Tougher fires bring California to brink

The governor wants the state to be declared a disaster area.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Faced with hundreds of big, hard-to-control blazes, California is struggling with what could be its most expensive firefighting season ever, burning through $285 million in the last six weeks alone and up to $13 million a day.

With the worst of the fire season still ahead, lawmakers are scrambling to find a way to pay for it all and are considering slapping homeowners with a disaster surcharge that asks those in fire-prone areas to pay the most.

On Wednesday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asked President Bush to amend a June disaster declaration and declare the state a disaster area, in part because of firefighting costs. Since mid-May, 2,096 wildfires have burned more than 1.3 million acres and destroyed 306 homes, Schwarzenegger said.

“The response to these fires has severely taxed California’s resources,” Schwarzenegger wrote.

The crisis comes as California deals with a $15.2 billion budget deficit, and Schwarzenegger cited firefighting costs as a major factor when he ordered wages deferred for state workers and laid off others recently to cut costs.

Fire budgets have been strained across the West because more fires are escaping initial attacks and raging out of control, due largely to drier conditions and thicker brush. Higher fuel and labor costs are also factors.

And then there are the millions of people who have moved into fire-prone areas throughout the region over the last two decades. Their presence has forced state and federal firefighters to react aggressively to spare lives and property.

A decade ago, California spent $44 million to fight fires for an entire year. The $285 million already spent this fiscal year, which began July 1, is more than a year’s worth of firefighting bills in nine of the previous 10 years.

During the first days of July, at the height of the battle against thousands of lightning-sparked fires, California blazed through $13 million a day. That’s more than the entire annual firefighting budgets of neighboring Arizona and Nevada.

Under the surcharge proposal, homeowners who live in higher-risk areas would pay the most, which is fine with Gordon Waterbury if the money goes directly to firefighting and not administrative costs.

Waterbury, 55, lived through fires that burned this summer through miles of forest and brush east of Chico, about 90 miles north of the state capital.

“Virtually everyone in California is in high risk,” he said recently. “It’s a statewide problem. It really is.”

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection is borrowing money to pay this year’s firefighting costs because the state remains without an overall budget.