The cost of fighting frequent wildfires in the nation’s forests is draining dollars from non-fire-related portions of the budget, leaving less money for ecological restoration, road and trail repairs and fire prevention, according to a federal report released Monday.

With fire seasons running 60-80 days longer and burning twice as many acres compared to three decades ago, the raiding of national forest budgets will continue, especially in California where the prolonged drought has left plant moisture low and fire danger high, said the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Forest Service.

“We are having more and bigger fires and those fires are burning more intensely,” said Tom Harbour, the Forest Service’s director of fire and aviation management. “Obviously, they are costing more money.”

The median projected cost of the Forest Service and the Department of Interior budgets for fighting wildfires is $1.8 billion this year, that’s more than $470 million above these agencies’ fire suppression budgets, according to a report released in May.

The agencies predict the cost of fighting wildfires this year could climb to more than $1 billion above the amount budgeted.

Their state counterpart, Cal Fire, has responded to 900 wildfires that have torched 2,400 acres from Jan. 1 through April 5, up from 340 fires and 1,000 acres burned in the same time period in an average year.

The USFS must do everything it can to protect life and property, even if that means raiding accounts set aside for other projects such as firefighting infrastructure and wildlife management, Harbour said.

Over the past 12 years, these agencies shifted $3.2 billion from other programs into putting out wildfires, according to the report.

In Southern California, deep cracks in a taxiway at Fox Field in Palmdale used by air tankers carrying water or fire retardant to a wildfire will remain unrepaired for at least another year, “increasing safety concerns for air tankers utilizing this taxiway,” according to the report.

In the Angeles National Forest, the Forest Service in 2012 had to forego work on Dry Gulch Road off Lake Hughes Road near Santa Clarita. The area was slated for “critical ecological restoration” but the project had to be canceled, the report stated. Jobs were lost and the economy impacted, the report noted.

In the San Bernardino National Forest, the acquisition of Fleming Ranch was not fully funded. The Forest Service was supposed to buy the entire 1,128 acres but could not afford to because funds were transferred to firefighting, explained John Heil, USFS spokesman for the Pacific Southwest Region.

Instead, only 808 acres have been purchased and integrated into the San Bernardino National Forest, he said. The remaining 320 acres remain in private ownership.“With longer and more severe wildfire seasons, the current way that the U.S. Forest Service and the Department of Interior budget for wildland fire is unsustainable,” noted Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

Vilsack has asked the Obama Administration to give the Forest Service access to emergency funds for fighting wildfires. The new funding approach, supported by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, would allow federal agencies sending firefighters and air support into forest fires the ability to dip into emergency set-aside funding rather than raid other parts of their budgets.

This would be similar to other health and safety agencies drawing on emergency funds after an earthquake or a hurricane.

“Until firefighting is reated like other natural disasters that can draw on emergency funding, firefighting expenditures will continue to disrupt forest restoration and management, research, and other activities that help manage our forests and reduce future catastrophic wildfire,” Vilsack said.