Trump cuts fire research as the West prepares to burn
Just as the American West gets ready for a historically bad fire season, the White House wants to slash the budget for the people who actually study smoke and fire.
The plan is to downsize the U.S. Forest Service and completely wipe out its wildfire and smoke research programs.
Studying how smoke travels and how fires spread seems like a pretty useful thing when half the country turns orange every summer. But apparently, the current administration thinks that's just unnecessary paperwork.
Cutting the budget for fire science right before fire season is like firing the lifeguards because you want to save money on whistles.
The idea seems to be that if we don't research the smoke, maybe we won't notice we're breathing it.
Ignorance is bliss, until the backyard is on fire.
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