U.S. Forest Service officials said December and January’s partial government shutdown caused the agency to miss wildfire prevention and mitigation work normally done each winter to reduce the severity of wildfires during peak season.

Brenda Kendrix, spokeswoman for the Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest region, said the shutdown delayed forest management and fire prevention efforts throughout California’s National Forests.

“Here in California, one tremendous impact of the shutdown was missing out on five weeks of winter forest management that we utilize to mitigate fire hazards using prescribed burns and other techniques,” she said. “Each forest is out gauging priority work and making decisions that will help us move forward proactively.”

Weather conditions dictate when the Forest Service conducts both prescribed burns and pile burns, which can be dangerous when the forests are dry. In the San Bernardino National Forest, rangers missed opportune conditions for prevention work, which the agency calls “burn windows,” during the 35-day shutdown, forest spokesman Zach Berens said.

Berens said it’s difficult to discern whether the agency’s prevention work is behind schedule, compared to past years, because weather also varies from year to year. And although the shutdown lasted five weeks, Berens noted that the agency never conducts burns, which can spread layers of smoke to residential areas, over the holidays.

“In general, it’s all about the conditions, so when I look at last year, around this time, or the during period where the shutdown took place, we weren’t doing any prescribed burning because the weather was not in our favor until February,” Berens said.

Berens remains confident, he said, in the Forest Service’s ability to carry out necessary fire prevention work before the peak season.

“Despite potentially missed burn windows,” he said, “we are working to complete our projects and feel challenges can be mitigated.”

On Feb. 1, U.S. Reps. Raul Ruiz, D-Palm Desert, and Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, sent a letter to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, who oversees the Forest Service, rebuking the agency and demanding answers about the 35 day shutdown’s effect on fire prevention.

The letter, which was co-signed by 40 California members of Congress, connects the shutdown to fire prevention months after President Donald Trump condemned the Golden State for its wildfire-fighting strategy in November. Two months later, Trump again accused California of poorly managing its wildlands and threatened to withhold FEMA funding from the state. Federal agencies manage nearly half of the 100 million acres that make up California, including some of the state’s most wildfire-prone.

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“The loss of over a month of prevention and mitigation efforts could have disastrous effects, and therefore we urge you to take immediate action to make up for lost time,” the congressmen wrote.

In the letter, Ruiz and Thompson asked the Department for a “full accounting of the delayed activities,” to determine the number of acres that should have been cleared of dry brush and excess fuels during the shutdown, the training activities delayed, and the status of efforts to hire additional personnel for peak wildfire season.

The Forest Service has yet to provide the accounting the congressmen request in their letter, but Kendrix, the Pacific Southwest region spokeswoman, said the agency had rescheduled missed trainings and was continuing efforts to hire more firefighters for peak season.

In an interview with The Desert Sun, Ruiz noted the importance of fire prevention work for communities like Idyllwild, which are still reeling from the effects of the Cranston Fire. His office, he said, had learned of the delays from two firefighter unions, the National Association of State Foresters and the Federal Wildland Fire Service Association.

“We found there was a lack of progress and pause that can potentially put us at an exponential risk if we don’t address it in double time,” Ruiz said. “Summer’s going to come with a vengeance.”

Sam Metz covers politics. Reach him at samuel.metz@desertsun.com or on Twitter @metzsam.