Forest fire prevention cost put in billions

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Forest Service would have to spend $3.5 billion, roughly its annual budget, to deal with health and wildfire concerns on just 10 percent of the national forest lands in the West, a congressional report says.

Salvage logging, prescribed burning and other forest fire prevention operations would probably cost an average of about $250 per acre over about 1.4 million of the 14 million acres of national forests in the region, the Congressional Research Service said yesterday.