NFPA Journal - Spring 2022 - 68

REINFORCEMENTS
FRONT LINES The new spending plan calls for $600 million to improve
pay, training, and conditions, including mental health services, for
federal wildland firefighters. As the need for such personnel increases,
experts question whether the political will can be maintained to fund
such efforts-or whether we will resign ourselves to remaining a step
behind a growing national problem. GETTY IMAGES
streamline environmental reviews, an
assessment of aerial equipment needs,
and recommendations for expanding the
use of technology for detecting and suppressing
wildfires.
'Jolt to the status quo'
In addition to these initiatives, the bill
contains more than $500 million in
other funding that will be spread across
areas such as early detection of wildfires,
equipment, research, communications,
and other projects (see " Following the
Money, " previous page).
Although the bill covers a lengthy array
of wildfire needs, it's hardly complete,
according to some experts. Gabbert, who
as editor of fireaviation.com has called
for more large aerial tankers to be added
to the fleet, said he was disappointed that
the bill was mostly silent on fire aviation.
" Air tankers and helicopters cannot put
out a fire, but they can make it safer for
firefighters by slowing down a fire so
they can take action on the ground, " he
68 | NFPA JOURNAL * SPRING 2022
said. In the past two decades, the Forest
Service has slashed the number of large
aerial tankers it has under exclusive-use
contract, from 44 in 2002 to 18 last year,
Gabbert said. He'd like to see the number
closer to 35.
Housewright, of the NFPA Fire &
Life Safety Policy Institute, wished the
bill provided more funding and policy
direction for hardening the hundreds
of thousands of existing structures in
the WUI that weren't built with fire-resistant
materials. Steinberg would have
liked the bill to have included steps to
simplify the process for states and local
communities to obtain federal funding
to tackle wildfire threats. " Wildfire is
still not treated in the same way other
natural disasters are, " where federal
funding flows from FEMA to states,
and then to local recipients, she said.
" Instead, jurisdictions have to go to
15 sources to get resources they need,
rather than it just flowing through one
agency at the state level. "
But even as most onlookers concede
that it will take more action from
Congress and likely billions more dollars
to address the conditions, both
natural and man-made, that lead to
incidents like the Marshall Fire, there
is also widespread acknowledgment
that the bill represents a significant
jolt to the status quo. If nothing else,
it signals that the federal government
is willing to dip further into its
coffers than ever before to do what
wildfire experts have long said will be
required to alter the troubling trends
associated with loss resulting from
wildfires.
" We know what to do-we have the
science and partnership frameworks
already in place, " Moore, the Forest
Service chief, wrote to his employees
the day the infrastructure measure was
signed into law. " This legislation will
give us the means to start doing it. "
JESSE ROMAN is senior editor of NFPA Journal.
http://www.fireaviation.com
NFPA Journal - Spring 2022

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