Firefighters battle wildfires on the West coast

WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) – Wildfires in the west continue to threaten communities, with more than 5 million acres in the U.S. burned so far.

“It’s been an active year,” U.S. Interior Department Director of the Wildland Fire Office Jeff Rupert said.

Rupert says resources, like the nearly 30,000 wildland firefighters deployed daily, are almost maxed out.

“We are really operating at the peak of our response framework,” Rupert said.

Rupert said he expects this level of activity to continue at least into September. He says this year is part of a trend of increasing fire activity, driven by hotter, drier conditions.

“We’re on this clear trajectory. It’s real. Climate is a huge part of it,” Rupert said.

Another part of it: “We’ve had 100 years of fire suppression,” U.S. Forest Service Branch Chief with Strategic Fire Risk Reduction Adam Mendonca said.

Mendonca says a history of policies focused on putting out fires has turned many forests into tinderboxes of overgrown vegetation.

The focus now, he says, is on fighting wildfires with controlled fires.

“We need a lot more prescribed fire than we’ve seen in the past,” Mendonca said.

Republican California Congressman Doug LaMalfa says those prescribed burns and other measures are often stalled.

“It is lawsuits, it is burdensome regulations,” LaMalfa said.

LaMalfa’s district in northern California is currently affected by the Park Fire, the fourth largest fire in state history.

He said he hopes proposals in this year’s farm bill, will lead to long term changes.

“You’re never going to eliminate fire. It’s going to happen, but you can minimize the risk we face in such an overgrown situation,'” LaMalfa said.

Democratic California Congressman Mike Thompson agrees overregulation can be a problem in some policy areas but says it’s not the only thing, especially when it comes to wildfires.

“It’s too easy just to point to the door of red tape and say that’s the problem. Climate change is a huge problem that’s influencing this a great deal,” Thompson said.

LaMalfa and Thompson are working on a bill together to help homeowners make their land more resilient to fires.

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