Lawmakers hear wide-ranging wildfire briefing; state forester urges sustained funding, more crews and mitigation

At a Joint Appropriations Committee meeting in Dubois on Aug. 19, Wyoming State Forester Kelly Norris told legislators the state is seeing more fires but fewer acres per fire this year and urged more predictable funding, expanded firefighting capacity and ongoing fuel‑reduction work to blunt escalating costs and risk. Norris told the committee, “Wyoming has had 755 wildfires that have burned approximately a 150,000 acres,” and said the state has seen more fires than at the same point last year while keeping many of those fires small through aggressive aviation and initial attack. The committee heard why the Emergency Fire Suppression Account (EFSA) is central to that strategy. Norris and county fire wardens described heavy use of aircraft, prepositioned suppression modules and out‑of‑state crews. Chad Cooper, fire warden for Sublette County Unified Fire, said quick aerial support and coordinated point‑protection tactics kept a June grass-and-sage fire to a mapped perimeter of 209 acres and saved homes that otherwise may have been threatened. Why it matters: Committee members were shown how a relatively small, fast response can avert multiweek, multimillion‑dollar incidents that would occur if fires reached timbered slopes or national forest. County officials said uncertainty about EFSA funding shifts fiscal risk to counties and fire districts and complicates response decisions. What was described: State forestry reported heavy use of aviation this year — the two state helicopters and four contracted single‑engine air tankers were repeatedly cited — and an active year for prepositioned state and interagency resources. Norris said the Red Canyon fire received a federal Fire…