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Senator advocated for Arizona priorities like wildfire prevention and wildland firefighter pay in the Fiscal Year 2025 budget
WASHINGTON – Arizona senior Senator Kyrsten Sinema spoke in a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies hearing about the importance of addressing forest restoration and firefighting needs in Arizona in the Fiscal Year 2025 budget.
Advocating for sufficient funding for Arizona, the Senator questioned the Chief of the U.S. Forest Service Randy Moore about local priorities, such as the status of the Four Forest Restoration Initiative (4FRI), which is making progress in reducing wildfire threats across northern Arizona, and how the pay increase she secured for wildland firefighters has impacted recruitment and retention efforts.
“We must continue supporting efforts to prevent wildfires across northern Arizona by investing in forest restoration and retaining highly-skilled wildland firefighters – protecting families while ensuring our state thrives for generations to come,” said Sinema.
At Sinema’s request, Forest Service Chief Moore toured wildfire damage and spoke about 4FRI in Flagstaff, Arizona in November 2021. During the hearing, Sinema emphasized that now is not the time to cut funding from the wildfire crisis landscape and asked for an update on the Forest Service’s plan to support the effort as forest restoration implementation increases.
The Senator also discussed with Chief Moore how the pay increase she secured for wildland firefighter has improved recruitment and retention efforts – building and maintaining a force of highly-skilled firefighters to protect Arizona families and communities.
4FRI is the first and only landscape-scale initiative designed to restore fire-adapted ecosystems important to tribal communities and cities located around the Kaibab, Coconino, Apache-Sitgreaves, and Tonto National Forests. This initiative is critical to restoring the health of the forests and mitigating the major fires that have impacted Arizona communities and businesses.
Sinema’s bipartisan infrastructure law invests $8.25 billion for forest management and wildfire resilience, with hundreds of millions to fund projects like 4FRI, large-scale restoration projects, backstop sawmill infrastructure, build temporary roads, and reduce the risk of project cancellation.