smoke from Canadian wildfires is a regular feature these days in Wisconsin. According
to current maps there are 700 active wildfires in Canada. Most of them categorized as out of
control. What's the risk of wildfires or forest fires in Wisconsin? And could cuts in federal
funding of the US Forest Service affect forest management in Wisconsin? We're joined now by
James Barnier, Forest Fire Protection Section Chief for the Division of Forestry. And thanks very
much for being here. Thank you. So I know that the Wisconsin DNR also has these fire management
dashboards online. How has this year compared historically for wildfires in Wisconsin?
This year was fairly unique. It was one of our more uncommon types of events. We've had a, as
you might remember, a drier than normal winter. We saw a significant number of fires in January
and February, which we traditionally don't see. So those fires cause a lot of great, a lot of work
on our staff to be prepared, be ready. Typically when we're trying to get ready for our typical
spring season, which is March, April and May. And so that really took a toll on our staff overall
from that working. Those two months earlier, traditionally we see snowfall during that time frame.
Right. So what are conditions like right now for fires in Wisconsin?
Well, to be honest, we're just starting to get back into some droughtier conditions. We're starting
to staff up again and just prepare for fires for the summer months. When a fire breaks out,
what kind of fuels it's spread? Well, most of our fires are caused by people. And typically,
in the state of Wisconsin, most of our fires are wind driven, usually with low RH and higher
temperatures, but mostly with wind and low RHs is what we see drives most of our fires. And
usually that light fuels, that grassier type fuels that would spread really fast.
And then once that gets ignited, the fire gets a lot bigger. There's called ladder fuels. Those
ladder fuels get into the tops of the trees. And then when you see those really significant type
of crown fires. So you have told us that it is not likely that Wisconsin would ever see fires
like those in Canada. Why not? Well, I wouldn't say we wouldn't see types of fires of that magnitude
of 250,000 acres. We probably wouldn't see that size of fires. But we do see a lot of
significant, what I would say catastrophic for the state of Wisconsin, anything between
3000 to 15,000 acres. Those types of fires are common every so often in the state of Wisconsin
and have significant impacts across the state. So you've been with the DNR for 30 years. When
you get that call that there's that kind of fire going, what goes through your head?
Well, I think our preparedness of our staff on the ground, just making sure they have all the
tools and resources that they need. And my role predominantly is to oversee the command center
down in Madison here and to ensure that they can get all the resources they need. And sometimes
that's working with our partners, whether it's Minnesota, Michigan, Ontario, Manitoba to help
us on our fires. Speaking of which, a number of DNR firefighters have been in Canada. Tell me
about that. Yeah, just like I just suggested that we use that resources, they're asking for
our resources now. So we've sent up 20 people to both Ontario, Manitoba and during that time frame
in they're actually fighting fires and working within that organization on their IMT's incident
management teams to help facilitate that. So doing so, it is a significant event.
How much forest land does Wisconsin have and who's responsible for its management,
fire prevention and firefighting? Just in general, there's about 57% of the forest lands is privately
owned and about another 10% industry owned in the rest is government entities. And so we provide
Wisconsin DNR provide support with those landowners through, you know, sound forest management practices
to provide some management plans for them or through, you know, industry, working through industry
foresters and ensuring that we have a good solid forest man, healthy forest to help limit those
large scale type fires. So we know that state officials have concern about federal cuts,
two states from the US Forest Service and Wisconsin I understand receives about two million dollars
of those federal funds. Governor Evers said that cutting that would be devastating
to state operations and cause, you know, lacking capacity for wildfire preparedness and suppression.
What role do the feds play in wildlife, wildfire management? They provide us a lot of funding
sources. So yes, roughly a little over two million dollars to support perspectives associated with
wildfire preparedness and and that where would that money go? Well, we work heavily with our
partners. Local fire departments are one of our key components within the state of Wisconsin
and we provide grants to those to help facilitate responses to those fires. Also for our needs,
for our training responsibilities, our tools, our resources and even some of our funding of our
positions. We currently, through some of those federal dollars, we fund seven FTE worth of positions.
Okay, so we'll see what happens with that funding, but James Burnier, thanks very much for joining us.
Thank you.
To be a to be a firefighter and that kind of realm is a lot. Yeah,
Am I done then? Yeah.