Uncontrolled wild fires can wreak havoc on areas prone to them.
One Oregon-based company has benefited from the Recovery Act and is now paid to prevent forest fires by creating them in the first place.
CNN Money.com highlighted the forest fire prevention company in Stimulus dollars at work: Fighting forest fires.
PatRick Environmental create small fires in prone areas that help promote the growth of new trees and thin-out thick areas so that unexpected wild fires don't cause the problems that they have done in areas such as California.
Paul Solarz, the operations manager of the company, said: "The competition has become so fierce over the past two years.
"We used to bid on a contract and ten people would also bid. But now when there's an opening, 40 to 50 people will bid. We've had to be careful on how we bid, because others are willing to underbid just to get the work."
Of its total of 20 employees, five are in Oregon, but he noted that there are an additional 300 workers that come in to create or put out fires as necessary.
PatRick Environmental recently landed a contract to deal with areas of Oregon's Deschutes & Ochoco National Forest and Crooked River National Grass Lands, worth around $711,000.
Both areas are close to small communities that can be under threat from the wildfires that, according to the public affairs officer for Deschutes & Ochoco, Sue Olsen, happen "just about every year".
The recent contract to deal with the thinning of forests has had positive effects on other companies, with Solarz suggesting that there has been a ripple effect on local businesses, with supply and equipment orders up by ten per cent.
Duane Barker, sales and management specialist at distributor Southwick, said: "They ordered three times in a one month period - while it's not above and beyond for PatRick, any normal order we've received in the last 16 months is good.
He went on to claim that "a lot of other clients are not doing normal business".
Although he admitted that no one would get rich off the back of profits from the contract, he said that it meant that many could now "weather the recession".
"This is important to the local communities because the money goes back to them," he added.
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