A top U.S. Bureau of Land Management official says policymakers, agencies and the public can do more to help prevent and suppress the vicious wildfires that have plagued California, Oregon and other Western states this year.
“It’s critically important to reduce the fuels that are out there,” William Perry Pendley, BLM’s deputy director of policy and programs, said at an Oct. 15 news conference at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise.
A total of 45,886 fires had burned more than 8.3 million acres of federal land this year as of Oct. 15, compared to a 10-year average of about 6.3 million acres, NIFC reported. Wildfire personnel number 14,196, down from a record-high 32,727 on Sept. 19.