Theresa Opeka
Carolina Journal
North Carolina Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler talked about the wildfires that crews have been battling across the state at Tuesday’s Council of State meeting. They come at a time when there are at least 100 open positions at North Carolina Forest Service.
He said there are two reasons why.
“Salary, that’s the number one reason, but also, we’re not raising as many young folks that have an interest in the outdoors and firefighting, and quite frankly, volunteer fire departments have always been the catalyst for young people to decide to go into firefighting either through the Forest Service or municipal,” Troxler told council members. “We don’t have the base to draw from that we did, and the salaries are low, but we’re in a dangerous, dangerous situation. The fire in Polk County is the one that, of course, Helene went through, and we have a tremendous load of fuel on the ground, and before, we used to use logging roads and private roads to be able to get to the fire, and many of them are damaged or closed, so it takes extra time and extra personnel.”
He noted that they have partnered with local volunteer fire departments, but most of them are also understaffed.
“We’ve got two 24-year-old worn-out helicopters and a lot of worn-out bulldozers, so we’ve got to make a concerted effort to rebuild the North Carolina Forest Service to the capacity that we need,” Troxler said. “When you see these fires in Los Angeles, and you see the devastation that can happen, it’s not California that ranks number one in the interface of wildfires and people and buildings, it is North Carolina. So not only do we have that to worry about and the large fuel load that we have on the ground, but if we continue with the dry conditions further into the spring with wind, we can get into serious problems, and I still think about the horrors that happened in 2016 in the mountains and even worse what happened to Gatlinburg, Tennessee during the same time. So it is a serious situation that we have got to address as the state and do it right now.”
In other matters, Troxler said his department has been working with the legislature on a package for the $5 billion in uninsured agricultural losses across the state this past year and how some farmers, including the largest egg facility in the state, have been affected by the High Path Avian Influenza.