The Obama administration wants to pay for catastrophic wildfires with natural disaster funds . . .
The Obama administration’s proposed 2015 budget aims to change how the federal government pays for catastrophic wildfires.
In the past, large wildfires were paid for through the Forest Service budget. If a large fire broke out, the service would “borrow” money from funds used for forest restoration and other projects.
In the past, the Forest Service spent about 16 percent of its total budget on firefighting. But in more recent years, that figure has dramatically increased to about 40 percent, U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said last week.