A fight is heating up between California and the Trump administration over the cost of fighting wildfires — and as fire season approaches, state fire officials worry the dispute could slow response times. It comes down to a disagreement over billing and the money state agencies say they’re owed.
California firefighters and the federal government have had an agreement for almost 10 years, set to expire on Dec. 31 of this year, that establishes a mutual aid system.
That means local and state firefighting agencies will respond to a fire even if it’s on federal land, knowing they’ll be reimbursed for their costs per the contract. Since 60 percent of forested land in California is federal land, there are a lot of federal fires that need to be put out.
“Our role is to protect the citizens that live here, whether it’s a federal fire or a state fire or a local fire,” said Jeff Meston, president of the California Fire Chiefs Association. “Our mutual aid system is designed to be able to take care of that. Now we’re being forced really to look at the dollars.”
Meston said the federal government is violating the terms of the longstanding agreement, and that it owes California agencies $9.2 million for the cost of responding to fires last year. But U.S. Forest Service officials claim California is overbilling the federal government.
“The requests for reimbursement were based on an estimate of expenses instead of the actual expenses incurred and the documentation provided did not fully support those actual costs,” said Babete Anderson, national press officer with the U.S. Forest Service.
Earlier this year, the Forest Service conducted an audit of the repayment process, and determined California was submitting estimated expenses instead of actual expenses.
“Our intentions are to fully reimburse the state of California for all of their actual expenses. The only payments we have not made are those that do not have documentation that substantiate actual expenses,” said Anderson.
Meston said that’s not the way it’s always been done. Under the existing agreement, California agencies have traditionally submitted the average estimated expenses for fighting a fire. For example, he said, if they sent an engine to a fire and it comes with one captain and three firefighters, then they would bill the average cost of a captain and three firefighters.
Now, he said, the U.S. Forest Service wants additional paperwork and the actual costs of each specific person sent to fight a fire.
In a letter sent to the U.S. Forest Service, a group of agencies — CalChiefs, California Metro Chiefs, Fire Districts Association of California and League of California Cities Fire Chiefs Department — said those kinds of changes should come under a new contract, which is currently being negotiated and would start in 2020.
The federal government, they argued, shouldn’t change the rules and withhold payments to local firefighting agencies.
“I think that that’s the crux of the issue right now, is that they are kind of changing the rules in the middle of the season,” said Meston.
Meston also said the federal government currently owes $9.2 million in reimbursements that are not being paid in a timely manner and that have already been factored into local budgets.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein agreed, sending her own letter to the feds on May 14, urging them to delay the implementation of recommendations from their audit and to make any changes to reimbursement policies part of the negotiation of a new contract, “Given that California is facing another year of severe risk after two years of devastating wildfire losses,” she wrote.
Both Meston and Feinstein said the mutual aid agreement has worked for years, allowing California firefighters to marshal their resources up and down the state no matter what land the fire is on.
“Wildfires don’t stop at jurisdictional boundaries, so a unified federal-state approach is the only way to properly protect lives and property,” wrote Feinstein. “The state of California has dedicated enormous resources to building and maintaining one of the most professional and well-organized firefighting forces in the world. This force has been a key partner for decades in helping the federal government to fight wildfires on federal land.”
Both Meston and Feinstein said the timing of this fight is terrible.
“We have members that haven’t been paid back. And the bottom line is we’re entering into what could be yet another very critical fire year,” Meston said.
If local and state agencies will now have to weigh what land a fire is on and whether or not they can afford to send aid, it could hurt response times and firefighting resources, he said.
Cal OES Fire Chief Brian Marshall echoed that sentiment in an April 24 letter to Randy Moore, the regional forester for the Pacific Southwest Division of the Dept. of Agriculture. Marshall warned that the Forest Service’s new reimbursement requirements “would be cumbersome and would severely impact California’s ability to respond to fires.”
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