Feb. 20 (UPI) — The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Tuesday announced $500 million will be used to confront the nation’s ongoing wildfire crisis in western states including Utah.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a release that the $500 million from President Joe Biden‘s Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will expand work on the USDA’s Forest Service’s Wildlife Strategy, bringing the total investment in the strategy to a historic $2.4 billion
“As climate change exacerbates the challenges our communities, forests and infrastructure face from catastrophic wildfires, our answer to those challenges have to match the scale of the threat,” Vilsack said in a statement. “We have already made progress, but there is still much to be done.”
Approximately $400 million of the funds will bolster ongoing protection of 21 high-risk landscapes in California, Oregon, Idaho, Washington, Nevada, Arizona and Utah. The other $100 million will be allocated under the newly formed Collaborative Wildfire Risk Reduction Program to expand work outside of those 21 hotspots where national forests and grasslands meet homes and urban areas.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law includes $1.4 billion in wildfire risk reduction funds for the USDA Forest Service. The Inflation Reduction Act provides an additional $1.8 billion to reduce the wildfire risk to neighborhoods, infrastructure, watersheds and other natural resources.
The new round of funding follows Biden’s announcement last week made federal funding available to state, tribal and municipal governments to assist areas that were affected by wildfires in 2023 in Spokane County in Washington.
The federal aid includes grants for temporary housing and home repairs, loans to cover uninsured property losses and funding for hazard-mitigation efforts.
The U.S. Department of the Interior in January announced $138 million from the Biden administration to support firefighters and restore landscapes damaged by recent wildfires.
The move came after a study claimed air pollution from wildfires caused an increase of 670 premature deaths each year in the western United States, undercutting 20 years of regulatory work by the EPA to improve air quality.
