that reduce the chances of fire and reclamation of fire-damaged land.
The state agency’s cross hairs fall on the Pineywoods for the coming high-fire danger season because record droughts of recent years have inhibited the return of West and Central Texas grasslands, and those fuels have diminished, Spencer said. That largely leaves the Pineywoods, where trees react to drought by entering a dormant state that boosts their flammability.
“As far as fire protection and fire activity, most of our funding comes from state sources,” he said, adding the forest service has asked the 83rd Legislature meeting in Austin to restore cuts in the 2012-13 budget that ends Aug. 31. The forest service also has asked for increased funding in the coming two-year state budget, he said. That spending bill has passed the Texas House and Senate in differing forms and is being reconciled in a committee of members from both chambers. “We’re waiting to see what comes out,” Galloway said.
