These fires can somtimes spiral out of control - here are some examples in Colorado and New Mexico - and when they do, people get pissed. Meanwhile, allowing smaller managed fires to burn isn't as simple as it sounds. And then, in order to fight those massive raging wildfires, they end up raiding their prevention funds. Forest managers have limited resources for fire prevention, which in turn allows massive wildfires to rage. But programs to thin out forests or set smaller prescribed fires are part of a more limited prevention fund - and this money often gets diverted during severe wildfires to pay for firefighting. The US Forest Service, for example, gets dedicated annual appropriations from Congress to suppress wildfires, and this budget gets supplemented by emergency funding. One problem is that perverse budget incentives at play. So, in this newest Science paper, a team of researchers led by Malcolm North of University of California, Davis, tried to figure out why the US Forest Service and other agencies still favor suppressing the vast majority of wildfires over other prevention methods. Why it's so difficult to implement a more sensible fire policy But putting this policy into practice is much harder than it sounds. The thing is, most forest managers are aware of all this. One 2012 study, by Scott Stephens of UC-Berkeley, suggested that intentionally setting "prescribed fires" in forests was a viable method of clearing out the surface brush and preventing even more catastrophic, canopy-killing fires from breaking out. Still, it's a key part of fire prevention.Īnother option would be to allow smaller managed fires that clear out brush. That's not always as simple as it sounds, since in some forests there are legal constraints around this, in other there are practical hurdles, and in some places it's just plain expensive. In some places, that would involve "mechanical thinning": going in and selectively logging or clearing out undergrowth. One obvious way to prevent these hugely destructive megafires would be to reduce the amount of accumulated fuel in dry forests. The scale of these "megafires," which can spread all the way up to the canopy and kill off large trees, appears to be unprecedented in the historical record. The surrounding forests became denser with undergrowth, which meant that the handful of fires that did break free have much more fuel to burn. Today, 98 percent of fires are stopped before they get bigger than 300 acres. As the region's population grew, forest managers began suppressing smaller fires to protect nearby towns. They helped maintain a healthy ecosystem. But, in the distant past, data from tree rings show, these were often low-intensity "surface" fires that cleared out undergrowth and left the bigger trees standing. Large wildfires have long been a natural feature of the Western landscape. How decades of fire suppression made our wildfire problem worse And a fascinating new paper in Science by a team of fire experts asks why we don't, exploring some of the perverse political incentives standing in the way of a more sensible wildfire policy. It'd also make forests more resilient in the face of drought and fire. That wouldn't stop all large wildfires, but it would help reduce the number of truly massive infernos that form. We could reduce the available fuel in forests, either through selective logging or by allowing smaller controlled fires to burn periodically, clearing out brush. (Malcom North/National Interagency Fire Center Statistics)Īs it happens, there are plenty of good ideas about how to alleviate this problem. US wildfire size and cost trends over the last 30 years. So, when a large fire does escape our control, it has more fuel to burn - and can become far, far more destructive: Over the last century, we've been suppressing the vast majority of wildfires and letting forests build up thickly with plant growth. The US Forest Service is now breaking its budget on fire protection.īut there's another reason for the rise in large fires that often gets less attention. We're also building more homes in fire-prone areas, making blazes much costlier. Climate change is one oft-cited culprit, with hotter, drier weather helping fires spread. There's broad agreement that wildfires in the American West are getting worse over time.
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