An administrative consolidation of federal wildland firefighting resources will be tested in the coming months, with the National Interagency Fire Center warning more than 60 percent of the United States is now in drought and AccuWeather projecting that up to 8 million acres, primarily across the parched intermountain West, will burn by fall.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the U.S. Wildland Fire Service, created in January, will merge what is now a mosaic of federal responders from multiple agencies into a single command-and-control operation to enhance coordination with state, local, and tribal firefighters in battling blazes on 500 million acres of federal public lands….