WASHINGTON - The U.S. Forest Service and Interior Department’s practice of shifting money from other programs to pay for fighting wildfires has led to “widespread” problems and hurt the government’s fire prevention efforts, according to a new congressional report.

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The General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, said a chronic funding shortage has forced the Forest Service and Interior to cancel or delay some forest thinning projects and equipment purchases. It also has ”strained” relationships with other federal and state agencies.

In the last five years, the Forest Service and the Interior have transferred about $3 billion from other accounts to fight wildfires.

“In some cases, these cancellations and delays increased costs and the time needed to complete the projects,” the GAO wrote in its 68-page report released Thursday. “Transfers disrupted the agencies’ efforts to manage their programs, including budgeting and planning annual and long-term programs of work.”

The GAO report was requested by several members of Congress.

Firefighting efforts have been stressed since 2001, with more than 15 million acres (6.1 million hectares) of land burned in the United States, mostly across drought-stricken parts of the West. This year, half of the U.S. West is experiencing drought.

The GAO report said federal agencies need to improve their method for estimating wildfire suppression costs and conduct an annual assessment of the models they use to make forecasts.

Still, it is difficult for the Forest Service and Interior to estimate how much annual funding will be needed for wildfires because federal budgets are prepared more than a year before the corresponding wildfire season begins, the GAO said.

The report also proposed that Congress develop other approaches to fund wildfire fighting, but did not offer specific details.

Mark Rey, the U.S. Agriculture Department’s undersecretary of natural resources, told Congress last month the Forest Service would continue to borrow from other projects or ask Congress for extra money to pay for fighting fires when the budget was exceeded. The Forest Service is a division of the USDA.

“I don’t disagree” that the department needs to find better ways to pay for suppressing wildfires, said Rey. “But it’s the only avenue available.”

The Wilderness Society said in a recent report that the Forest Service and Interior have little incentive to control costs, and without tighter rules by Congress to limit borrowing, the process will continue.

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