Senators, states and conservation groups are urging the Senate to restore funding to programs that help prevent wildfires in national forests, arguing the move could save millions of dollars in firefighting costs.

The steep funding cuts proposed in a Senate Appropriations Committee draft spending bill would severely hamper lands agencies' ability to thin and burn forests vulnerable to severe wildfires, said groups including the Western Governors Association, National Association of Counties and National Association of State Foresters.

Their calls come after one of the worst decades of wildfire on record, according to the Nature Conservancy. This year's fire season burned more than 8 million acres -- an area larger than New Jersey and Connecticut combined -- and included severe fires in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

Such fires could be slowed or prevented through hazardous fuels and state fire assistance programs that allow the Forest Service and Interior Department agencies to clear forests of dangerous wood buildup, the groups said.

"In light of the clear growing risk of destructive wildland fires, it seems unwise to eliminate investment in a program that makes people and forests safer," said Chris Topik, director of the Nature Conservancy's Restoring America's Forest program who spent several years as a staffer on the House Appropriations Committee. "We will regret not investing in these programs."

The call was backed by nine Democratic Western senators who sent a letter to appropriators earlier this month requesting more funding.

The Senate's draft fiscal 2012 spending proposal for Interior and the Forest Service restored funding for conservation programs including land acquisition, species conservation and wetlands preservation, but, to the surprise of some, reduced hazardous fuels funding substantially from the House's proposed levels.

The programs would be funded at $333 million, a nearly $100 million cut from House levels and more than a 25 percent cut below current funding levels, the Nature Conservancy said.

Investments in hazardous fuels reduction has helped reduce overall federal spending by lowering fire suppression and response costs and protecting community water supplies, said a separate letter this month signed by states, counties, conservation groups and dozens of others.

"In the wake of some of the largest and most destructive fires in our history, this is not only a wise, but a necessary investment to protect homes, communities, lives and our natural resources," the groups wrote to the chairmen and ranking members of both chambers' Interior Appropriations subcommittees.

The Senate plan, the letter warns, would reduce the acres of tree thinning or prescribed burns by about 25 percent. In 2010, agencies were able to treat 2 million acres under the program.