California's Emergency Firefighting Budget Is Quickly Dwindling

CALIFORNIA -- As firefighters gain containment on several fires across California, the budget for battling blazes is dwindling. CNBC reported the state has spent $230 million of its funding on emergency firefighting in less than two months.

"That is more than half the state's $442.8 million annual so-called e-fund budget," CNBC reported.

A spokesperson for Cal Fire told CNBC firefighters have seen a rise in blazes across the state due to "extreme heat and dry conditions coupled with no shortage of vegetation fuels on the ground."

"There's also an estimated 129 million dead trees in California, most of it in the central and southern Sierras," CNBC reported.

The start of fire season hit hard for Californians who saw 11 people, including six firefighters, killed, hundreds of thousands of acres burned and more than 1,500 structures destroyed.

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As of Saturday morning, the deadliest of the blazes, the Carr Fire, scorched 224,000 acres and was 79 percent contained. Evacuations were lifted this week, weeks after the fire ignited and destroyed more than 1,000 homes and killed eight people.

The largest fire in California history, the Mendocino Complex Fire, was 76 percent after burned more than 330,000 acres. That fire destroyed nearly 300 structures and took the life of a Utah firefighter.

Elsewhere in the state, firefighters were also gaining headway against the Ferguson Fire in the Sierra National Forest and the Donnell Fire in the Stanislaus National Forest.

Photo: Trees burn in the Carr Fire on July 30, 2018 west of Redding, California. (Photo by Terray Sylvester/Getty Images)