Crime & Safety
Wildfires Have Cost Taxpayers $200 Million This Fiscal Year
The state total through June far surpasses what was spent to put down rural fires in each of the last two years.
Taxpayers have spent $204 million this year fighting wildfires, far outpacing the prior year's expenditures, according to a NBCSanDiego.com report.
That's nearly 50 percent more than in 2011-12 and more than double the total from 2010-11.
The figure was counted from the beginning of the current fiscal year, July 2012, to June 1 and shared with the station by Cal Fire, the state agency that oversees response to rural fires.
The expense soared as the year progressed, agency officials said, because fires were up 77 percent in recent months, mostly in Southern California.
One such blaze, the Powerhouse fire that started late last month north of Los Angeles, burned more than 30,000 acres.
The state's total does not include costs for fighting fires on federal land, the report said. But a U.S. Forest Service spokesman explained that they rise rapidly because of the variety of resources – from local fire engines and support personnel to helicopters and air tankers – needed to control such large fires.
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