By Theresa Opeka
Carolina Journal
North Carolina Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler talked about the wildfires that crews have been battling across the state at Tuesday’s Council of State meeting. They come at a time when there are at least 100 open positions at North Carolina Forest Service.
He said there are two reasons why.
“Salary, that’s the number one reason, but also, we’re not raising as many young folks that have an interest in the outdoors and firefighting, and quite frankly, volunteer fire departments have always been the catalyst for young people to decide to go into firefighting either through the Forest Service or municipal,” Troxler told council members. “We don’t have the base to draw from that we did, and the salaries are low, but we’re in a dangerous, dangerous situation. The fire in Polk County is the one that, of course, Helene went through, and we have a tremendous load of fuel on the ground, and before, we used to use logging roads and private roads to be able to get to the fire, and many of them are damaged or closed, so it takes extra time and extra personnel.”
He noted that they have partnered with local volunteer fire departments, but most of them are also understaffed.
“We’ve got two 24-year-old worn-out helicopters and a lot of worn-out bulldozers, so we’ve got to make a concerted effort to rebuild the North Carolina Forest Service to the capacity that we need,” Troxler said. “When you see these fires in Los Angeles, and you see the devastation that can happen, it’s not California that ranks number one in the interface of wildfires and people and buildings, it is North Carolina. So not only do we have that to worry about and the large fuel load that we have on the ground, but if we continue with the dry conditions further into the spring with wind, we can get into serious problems, and I still think about the horrors that happened in 2016 in the mountains and even worse what happened to Gatlinburg, Tennessee during the same time. So it is a serious situation that we have got to address as the state and do it right now.”
In other matters, Troxler said his department has been working with the legislature on a package for the $5 billion in uninsured agricultural losses across the state this past year and how some farmers, including the largest egg facility in the state, have been affected by the High Path Avian Influenza.
Theresa Opeka is the Executive Branch reporter for the Carolina Journal.
Why are we, the taxpayers, paying farmers for their uninsured losses?!?!? Talk about pork barrel spending! If they chose not to buy crop insurance, that’s on THEM. Why should we subsidize snowflakes who don’t think ahead? #VoteOutIncumbents #MAGA
Welp, I agree with you on the land; however, the same government you say shouldn’t have to pay ORDERED farmers to destroy millions of chickens and millions of eggs there snowflake. Should the government not pay for the chickens and eggs since the farmers weren’t given a choice? Imagine living in a world where the government can order you around. That’s the world farmers live in. #UsesSnowflakeInEveryPost #Snowflake #SNOWFLAKE
Hoping that yhe FDA is the next department to get DOGEd! Just because your flock tests positive for a highly contagious disease is no reason to cull the flock! Herd immunity will eventually win out.
@Yup: You’re confusing the FEDERAL (FDA) government with the State. You Snowflakes need a civics lesson.
Yeet!
Sadly, the farmers (for the most part) have been beholding to the governments (state and federal) since the 20’s and 30’s. They get subsidies, get told what to plant, what not to plant, government controls prices of milk, corn and wheat via allocation, they tell farmers HOW TO FARM, under the guise of sustainability…it’s insane. And now we have Brooke Rollins (who allegedly grew up on a farm, came from a farming family or whatever), approving a vaccination for chickens, to include backyard flocks. We are so far from Kansas Dorothy.