White House Releases Wildland Fire Management Strategy

Prolonged heat, drought, pests and decades of accumulated fuel-build up in our forests have contributed to ever-worsening wildfire seasons. Wildfire season lasts two months longer and burns twice as much land as compared to 40 years ago. The U.S. National Climate Assessment predicts that for every 1.8 degree of surface temperature rise, the Western wildfire area may quadruple. 2014 is looking like it will be no exception this trend, with deep and prolonged drought still gripping most of the West. According to the USDA, fire suppression has grown “from 13 percent of the agency’s [U.S. Forest Service] budget just 10 years ago to over 40 percent in 2014.”

In 2009, Congress acted to substantively shift the way that wildfires are treated with the Federal Land, Assistance, Management, and Enhancement Act of 2009 (FLAME Act), Title V of the Fiscal Year 2010 Appropriations Act (P.L. 111-88). FLAME aims to provide a cohesive strategy to deal with wildfires as well as a bank of surplus wildfire fighting funds to be available for bigger years, as 2013 turned out to be. The FLAME Act also directs the Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture to prepare a “cohesive wildfire management strategy” for Congress. The National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy is the product of that directive, and it addresses reducing wildfire risk to forest and rangeland, property and life. Factors of wildfire risk discussed in the report include climate change, increased sprawl, pests, and disease.

In the meantime, FLAME’s funding mechanism has not lived up to expectations. Between 2011 and 2013, Congress transferred $680 million out of the fund for other unrelated purposes. By the end of last year, wildfire costs had topped $1 billion dollars for 2013 alone. The sequester also forced cuts to the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) – they began 2013 with 500 fewer firefighters and 50 fewer fire engines. These cuts left USFS ill-equipped to manage 193 million acres of federal lands nationwide in what turned out to be one of the most disastrous wildfire seasons on record. President Obama’s 2015 budget proposal would create a $954 million emergency disaster fund to be administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which would address the largest 1 percent of wildfires, which account for 30 percent of the wildfire fighting budget. However, more action is needed to merge forest resiliency and wildfire fighting. The future doesn’t have to be filled with ever-worsening wildfires. The Strategy addresses proactive approaches such as fuel thinning; controlled burns; better building and zoning codes, including watersheds, transportation and utility corridors in management plans; and actions to reduce human-caused ignitions, all of which could make a difference in wildfire risk.

Hopefully, the administration’s three-pronged approach: best-management practices described in the Strategy, dedicated wildfire funding, and additional measures laid out in the President’s Climate Action Plan will lead to less deadly wildfire seasons. Better forest management, including expanded bioenergy and biobased products could also help to restore forest ecosystems. Controlled burns are less than ideal in many areas – they create unhealthy particulate matter and can quickly become uncontrollable wildfires. While thinning operations usually deliver timber that is not suitable for lumber, the material is an excellent feedstock for bioenergy and other forestry products such as composite wood-building materials. In many areas of the country, including much of the mountainous West, the Strategy finds that thinning activities would be beneficial but would not be supported by the traditional timber industry. These areas represent tremendous opportunities for other kinds of forestry products and biofuels. Sustainable forestry can also provide greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2) sequestration in long-lived wood products. According to research recently released in the Journal of Sustainable Forestry by researchers at the Yale School of Forestry and the University of Washington, “More CO2 can be sequestered synergistically in the products or wood energy and landscape together than in the unharvested landscape.” Wood building products also offset the GHGs created by the production of energy intensive steel and concrete. Unfortunately, the role of bioenergy and forestry products other than lumber is only alluded to in the Wildland Fire Management Strategy. More action at the federal level is needed to merge the concepts of forest resiliency and sustainable forestry products. By expanding the market for forestry products and promoting sustainable forestry practices, forests can be better adapted and more resilient to a changing climate. Productive, healthy forests are our best available wildfire fighting tool.