"This is a godsend," said Matt Mathes, spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service's California region.

"We completely lost a lot of trails and roads due to landslides and erosion across the national forest in Southern California from the repeated heavy rains this winter," Mathes said. "Entire sections of roads are just simply gone. It was an unprecedented situation."

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the funding was attached to an $81 billion emergency-spending bill, chiefly to pay for the Iraq War. But the bill also includes money for tsunami relief, as well as famine aid to the devastated Dafur region of Sudan.

Feinstein called the funding critical to firefighting efforts in Southern California, noting that the floods washed away 90 percent of access roads in the region's national forests.

"If there is a serious fire this summer, crews simply won't be able to reach vast tracts of land, and entire forests could go up in smoke. This funding is urgently needed to fix the roads, protect communities and save lives," she said.

The funding includes $31.9 million to repair damaged fire roads and trails at the region's four national forests, and $2.4 million in National Forest System funding to repair campsites and other facilities.

"We were concerned about the impacts on recreational facilities," Mathes said, "but our primary concern was access for firefighters and evacuation routes for communities."

The bill also will include $103 million for emergency watershed protection, and Feinstein aides said $18 million of that pot is expected to fund local Southern California projects like stabilizing stream banks to protect homes and building temporary floodwalls and sediment storage basins to prevent flooding in Ventura, Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties.