NOTUS: The U.S. Forest Service Is Falling Further Behind on Wildfire Prevention

President Donald Trump and his top Cabinet officials haverepeatedlyblamedthe most catastrophic wildfires on poor forest management. His administration, however, appears to be lagging on that very work.
In the first nine months of this year, the United States Forest Service slowed its rate of prescribed burns, tree thinning and other fire-prevention work across its hundreds of millions of acres of land, according to an outside analysis of U.S. Forest Service data being circulated by Democratic senators.
Sens. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and nine other Democratic senators wrote the Forest Service on Tuesday, demanding details about staffing levels and plans to meet wildfire mitigation needs.