THE PROBLEM
Annual funding cycles cannot sustain multi-year treatments
Wildfire prevention is structurally underfunded — not for lack of political attention or scientific knowledge, but because no financing mechanism exists capable of sustaining multi-phase treatment sequences across multiple years.
Capital timing mismatch
Mechanical thinning, prescribed fire, and maintenance re-entry must occur in sequence over 5–20 years. Annual appropriations arrive unpredictably, are vulnerable to suppression diversion, and cannot guarantee later phases are funded when initial work is done.
No market mechanism for private capital
Wildfire prevention generates public benefits but no project-level revenue. Without a performance-based statutory incentive, private capital — utilities, insurers, corporations — has no scalable entry point into prevention financing.
Suppression crowding out prevention
Decades of "fire borrowing" — diverting prevention funds to suppression during active fire seasons — have entrenched a structural bias toward reactive spending over durable risk reduction.
Contractor demand uncertainty
Without bankable, multi-year project pipelines, thinning contractors and burn bosses cannot justify investing in crew expansion or equipment — perpetuating the workforce constraints that slow throughput even when appropriations are adequate.