An early wildfire season in the U.S. that began in Los Angeles and is currently hitting the Carolinas and Georgia this week also poses risks to the Southern Plains states of Texas and New Mexico, according to a new outlook issued by the National Interagency Fire Center.
Dr. Rachel Cleetus, the policy director with the Climate and Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, writes in a new blog that hotter, drier conditions, coupled with gusty winds, are contributing to these winter fires. She notes that state and federal policymakers should ensure that adequate funding and resources are available to deal with wildfires so fire-damaged communities can recover.
“The Trump administration’s mass layoffs of thousands of forest service employees, combined with federal funding freezes that affect wildfire mitigation and prevention projects, are their own red flag warnings going into this year’s fire season,” writes Cleetus. “Across the board, indiscriminately cutting staff and budgets at agencies such as NOAA, USDA and FEMA that contribute to predictive data and wildfire risk mapping, firefighting, and disaster response and recovery will only make things more unsafe for everyone.”
This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.
Newswire Editor | Radio Free (2025-03-04T17:29:40+00:00) March Wildfires Signal Risks of a Dangerous Spring. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2025/03/04/march-wildfires-signal-risks-of-a-dangerous-spring/
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