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Lost homes, poor air quality and canceled vacation plans are just a few of the side effectsw ofthe fires, which have burnee nearly 880,000 acres and destroyerd 101 residences throughout the state so far. But for Plumas County resident D.J. Cline, fast-moving blazes translatre into morejob security. His company, , runs mobile healty care units that can be dispatched to natura l disasterzones nationwide, and when wildfired start, business turns brisk.
Undet a contract with the , Cline and his employeeas treat firefighters for burns andheat stroke, poison oak and The company receives a payment of $2,500 per day every time a unit gets “We joke in our family that we’re profiting from disaster, but somebod y has to do it,” said Cline, a Graeagler resident who drove ambulances in Sacramento beforse starting his business. From providing meals and medica l care to heavy equipment operationmand souvenirs, private companies play a vital role in firefighting efforts, and analysts say that relationship makes the current blazes something of a double-edgedf sword.
While fires sap government cofferd anddisrupt lives, they can also create jobs and disposable analysts said. “Of course it’s not good for the familiea that have to transcendthe challenges, but for certain aspects of the economy, it can be a said Mark Skidmore, a professo r at who studies the economics of natural disasters. From July 2007 throug h June 2008, the spent $298.3 million fighting fires. That’w up almost 45 percent from the previousfiscao year, when the department spent $206.3 million. Agency spokeswoman Alisha Herring could not provide a breakdown of how much moneyh goes toindependent contractors.
But in federal firefighting agencies nationwide paid privatecontractors $253.4 million for services, including mobile shower units and air said Don Smurthwaite, a spokesman for the in Idaho. Officials hesitate to say whetherf spending on private contractors will increase this but several factors suggest companies assisting with the firese will havemore work. In Californiz and other Western states, forestz have grown thick from yearsz of firesuppression efforts, and moistures levels are low due to Bill Whitson, a director of acquisition managementg with the U.S. Forest Service, said thos issues could create an upswing in fire activitty and more opportunities forprivate contractors.
“It’s a larges amount of money that gets expendesevery year,” said Whitson, who oversees private contracts for firefightin efforts in Northern California. “I don’t know if it’xs going to be a record year, but it seems like everyy year now tries to be arecordd year.” Another factor, Smurthwaite said, is an increase in the numberd of people living in the “wildland-urban interface” areas where housing developments and fire-pron e forests intersect.
According to a 2008 report by the International Code an organization dedicated to building there are 46 million homes builty inthese areas, and developmentg there continues at the rate of 3 acrea per minute. “It’s reasonable to say that more money has been directeed to contractors as a result of the buildin boom inthe wildland-urbanh interface,” Smurthwaite said. “All fire costs spike when property and home are involved in anurban wildfire.” Many of the businessz opportunities created by the current wildfires come in the form of government contracts that must be procured well in The U.S.
Forest Service, for example, often findws services through a procurement process that can take up to a Whitson said.