U.S. senators, much as they might like to think otherwise, cannot always demand action and then get it. Like the rest of the world, they must operate within a system, and in their case the system is controlled by Harry Reid, D-Nev.

It is Reid, as Senate majority leader, who controls the Senate’s calendar, deciding what bills will be voted upon and when, among other things. That’s why Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley wrote to Reid and Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell earlier this week urging a quick vote on the Obama administration’s emergency supplemental funding request. That request includes some $615 million in emergency funds to fight wildfires, and Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., introduced it Wednesday.

As an emergency bill, there need be no hearings on the measure, but that seems unlikely. It contains some $2.73 billion in funds to handle the flood of children coming into this country from Central America, and Republicans in both the Senate and the House of Representatives have made clear they will not vote to approve spending that money.

Meanwhile, western wildfires continue to burn. In Oregon, nearly 600,000 acres were ablaze before a major thunderstorm moved across the state Tuesday, and by Wednesday morning, several small fires already had been reported as a result of that storm. Washington state, too, has at least half a dozen fires burning, and there are fires in several other western states.

Reid cannot force Republicans in either house to vote for a spending bill that includes money for undocumented child immigrants, of course, but he can do something else.

He can work to persuade Mikulski and members of the appropriations committee to separate the measure into two bills, one dealing with child immigrants, the other including funds for fighting wildfires and stepping up work on an Israeli anti-missile defense system. The latter would be less than $1 billion and could surely be approved by both houses without much difficulty.

The need for additional firefighting money is a true emergency, meanwhile. Forests and rangelands are burning now; houses and other buildings are being destroyed today. Westerners cannot wait for the Senate to take its own sweet time to act to fund the effort to save them.