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.”