In order to help deal with the state’s $438 million budget shortfall, Jon Baldacci, the Governor of Maine, is proposing that nearly all funding for wildfire suppression be eliminated. There is also a proposal to sell one of the newer helicopters owned by the Department of Conservation. Most of the helicopters the department operates are from the Vietnam war era.
As you probably know, there is a lot of this going around, with city, county, and state governments cutting or threatening to cut the budgets for their fire departments.
UPDATE Jan. 9:
The information above was obtained from the Maine Public Broadcasting Network.
Well, he’ll likely change his tune when Maine’s forests burn unchecked and ruins the tourism. But of course then it will be too late. Just as Los Angeles residents about what happens when budgets get cut. Can you say “Station Fire?”
Homeland security includes fighting fire. Will the governor then contract everything out to “stimulate” the economy after a wildfire comes through and shows the err in his decision?
But we can hand 143 million dollars like candy to Yemen for “terrorist fighting.”
October 1947, I guess the Governor of Maine is not familiar with the history of his own state.