The US Forest Service manages 20 million acres of forest land in California but it will not be hiring seasonal employees to do trail maintenance, engineering work or the like. The service will still hire people to fight fires but will not be able to do the forestry and silvicultural work to aid in reducing the incidence of wildfire.
I guess it is easy for the administrators in Washington, D.C., to tell (that to) the woman who lost her lifestyle in Paradise by the Camp Fire, which caused 85 fatalities, displaced more than 50,000 people and destroyed more than 18,000 structures, doing an estimated $16.5 billion in damage.
I do not have the current figures, but in 2016, California’s individual taxpayers contributed more than $1 in every $7.75 of net federal individual income and payroll taxes, and for California’s businesses, which contribute nearly $1 in every $6.75 of net federal business income taxes or roughly 13 percent of the total federal tax revenue for the whole US (Source: CA Policy and Budget Centre).
I believe Californians should expect more from our federal government’s USDA-Forest Service. Maybe it is time to take these forest lands back into the custody of the state.
Four firefighters, two helicopter pilots and a contractor bulldozing a fireline have died in Colorado, Utah and Oregon this year. Fast-moving fires have burned…
