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Wyoming looks to replenish emergency funds and prepare crews for future fire seasons

The Governor talks with state officials at a press event
Jordan Uplinger / WPR
Gov. Gordon and State Forester Kelly Norris talk with officials at pre-fire season press conference

The 2024 fire season has been described as “historic,” “expensive” and “a learning experience.” Agencies and lawmakers, from the local to federal level, are reviewing firefighting operations, environmental factors and community reactions to see how they can prepare for a similar future fire season.

In his proposed supplemental budget, Gordon is asking for $692 million, of which $130 million in one-time funding would go toward recovering lands and infrastructure damaged by this year’s burns. Another roughly $50 million is being requested to repay and expand firefighting accounts.

“Make no mistake, 2024 was one of the most challenging fire seasons in Wyoming history,” Gov. Mark Gordon said of the summer’s massive burns at last week’s Joint Appropriations Committee meeting. He brought up the Flat Rock Fire, a fire that was “estimated to have burned 40,000 acres in just one hour.”

The final tally

“There were over 2,000 wildfires that burned over 850,000 acres,” Gordon said to the committee. He added two of those fires ranked as the second and third largest fires in Wyoming history. Some wildfires were quickly contained or simply didn’t threaten life or property of value. Twenty-two of the fires qualified for the Emergency Fire Suppression Account (EFSA).

EFSA is a state account that all Wyoming counties currently participate in. The money paid toward the account goes to cover costs when county fire districts can’t foot the bill. The account started the year with $32 million in unobligated funds. However, fires early in the season and long-lasting blazes depleted funds quickly.

As pointed out by Gordon, state officials and agencies: This fire season was comparable only to that of the 1988 Yellowstone fires. Kelly Norris, the state forester, said this comparison put the unique conditions of this year into perspective.

“About 70 percent of the acres that have burned are on private and state lands, which is really a flip in what we're used to,” said Norris, speaking at an event hosted by the Wyoming State Fire Advisory Board. “We're used to seeing, just like in [1988], many of those acres burning were federal lands and federal acres.”

Over 2,000 miles of fencing was destroyed, resulting in livestock roaming away from the owner or wildlife entering areas that fencing would have prohibited.

Spending in uncharted territory

After Gordon finished his recommendations for the supplemental budget, his chief of staff, Drew Perkins, told the committee about some of the initial surveyor damages and how much it might cost to repair. Perkins put the total number to repair at $400 million, with fencing costing an estimated $46.9 million to repair and fighting invasive species at an estimated $145 million.

Rep. Lloyd Larsen (R-Lander) pointed out that the estimated total in damage outweighs what was requested by the governor. According to Perkins, much of that money will come from “insurance, private sector/individual funding, some of it will be federal funds.”

Larsen followed up by asking Perkins what the role of the state is in natural disaster events like this.

“We could go back a couple of years ago, when we had that very difficult winter, when we [saw] a lot of the similar impacts that we kind of stood back and said, ‘That's kind of part of doing business, and, you know, we feel for you, but that's the world we live in.’”

Perkins responded saying the governor's office is not looking to replace federal funds, but to assist in some recovery efforts when all other sources fall short. Priorities can change over time, he said, and initial funding like this might not be needed down the road. Until then, he said the state may want to have a vested interest in maintaining “those private lands” to protect the state’s agricultural sector. He added those same lands “also provide significant habitat to all kinds of wildlife.”

Understanding of the damages but skeptical of details, Rep. Bob Nicholas (R-Cheyenne) requested more details from the governor's office on who gets what, how much, why and how that will be decided before the committee “just [hands] you a bucket of $170 million … saying, ‘Go for it,’ and come back [for] another $170 next year, essentially.”

State accounts

For emergencies and natural disasters, Wyoming has the EFSA, the governor’s contingency account, the Wyoming Office of Homeland Security’s account, the Legislative Stabilization Reserve Account, and the Wildland Fire Borrowing Authority. All accounts were created to be used either specifically for fire-related disasters or other emergencies that can’t be taken care of with the standard two-year budget.

During Norris’ appearance in front of the Joint Appropriations Committee, she explained how quickly conditions on the ground changed, and how costly it is for fire departments to keep up with conditions like that. Norris said that most wildfires are controlled quickly by local authorities. When a fire is not quickly contained, and county fire wardens begin applying for EFSA funding, is when the state begins to see costs skyrocket.

“You're ordering aviation engines, hand crews, smoke busters, heavy equipment,” said Norris. “[You] need to find a caterer or find a local business to make three meals a day for all of these firefighters. They need to sleep and so we have to set up a camp … With the camp comes porta potties, hand washing stations, you have to have trash picked … We have land use agreements to pay the landowner for the grass that we're using.”

According to Norris, agency heads have coordinated cost-sharing agreements. The State Forestry Division, federal agencies and local fire districts try to spread out the bills that come with fighting fire. Some larger bills to smaller districts, like the cost of air support, were paid through the Fire Protection Revolving Account, a state account of savings specifically for fire-related payments.

By September, the governor requested emergency declaration funding from the federal government, already hitting $25 million in damages from fires. While final numbers won’t be totalled until January, State Forestry has obligated $54 million for fighting fires this year.

“Within a few months of this year, it became very apparent that Wyoming was having a very costly fire season,” said Norris. “Because we obligated beyond the funds of the EFSA, a fire borrowing process had to occur. This makes refilling the EFSA account even more critical, as it will help to stop the additional need for fire borrowing.

“Refilling the account as soon as possible will be very helpful, as Wyoming could still have EFSA fires next spring, prior to the next fiscal year,” said Norris.

Norris recommended a $10 million increase in borrowing power for the Wildland Fire Borrowing Authority and requested $20 million to be put back into the EFSA. Norris also added a request for $20 million to repay money supplemented for firefighting efforts from the Legislative Stabilization Reserve Account.

Rep. Tom Walters (R-Casper), asked Norris if requesting more money would help now, given the unpredictability of how much a future fire season will cost.

“That $20 million should typically get us through one more year, but you're absolutely correct. If we have a fire season like we did this year, we will be going into borrowing,” said Norris. “There's a balance, there's a comfort of how much we want to put into this account – $30 million? $40 million? We felt the most conservative that we could ask for was $20 million at this time.”

Lessons learned

At the recent Wyoming Rural Fire Meeting in Casper, firefighters gathered to talk about this year’s fire season. Departments, agency officials and others involved in the state’s firefighting capacity gathered to review factors like communication, direction and movement of wildfires, transportation of people and equipment between fires, and ways to improve cooperation.

Norris said a unique challenge this time around was fires’ overnight activity.

“One of the largest challenges we had in some of these very large fires is the amount of wind and the nighttime fire activity behavior that we had not seen in previous years,” she said.

Weather played a huge role in these summer fires. Lighting strikes were the primary cause of some burns like the Pack Trail Fire. Other fires, like the House Draw Fire, were quick moving, fueled by wind and dry conditions.

Many of the departments that presented a review of their county’s fire operations noted that communication with the public became a key priority this year. Tom Lubis with Crook County Volunteer Fire said that previous fire seasons were comparatively slow and minute-to-minute communication wasn’t as necessary.

“A lot of relationships with local landowners and stuff were able to be built or re-established,” said Lubis. “The slower fire seasons the last few years, we weren't getting those interactions. And now those are back, which is a positive.”

Until next year

Chris Thomas, Sheridan County Fire Warden, said fires like this weren’t the standard prior.

“We've heard other people say, ‘How do you train for a 100,000-acre fire that's moving at 40 miles an hour?’” said Thomas. “You don't even think of things like that. Well, now we do, because we've seen it.”

If future fire seasons are like this, Wyoming will need increased funding and manpower to properly combat threats to life and property. The state Legislature will work out who gets who much funding and when. Until then, firefighters are facing a stark reality. After a fire season that exhausted all the state’s emergency accounts, some firefighters are thinking about how to manage large fires when resources are spent so quickly. Thomas says that resources are limited everywhere, and there's only so many engines, planes and manpower. Moving forward, he said hard decisions will need to be made sometimes.

“When you have as many large fires as we had, [we] can't be everywhere all the time. [We have to] prioritize.” said Thomas.

Over the winter seasons, firefighters will continue to train their crews, maintain lines of effective communications and reevaluate response plans. Many firefighters also emphasized their plans to continue recruitment efforts, as the state faces a volunteer firefighter shortage.

On the civilian end, landowners, counties and agencies are reviewing the damage done to lands and property. Gordan recently released a guide to help those individuals and organizations recover faster and properly apply for appropriate aid. However, as Thomas describes, the damage done is going to take many people years to recover from.

“There's a lot of fences out there that got burnt up,” he said. “I know people's hay got burnt up, and this is stuff they're planning for their summer, their winter, that's to feed their stock. Some of our fires, especially Remington, which went into Montana … those were devastating. Ranches literally lost 80 percent of their herd … Their cows died. They don't have the feed to feed the rest of them. That's tragic. They’re now sitting there going, ‘We need to rethink this.’”

This reporting was made possible by a grant from the Corporation For Public Broadcasting, supporting state government coverage in the state. Wyoming Public Media and Jackson Hole Community Radio are partnering to cover state issues both on air and online.

Jordan Uplinger was born in NJ but has traveled since 2013 for academic study and work in Oklahoma, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. He gained experience in a multitude of areas, including general aviation, video editing, and political science. In 2021, Jordan's travels brought him to find work with the Wyoming Conservation Corps as a member of Americorps. After a season with WCC, Jordan continued his Americorps service with the local non-profit, Feeding Laramie Valley. His deep interest in the national discourse on class, identity, American politics and the state of material conditions globally has led him to his internship and eventual employment with Wyoming Public Radio.

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