Budget cuts endanger firefighting abilityes By James Ronald Skains "This last round of budget cuts for the Louisiana Office of Forestry could prove very destructive both in property damage and actual lives," Wade Dubea, Louisiana State Forester warned. "Our office is responsible for protecting over $26 billion in property and timber value. Not only do we have to deal with wildfires started by accident or lightning, but also those started by arsonists," Dubea added. "The budget cuts that we are having to endure, has reduced the Office of Forestry's ability to a role of only being able to respond to a fire, not to fight the fire," Dubeau, a LSU School of Forestry graduate explained to the Piney Woods Journal. "Now we can send only one truck with a tractor to make a firebreak when we are called out,"said Dubea, who has been with the Louisiana Forestry Office for ten years. "Our budget cuts have reduced our total number of firefighting crews statewide to only 102 people." The Louisiana Forestry Association, under the direction of Executive Director Buck Vandersteen, has launched a campaign to inform the forest land and property owners of the potential dangers due to the drastic reduction in the capability of the Louisiana Forestry section of the Department of Agriculture to combat rural fires. "By the end of February, the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry will be down to 102 fire fighters trying to protect 18.9 million acres of timberland," Vandersteen emphasized. "That means one fire fighter is available for 185,294 acres of timberland. Those kind of numbers are not sustainable," Vandersteen stated flatly. "In comparison, the state of Arkansas has one firefighter per 61,000 acres, while Mississippi is at 38,000 acres per fighter and Texas averages one firefighter per 29,000 acres. We can't put our head in the sand and say that wildfires don't happen in Louisiana or the Deep South," Vandersteen, longtime Director of the Association, said emphatically. "We've had some pretty serious wildfires in Louisiana in recent years as have the other southern states in the pine belt. It would not take many days of dry weather and strong winds that we normally have in March and April to put our forestland in real danger. Any forest fires potentially places the firefighters at risk, but especially when you have a drastic reduction in firefighting capability." "Not only have the budget cuts affected the number of the boots on the ground but it has totally disrupted our ability to locate fires with our planes," Dubea explained. "In the first round of layoffs last spring, we lost six pilots and grounded 2 planes. This reduced our ability to get out in front of the fires by spotting them in their beginning stages," said Dubea, who taught high school science for a few years before going to work for the Office of Forestry. "Before our budgets were slashed, our planes were able to fly grid patterns effectively," Dubea pointed out, "but now we are basically able to do cursory flights in the morning and evening and then some grid flying during the day. Even if our pilots spot a fire in its early stages, we are still handicapped in putting people in place to put the fire out," said Dubea, a native of New Roads. "It's a disaster waiting to happen." "We need a minimum of 142 firefighters to even reach a minimum level of capability to deal with potential fires," Dubea further explained. "With 142 firefighters on the ground that would give us 71 teams, which we think is a bare minimum for the state." "At one point in the history of forestry in Louisiana, several large timber companies had crews of firefighters on their payroll," Dubea recalled. "However, with the major shifts in ownership in the forest industry, only two timber companies, Crowell in central Louisiana and Forest Capital in southwest Louisiana have even limited firefighting capability." "Since I became State Forester, I've faced a whirlwind of budget cuts," Dubeau noted. "This year has been particularly difficult because we got a reduced budget, then after we made adjustments, we had to go back and make even more cuts. The budget for the Office of Forestry in 2008 was $23.1 million," Dubea pointed out. "Our 2010 budget was $16.6 million which is a 28% reduction. I was looking forward to the opportunity to do some strategic long term planning and implementation when I became State Forester," Dubea acknowledged. "However, the long term planning and implementation has been replaced by deciding how to cut budgets and whose job to terminate. We are exploring all kinds of options and opportunities to become more self-funded," said Dubea, who taught school in Baton Rouge for eight years. "We are trying to capture any available funds to offset our budget cuts because we are in a crisis situation. We are also looking at our prices which are below market value at our state tree nursery, and considering implementing fees for the services we provide," Dubea, who obtained his forestry degree in 1997 stated. "In addition, we pursuing all available grants as well as also looking at what opportunities might exist for revenue from the Alexander State Forest and other property that we own jointly with the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries," Dubea, who was employed for 8 years with the Entergy Corporation before pursuing a degree in Forestry at LSU pointed out. When Dubeau took office as head of the Forestry Office of the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry, there were 285 employees. Today there are only 165 employees. Buck Vandersteen, in a phone call from Washington, D.C. to the Journal where he was meeting with Congressional officials had this to add about the budget crisis in the Louisiana Office of Forestry: "Commissioner Strain and Wade Dubea are doing a very good job in trying to protect the forest industry in the middle of these devastating budget cuts. Commissioner Strain is pushing the Jindal administration to designate the Office of Forestry fire protection personnel as `vital to Public Safety Personnel' which would shield them from layoffs. This would give our firefighters the same status as law enforcement and firefighters in general. The second issue that Commissioner Strain is pushing hard on is to make sure that the Tax Assessors in each parish, assess all forest land owners the 8 cents per acre for fire protection that has been on the books for years. There may be considerable revenue that is slipping through the cracks now that should go to the Office of Forestry. In years past, the Louisiana Office of Forestry was proud of being able to respond to a forest fire within 15 to 30 minutes, but now the response time due to budget cuts could be one to two hours. A lot of timberland and rural homes can be burned in that length of time." State Forester Dubea had this to say in conclusion; "Budget cuts across the board, without giving priority to the services provided, throughout the state is not fair and equitable. All we want is a level playing field based on our responsibilities to protect forestland and rural areas from wildfire fire whether they are started by accident or by an arsonist." |