The Biden administration will put an additional $500 million into reducing wildfire danger in mainly Western states, including a new effort focused on the wildland-urban interface, officials said Tuesday.
Most of the money, which Congress appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure law, will go toward the Forest Service’s 10-year wildfire strategy, on top of more than $1 billion already spent on the effort.
“We have a lot of work to do,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told reporters on a conference call, adding that the influx of money won’t be the last. “We need to continue to do this. You can’t do it for just a year or two.”
Tuesday’s announcement comes in two batches of money. The first, for $400 million, will cover projects in 21 high-priority landscapes across fire-prone areas of the West.
