US wildfire managers facing increasingly strained resources have opened talks with Pentagon commanders and Canadian officials about possible reinforcements of personnel and aircraft to battle dozens of blazes raging across the drought-parched American West.
Preliminary plans for military and international aid come as the US Forest Service is feeling the pinch of federal budget cuts known as sequestration even as demand for firefighters and equipment such as air tankers is exceeding supply, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise.
Elite teams of firefighters known as hotshots and smoke jumpers, whose job it is to mount the initial attack on blazes in remote, rugged terrain, are stretched too thin, said Stephen Gage, assistant operations director for fire and aviation management for the Forest Service.
The agency’s 100-plus hotshot crews are all either assigned to fires in the West or are taking required periods of rest and recovery, leaving no spare teams to dispatch to any additional fires where they might be needed, he said.
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“We have just a limited number of those assets. We’d love to give everybody what they need when they ask for it,” he said. “Deciding which area gets those highly skilled crews and which doesn’t is the hardest thing we do.”