Building Wildfire Resilience Through Forest Management and Community Adaption | Article

Rust red, sunless skies. Silvery smoke blanketing towns in a heavy haze. Orange blazes burning enormous expanses of forests. These haunting images could describe a scene from an apocalyptic movie, but for millions of residents throughout the western United States, they are a reality. In 2020 alone, more than 44,000 wildfires have burned across 11 states and destroyed more than seven million acres of land. As businesses halt and citizens evacuate, policy makers and local leaders around the country are searching for solutions to better protect communities.

Wildland fires are a natural phenomenon and have occurred throughout North America with variable frequencies and severities. In the right areas and at the right times, fires can provide many ecological benefits. However, enormous, high-intensity, and often unmanageable wildfires are becoming more frequent in western states. These extreme incidents are predominantly a result of historical management practices that focused on fire suppression as well as the worsening impacts of climate change.

In response to several catastrophic fires in the early 1900s, suppression and prevention became the national policy for wildfires. Widely successful (up to 95 percent of the time), these programs eliminated fires from the landscape for many decades and left dead, dry vegetation to accumulate within forests. This highly flammable material fuels wildfires and allows them to grow to great magnitudes.

Climate change is aggravating this already dangerous situation. Warming temperatures are forcing shifts in vegetation composition, expansions in drought conditions, and reductions in moisture availability. Together, these factors will lead to increases in the amount of accessible fuel and foster the dry environments conducive to wildfires.

Further, human development continues to encroach upon regions that are susceptible to fire, placing residents and their homes at greater risks. Today, approximately one in three homes in the United States is located in the wildland urban interface (WUI), areas where human presence and development come into contact with fire-prone vegetation. Far too often, the structures within these precarious environments fall victim to wildfires.

Dr. Kimiko Barrett, a researcher for Headwaters Economics and the Program Coordinator for the Community Planning Assistance for Wildfire (CPAW) project, describes the current situation: “It is a converging of multiple trends all happening, it's this perfect storm.”

To address the complex and diverse causes of these – destructive wildfires, mitigation strategies must take a multifaceted approach—one that involves individuals and decision-makers from all levels (i.e. local, state and federal), and incorporates both forest management and community resilience.

Forest management approaches largely rely on fuels reduction, through thinning and prescribed burns. Manual thinning is performed by crews working with their hands or machines to clear underbrush and prune densely packed areas of trees. Prescribed burns are small fires purposefully set under controlled conditions to reduce the amount of ground fuel. These strategies are beneficial in that they limit the availability of fuel and reduce the probability that intense, violent fires develop.

Yet, even when these fuel reduction initiatives are successfully implemented, fires remain a possibility. Preparing at-risk communities is essential to avoiding catastrophe. As the Program Coordinator for CPAW, Dr. Kimiko Barrett, does just that.

The program, created by Headwaters Economics and Wildfire Planning International, provides land use planning recommendations to WUI communities, enabling them to become better adapted to wildfires. The consulting team works directly with town officials to create customized solutions that are appropriate and applicable.

Their proposals cover building codes, subdivision ordinances, and zoning laws, which regulate how, where, and under what conditions development occurs. They also emphasize the importance of adequate infrastructure, such as accessible roads for evacuation and emergency response, as well as sufficient water supply. At the homeowner level, they urge proper vegetation management. CPAW not only provides communities with comprehensive resilience plans, but also maintains a longstanding relationship with each one to ensure the adoption of these strategies. In addition, towns can receive hazard assessments that identify specific areas of risk, capacity trainings that educate public officials on mitigation planning, and research that is customized to their individual needs. CPAW is currently working with more than 70 different communities.

Integrating forest management and community resilience strategies provide feasible, useful solutions for those at risk. However, federal land management policies in recent years have focused primarily on fuel reductions strategies. Moving forward, Dr. Barrett asserts, “We need to very actively start thinking about our community planning now to prevent a wildfire disaster in the future.”

A bipartisan bill, recently introduced to the Senate, addresses both of these different strategies. Proposed by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Steve Daines (R. Mont.), The Emergency Wildfire and Public Safety Act of 2020 (S.4431) includes three key provisions: it would provide incentives for harvesting dead trees, increase fire breaks and prescribed burns, and improve community resilience in fire-prone areas. At a legislative hearing held earlier this month by the Senate subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests and Mining, the United States Forest Service and Department of the Interior expressed support for the goals of the bill with some provisions.

Wildfires pose an intricate and evolving problem each season. The need for proactive, as opposed to reactive, solutions is clear. While change at the federal level moves slowly, communities can and are already taking the first steps. As Dr. Barrett says, “That is where the most hope and change can come from.”

Author: Emma Walker