When Big Fires Burn, Budgets Take Big Hit

Thunderstorms, rising temperatures and people’s carelessness: That dangerous mix is fanning wildfires in Central Oregon, burning through taxpayer dollars.

So when the flames go up, who foot’s the bill?

The simple answer: you.

“A fire, whether it’s on Forest Service or BLM, those are dollars given to us by Congress, which is the American taxpayers paying for it,” said Jean Nelson-Dean with the Deschutes National Forest. “Oregon Department of Forestry, those are state tax dollars, and Oregon taxpayers are paying for them.”

It all comes down to resources.

Big fire becomes big business. Just feeding and paying the personnel fighting fires can be costly — and don’t forget about those helicopters.

“Roughly, a small amount of retardant costs about $1, so if you have a tanker that can carry roughly 2,000 gallons, it’s going to cost you roughly about $3,000,” said Amy Kazmier, aviation officer with the Fire Management Service.

Last year’s Rooster Rock fire near Sisters torched 6,100 acres, racking up a $5 million price tag. That’s about $900 an acre.

But that pales in comparison to the B&B Complex fire in 2001. That 91,000-acre blaze, the biggest in Deschutes National Forest history, burned through a cool $36 million.

But the spending doesn’t stop once the final flames are extinguished. Following a post-fire report, the Forest Service allocated $1.5 million to stabilize and repair the affected area west of Sisters.

“There’s not only the cost to the fire, but to people’s businesses and and all of that, which is significant,” Nelson-Dean said. The B&B Fire, for example, shut Highway 20, the key route through Sisters, for days, hitting businesses hard.

Nationally, the Forest Service spends around $1 billion every year to fight fires.

Even with fire season starting right on time, the U.S. Department of Interior says the budget to fight fires won’t run dry.

Officials say taxpayers dollars are being used wisely, and though the money is handled outside the region, we can affect that number by what we do here locally.

“That 30- to 50-feet defensible space around your property, we have found that, if you’ve got that, there’s an 80 percent chance, which are great odds that your home will survive a wildfire, even without any intervention from the fire department,” said Deschutes County Forester Joe Stutler. “Those are great odds — you can’t buy a cheaper insurance policy than that.”

Look’s like Smokey’s been right all these years — only you can prevent wildfires — and the bill that comes with them.

“The simple thing is that we’re not out there lighting them right now, we are fighting them,” Stutler said.