Oregon's wildfire budget exceeded

Jeff Barnard in the Bend Bulletin via the AP: Lightning and drought spread wildfire to more state-protected land in 2013 than any year since 1951, and sent spending $30 million over revenues, according to a report from the Oregon Department of Forestry.

The 162 square miles that burned on state, private and U.S. Bureau of Land Management lands protected by the Oregon Department of Forestry was eight times the 10-year average, and nearly half the 325 square miles that burned overall in Oregon. The last time so much state-protected land burned was at the end of the two-decade period known as the Tillamook Burn.

“This is the shape of things to come, based on everything we know about potential climate change fluctuations and energy in the atmosphere," said John Bailey, an associate professor of forestry at Oregon State University. “This is going to become more the norm than the unusual."

The National Climate Assessment issued this year predicts the area burned by wildfires will double nationwide over the next 25 years, as global warming increases temperatures, lengthens wildfire seasons and generates more droughts.

Oregon spent $122 million on large fires, which burned an estimated $370 million in timber on state, private and BLM lands, the report said.

After reimbursements from federal agencies, the state is liable for $75 million. That is $30 million over the amount covered by landowner assessments, the state general fund, and a $25 million insurance policy. The department will have to go to the Legislature to ask for the extra money, spokesman Rod Nichols said....

Boys from Illinois fight Tillamook (Oregon) fire, from 1933