The United States does not currently have enough resources to fight every wildfire with a full force.
The country is using nearly all of its wildfire fighting resources far earlier in the season than usual, according to data from the National Interagency Fire Center. On July 18, the country reached “Preparedness Level 5” status, the highest possible level on a scale that measures how much wildfires are taxing resources.
National wildfire response coordinators are currently deciding how resources are deployed across fires raging primarily in Oregon, Colorado and Washington. If another especially big fire starts while resources remain strapped, federal coordinators will have to decide which ongoing and smaller fires will need to be handled with fewer resources.
Since 2010, the United States has only reached a 5 out of 5 on the preparedness level scale by July 18th two other times — 2021 and 2024. Usually, if the country reaches PL5 at all, it happens sometime in August.
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Under PL5, national coordinators are forced to make decisions about which fires most deserve hotshot crews, engines, aircraft and other specialized equipment and teams.
“Not every fire that’s ongoing is going to get everything that they need to be able to fight the fire and contain the fire,” said one Forest Service official who was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. “There’s a lot of hard decisions that are going to be made as far as allocating resources.”
The fire season has been growing longer in recent years in the United States, stretching from May to November.
This year, there are two main reasons for the resource constraints. Perhaps most critically, limited snowpack and extreme drought conditions in the West have primed the landscape for an early, aggressive start to the fire season.
Second, wildland firefighters have been warning for years that the United States has not properly invested in the firefighters and equipment needed to adequately combat fires during increasingly bad seasons. The Trump administration exacerbated staffing issues when it made cuts to support staff across the federal government, a second firefighting Forest Service official told NOTUS.
“It’s both. It truly is. It is declining capacity combined with a continuation of the trend in fire behavior that we’re seeing,” this person said.
“As we get into August, certainly September, especially with the activity that we’re seeing now, we’ll have to pay attention to just the fatigue that’s going to be in the system, and the health of the people that are out,” said the first Forest Service official.
The U.S. Wildland Fire Service did not respond to a request for comment.
“Reaching PL5 earlier than usual increases pressure on national resources, but the incident response system is built for these conditions and is operating as intended,” a spokesperson for the U.S. Forest Service told NOTUS. “We use longstanding interagency processes to prioritize the highest-risk incidents and move resources around the country efficiently to where they are needed most.”
New Zealand and Australia are currently sending firefighting resources to the United States to help in the most needed areas, a partnership frequently invoked during PL5 status. The Air Force and the Wyoming and California National Guards have also been called upon to help, sending aircraft and personnel to southern Oregon and northern California.
While Canada and the U.S. often share resources, the same two officials within the Forest Service told NOTUS that is unlikely at the moment because Canada is battling its own severe fires.
Even the extra assistance doesn’t completely alleviate firefighters’ needs.
“When it gets to PL5, I know it’s going to be tough. I know it’s going to be tougher getting fighters to my fire,” said Bobbie Scopa, a retired wildland firefighter who used to manage fire response in Oregon. “You just know that you’re going to have to make tough decisions.”
Oregon has already seen more acres burn this year than the total for the entirety of last year’s fire season. Thousands of lightning strikes from powerful thunderstorms have been starting dozens of fires across the state. More than 1,000 firefighting personnel spent the last week battling an especially large fire still threatening the 4,000-person town of Sisters, Oregon.
Even so, fire experts said that they are more concerned about what could be coming down the pike in the next month or two. California has so far escaped the massive, out-of-control fires that usually characterize an especially bad year.
Scopa worries about what happens if that changes.
“All you need is a couple of days with high winds and some sunny skies and that uncontained fire line does have the potential to get up and run,” she said.
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