USA – -(AmmoLand.com)- The Department of the Interior announced today that it has once again made substantial progress in Fiscal Year 2020 to reduce the risk of wildfire nationwide by treating a ten-year best 1.5 million acres of public lands.
In continued efforts to reduce wildfire risk across much of the United States, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) has exceeded yearly milestones to ensure National Wildlife Refuge System lands remain healthy, resilient, and accessible to the public. The Service completed a significant amount of fuels treatments in FY2020 to reduce hazardous fuel loads, provide wildfire suppression efforts across the country, and increase protection of local communities surrounding fire-prone areas.
“President Trump set aggressive targets to more effectively and actively manage our rangelands and forests to prevent catastrophic wildfires. He took bold action on this issue, which had been missing in previous administrations,” said U.S. Secretary of the Interior David L. Bernhardt.
“Answering the call in hitting our significant milestones were our top-class wildland firefighter crews, who have been on the front lines working around the clock to conduct these preventative treatments and extinguish destructive blazes throughout the West this year. They deserve our unending appreciation.”
“The Trump Administration has successfully delivered on mitigating risk from wildfire through implementing active management,” said Service Director Aurelia Skipwith. “Under Secretary Bernhardt’s leadership, the Service’s women and men work to protect our nation’s refuges and local communities from wildfire risk by taking the necessary steps to manage habitat and reduce hazardous fuels to prevent major wildfires.”
Of the more than 1.5 million acres treated by Interior, the Service’s Fuels Management Program in FY2020 successfully completed more than 590 individual fuels treatments
