WILDFIRESNew Federal Wildfire Plan Is Ambitious – but the Forest Service Needs More Money and People to Fight the Growing Risks
As foresters who have been working on wildfire and forest restoration issues in the Sierra Nevada for over a quarter of a century, the main lesson we gather from how wildfires have burned is that fuels reduction and forest restoration projects are our best tools for mitigating wildfire impacts amid a changing climate, and not nearly enough of them are being done.
People living in the western U.S. have been concerned about wildfires for a long time, but the past two years have left many of them fearful and questioning whether any solutions to the fire crisis truly exist.
The Dixie Fire in the Sierra Nevada burned nearly 1 million acres in 2021, including almost the entire community of Greenville, California. Then strong winds near Lake Tahoe sent the Caldor Fire racing toward homes, forcing the evacuation of tens of thousands of people – including one of us. They followed destructive wildfires in 2020 in California, and Colorado and Oregon also saw devastating fires in the past two years.
As foresters who have been working on wildfire and forest restoration issues in the Sierra Nevada for over a quarter of a century, the main lesson we gather from how these fires have burned is that fuels reduction and forest restoration projects are our best tools for mitigating wildfire impacts amid a changing climate, and not nearly enough of them are being done.
A new 10-year plan announced by the U.S. Forest Service in early 2022 aims to change that. It outlines an ambitious strategy, but Congress will now have to follow through with enough funding to carry it out.
Fuels Reduction Projects Can Work
The Dixie and Caldor fires provided evidence that forest fuels reduction projects can work.
The fires spread quickly over vast areas, but both burned less severely in areas with proactive forest restoration and fuels management projects, including near South Lake Tahoe and near Quincy.
Fuels reduction projects include thinning out trees, burning off woody debris and reducing “ladder fuels” like small trees and brush that can allow fire to reach the tree canopy. Forest restoration projects focus on forest structure, density and composition as well as reducing fuels.
These projects create more open forests that are less likely to fuel severe megafires. They also create strategic areas where firefighters can more easily fight future blazes. And because fires burn less intensely in thinned forests, these projects leave more intact forest after a fire for regenerating new trees and sequestering carbon.
A New 10-Year Plan
The Forest Service’s new 10-year plan sets a goal to treat as much as 50 million additional acres across the West over 10 years, just under 80,000 square miles. For comparison, the Forest Service treats around 2 million to 3 million acres a year now.
