The exploding costs of fighting US wildfires
Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
By Kylie Mohr for Vox
From taxes on nicotine to hotel rooms, states are looking for ways to pay the skyrocketing bill.
Oregonians buying nicotine pouches like Zyn and Rogue were met with a surprise at the cash register starting this year. Each tin had a new 65-cent tax on it, meant to bolster funding for the state’s wildfire reduction efforts.
Wildfires burned more than 1.9 million acres in Oregon in 2024. By the time they finally died down at the end of October, the state had spent more than $350 million fighting them, greatly exceeding the $10 million it had allocated. “By July 21, I had already completely blown through my cash on hand,” said Kyle Williams, Oregon Department of Forestry’s deputy director for fire operations.
Contractors weren’t promptly paid for services they’d already provided, from digging fuel breaks to supplying meals, and the state had to hold an emergency legislative session to allocate the money. That summer highlighted the flaws in how the state funds both firefighting and the preventive work that reduces the chances of large, destructive blazes in the first place.
This year, as drought and a devastating snowpack stack up across the West, officials are bracing for what could be a challenging fire season. The Idaho Department of Lands has roughly $38 million set aside. But Dustin Miller, Idaho director of lands, said he could spend twice that in a big year. “We’re a little bit concerned this year, because I’m not sure we’re going to have enough to cover what could be a very long and busy fire season,” he said. “The conditions are very concerning to me.”
States across the West are dealing with outdated funding systems in the face of skyrocketing wildfire costs. “Every state is grappling with this,” Williams said. “I don’t blame anybody for not having the perfect solution.” But change is coming, one expensive wildfire season at a time.
Nine of the 10 most expensive wildfires in US history have occurred since 2017. Costs are climbing for several reasons: A century of fire suppression has led to more flammable vegetation on the landscape, ready to burn; climate change is boosting the hot, dry weather that helps fuel wildfires; and developers and property owners are building yet more homes in fire-prone areas.
All this leads to larger, more destructive fires that often require costly intervention to protect people and property, such as dropping fire retardant and water from planes and helicopters. And fire suppression efforts account for just a sliver of a wildfire’s true cost — roughly 9 percent, according to a 2018 report by Headwaters Economics. Rebuilding infrastructure and rehabilitating landscapes must also be factored in.
Wildland firefighting is an inherently collaborative and complex process, both financially and logistically, thanks to the checkerboard of land ownership in the West. Wildfire costs are shared between the federal government, states, tribes, counties, and local municipalities. Where a fire starts generally determines who pays upfront to fight it; other affected entities then reimburse that party, a process that takes several years and can result in temporarily depleted funds.
According to a 2022 Pew Charitable Trusts analysis, most states use their general fund, or revenue from state taxes and other fees, to cover their wildland firefighting costs, pitting those needs against every other state priority. States cobble together additional funding from several sources: Many have property owners pay an annual fee on forested land and structures that’s tied to wildfire risk. Utah taps federal mineral lease bonus payments, while California and Oregon tax timber sales.
Despite ballooning costs, states tend to base their wildfire funding allocations on historic averages, an approach that, according to Pew’s research, generally leads them to underestimate the actual amount needed. When that happens, some states, like Oregon, have to call for an emergency session to release more funds after the fact. While this might have worked in the past, it’s beginning to get disruptive. “The increasing frequency and expense of these events makes it less of a ‘if’ this is going to happen and more of a ‘when,’” said Peter Muller, a senior officer with Pew’s managing fiscal risks project.
Across the West, states are starting to take action by putting more money in wildfire-specific accounts ahead of fire season and, better yet, tapping new funding sources.
Montana’s Legislature, for example, greatly expanded how much money it budgeted for fires in advance in 2023, adding $152 million to a wildfire suppression special account that began with $40 million in 2008. Last year, Hawaii enacted a “green fee” charge on hotel room and short-term stays to raise money for climate resilience and future disaster response, including wildfires, offloading some financial responsibility from tax-paying residents to tourists.
Click here to read the full article published by Vox on May 7.
