Members of the Joint Appropriation Committee met for nearly seven hours on Monday, learning the ins and outs of fire management in the state.
Committee chairman Rep. John Bear (R-Gillette) said there were three areas he wanted the committee to explore: how the state manages fire in comparison to other states, how Wyoming prepares for disasters and are the methods of funding appropriate. Bear also suggested his committee may need extra days to do the work.
State Forester Kelly Norris said they still don’t know the total cost of the 2024 fire season. That’s because they’re still waiting to complete cost-share payouts with the Bureau of Land Management. Current estimates are $55 million spent on fire suppression.
Norris said the fire season was longer than usual, as large fires broke out from March to October. Norris, the Campbell and Sublette County wardens said the intense season was a combination of winds, snowpacks melting earlier, lightning storms and fuels.
Due to this longer and more intense fire season, legislators did end up refilling firefighting accounts during the last legislative session. Lawmakers also doubled the forester’s aviation program. Norris said the legislature was “in lockstep” with a survey of fire wardens and federal firefighting leadership that suggested air support was one of the top three most important resources available.
Bear also noted other work carried out by the legislature earlier this year.
“Both of the chambers and the legislature did refill all of those contingency accounts and also increase the governor's borrowing authority from the LSRA (Legislative Stabilization Reserve Account),” said Bear. “So I think all parties worked hard to make sure that we're prepared for this summer.”
Despite the cooperation between the legislature and state forester, Sublette County Fire Warden Shad Cooper said Wyoming still faces challenges in fighting future fires.
“As a fire chief, that's probably the single biggest thing that I spend most of my time on, is addressing recruitment [and] retention,” said Cooper. “Within my own organization and when I speak to the fire chiefs across the rest of the state, they're all faced with the exact same challenges that I'm faced with.”
Cooper said that fire wardens had worked with lawmakers last year to provide some benefits for volunteer firefighters in the state, like cancer screening and access to the state’s health care plan. However, Cooper said “the jury is still out” on the effects of those benefits on recruitment.
“The way we fight wildland fire is we rely on the local jurisdictions to respond and put these fires out. What's going to happen if we continue to see the downward trend of availability of firefighters in the state of Wyoming? We're not going to be there to put those fires out,” said Cooper. “Those small fires that we're currently capturing and extinguishing and putting out, they're going to get away from us because we don't have the personnel.”
Lawmakers said it's too early to begin drafting bills, but are considering a few paths moving forward.
Rep. Jeremy Haroldson (R-Wheatland) said funding large fires is important. However, Haroldson centered more on preventing fires from growing to the point of a state emergency.
“Should there be more [funding]? Yeah, in the preventative realm. Should there be more? Yeah, let's take care of our local fire department so that they can be that first line of defense. Because, if we could eliminate 25 fires, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation,” said Haroldson. “But we are having this conversation because there were fires we couldn't eliminate.”
Legislation passed this year gave the state forester the responsibility of fire management for all state-administered lands. But Norris said updating the definition of state lands would allow for broader use of the Emergency Fire Suppression Account.
“This is something we've identified as the wildfire community,” said Norris. “Because as we're trying to just focus on putting out fire, we really don't want to be challenged with, ‘Well, who's paying for this or not?’ We just want to be putting this out.”
Lawmakers will consider creating seasonal firefighter positions, reforming an inmate firefighter program, increasing the emergency fund and borrowing amounts and improving the ability of local departments to get fires under control in the first few hours.
Sen. Mike Gierau (D-Jackson) said it was a little unusual to spend an entire day on one topic, but fire was important.
“By not doing anything today, moving forward, I think it puts a lot of pressure on us in the next meeting,” said Gierau. “I think it's fine, but we've got to come up with something on this going forward. And I'm really looking forward to concrete directives from this committee moving forward, that we'll be able to take action, not only with legislation but funding.”
The committee will meet next on August 18.
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.
