AZ Legislators Working To Pass Emergency $100 Million Appropriation For Fire Services
The Arizona Legislature advanced bills Wednesday creating a $100 million fund to respond to a wildfire emergency after hearing dire warnings from state officials and praise from worried leaders of rural counties and cities amid a brewing fight on the role of climate change in driving blazes and drought. The votes were nearly unanimous after a joint session of Arizona House and Senate committees that hear natural resources bills, with only one Democrat opposing the appropriation because it did not do anything to address climate change.
The Legislature is meeting in a special session called by Gov. Doug Ducey to quickly boost funding for firefighting and recovery efforts as the state is in the midst of a historic drought and fires have been ravaging the state. The House and Senate are expected to overwhelmingly approve the legislation Thursday (today), even as lawmakers remain split on an overall spending plan that contains a massive tax cut.
John Truett, the top fire official in the state Department of Forestry and Fire Management, said firefighters have been dealing with critical fire weather for the past several weeks and that situation is only getting worse with this week's heat wave and a growing number of lightning strikes.
Several major fires are burning in the state, and the region is so hot that some large aerial tankers can't fly and helicopters are having trouble finding places where they can pick up water to drop on the flames, Truett said. “Lake San Carlos is so low that we couldn’t take out of that,” Truett said. “A lot of the (water) tanks are out, and some of the ranchers with their tanks, they’re dry, and even if there is water we’re not taking those because we’re going to leave those for the cattle.”
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