Wyden calls for early wildfire briefing

Near record warmth this Winter in Southern Oregon and Northern California has people out and enjoying the sunshine but inside,

firefighters, forest managers and lawmakers are working to prepare for a potentially devastating wildfire season.

“This is a very serious, serious problem.” U.S. Senator Ron Wyden said, Thursday and a 2015 wildfire briefing.

U.S. Senator Ron Wyden organized the briefing to talk about funding. He says, the largest wildfires make just 1% of wildfires, but they eat up 33% of firefighting budgets. Senator Wyden wants to overhaul federal firefighting funding.

“The current policy for fighting wildfires is just plain broken. What you have is not enough prevention and then a big fire breaks out.” Wyden said.

This summer there is the potential for some big fires because experts say the snow pack is nearly non- existent.

Ryan Sandler with the National Weather Service says the region is behind in annual snow pack,”Crater Lake is a good place to look at snow pack, or the lack there of. It’s very high- 6400 feet, and there’s less than three feet of snow on the ground when usually there’s ten.

With a recipe for disaster looming, Senator Wyden proposes boosting funding for wildfire prevention like the Ashland Forest Resiliency Project and then using money from the Federal natural disaster fund to fight the largest fires.