Wildfire Management

A Position of the Society of American Foresters

Position

The Society of American Foresters (SAF) recognizes the key role fire plays in many forest and range ecosystems. The SAF believes active and comprehensive management of vegetation can reduce the risk of unacceptable wildfire losses. This approach is essential for sustaining the nation’s forests and rangeland ecosystems and the values people expect from them.

The National Fire Plan (USDA-FS and USDI-BLM 2001) was a policy response to widespread wildfires that burned across 8.4 million acres in 2000, mostly in the West. The need for effectively implementing the Plan (see WGA et al. 2002) was illuminated in 2002 when 6.7 million acres burned. These were the two largest fire seasons in the past 50 years, both doubling the 10-year average (NIFC 2002). The Plan’s four goals are:

1. Improve fire prevention and suppression,
2. Reduce hazardous fuels,
3. Restore fire-adapted ecosystems, and
4. Promote community assistance.

In support of the National Fire Plan, the SAF advocates

·        well funded and well trained fire management organizations that are capable of carrying out fire management activities including fuels management, prevention, education, and suppression in an effective and safe manner. Firefighter and public safety should be the first priority and should never be compromised.

·        a comprehensive approach to fuel management including the full range of silvicultural tools available to treat fuel composition, density, and structure. Appropriate silvicultural tools include mechanical manipulation, such as thinning and timber harvest, and fire. The use of selected tools should be carefully planned and implemented by qualified professionals, with full recognition of the effects, costs and benefits of the treatments. Fire, whether manager-ignited (prescribed fire) or naturally ignited fire used for management purposes, must be implemented within the guides of carefully prepared plans.

·        timely rehabilitation activities following wildfires where appropriate. Timely rehabilitation reduces the risk of long-term soil damage from surface erosion and landslides. The removal of dead and dying trees reduces the fuel for reburns and recovers some of the economic value.

·        efforts by natural resource and fire management agencies to coordinate with private landowners and tribal, state, and local governments to plan and implement strategies across ownerships, including education and training, such as the FireWise program, at the community level, as many of the people moving into the wildland-urban interface are not well informed on how to protect themselves and their property from wildfire, and especially the need to manage fuels.

Furthermore, the SAF advocates the use of prescribed fire where it can be effectively and safely used to restore and maintain desired forest and range conditions and reduce unacceptably high risks to human life, property damage, and resource values. However, due to highly successful suppression practices developed and implemented throughout much of the last century, as well as some land-use practices, many forests have accumulated too much fuel to use prescribed fire alone, and tree removal will be necessary. The SAF therefore recommends a comprehensive approach using restoration-based fuel reduction treatments, thus effectively combining goals two and three of the National Fire Plan. This will in some cases reduce the cost of fuel treatments over time by creating stand conditions less susceptible to crown fires and diminishing the need for frequent understory fuel treatments.

Issue

High intensity fires often result in unacceptable risk to the public and firefighters, property, and a variety of ecological, economic, and social values. Suppression and rehabilitation costs increase significantly with high intensity fires. When fires occur in the proximity of residences, called the wildland-urban interface, risks and cost escalate even higher, adding to the complexity of fire management.

Across the United States, 181 million acres of forests and rangelands are at risk of catastrophic, high intensity fires (USDA-FS 2001). Many forests have excessively high fuel levels compared to historic conditions, when fire played a more prominent ecological role.  Rangelands have been impacted by the invasion of undesirable native and non-native species resulting in increased fire frequency and intensity.

Serious and potentially permanent ecological deterioration is possible where fuel loads exceed historical conditions. In many areas it is impracticable to reintroduce fire into these ecosystems without first reducing and/or rearranging the fuels. Enormous public and private values are at high risk, and our nation's capability to respond to this threat is becoming overextended (USDA and USDI 1995).

Background

Fire has been a part of most forests and rangeland ecosystems for thousands of years.  Naturally-ignited and human-ignited fires played a role in shaping the vegetative patterns over much of the country, particularly in the west.  Following several large forest fires in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, a national policy to quickly suppress fires was initiated.  Land management organizations became very successful in suppressing fires, effectively excluding fire from the periodic role it played in many ecosystems.  The inadvertent introduction of exotic plant species and some past land-use practices have also lead to unintended changes to many forest and rangeland ecosystems. 

The results of past practices and fire exclusion have resulted in forests and rangelands with different fuel composition, density, and structure compared to historic conditions.  These conditions have lead to wildfires of greater intensity and severity than have been experienced for several decades.  Large, intense wildfires have proven difficult to control and have resulted in catastrophic damage to property and resources, and the tragic loss of lives.

Many people, desiring to enjoy the rural lifestyle have constructed homes in and around the forests.  These residences, in the wildland-urban interface, have added to the complexity of fire management.  Education efforts are needed to inform these people of the risks of living in wildland fire prone environments, and on how to protect their property, firefighters, and themselves from wildfire.

The increase in wildland-urban residences and the increase in high intensity wildfires prompted over the past few decades have resulted in changes to wildland fire policy at all levels of government.  The National Fire Plan (USDA-FS and USDI-BLM 2001) and its subsequent implementation plan (WGA et al. 2002) have been developed to address the policy changes through striving to achieve four goals; improving fire prevention and suppression, reducing hazardous fuels, restoring fire-adapted ecosystems, and promoting community assistance. 

    References Cited

NIFC (National Interagency Fire Center) 2002. National Fire News: Wildland Fires of 2002 Summary – A Season of Challenge and Accomplishment. [Online]: http://www.nifc.gov/fireinfo/nfn.html [6 Nov. 2002].

USDA-FS (U.S. Dept. of Agriculture – Forest Service) 2001. Historical Fire Regimes by Current Condition Classes – Data Summary Tables. Fire Sciences Laboratory, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Missoula, MT. [Online]: http://www.taxpayer.net/forest/learnmore/govreports/2-15-00FSfire.pdf [6 Nov. 2002].

USDA-FS and USDI (U.S. Dept. of Agriculture – Forest Service and U.S. Dept. of the Interior 1995. Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy and Program Review. See January 2001 Review and Update [online]: http://www.nifc.gov/fire_policy/ [6 Nov. 2002].

USDA-FS and USDI-BLM (U.S. Dept. of Agriculture – Forest Service and U.S. Dept. of the Interior – Bureau of Land Management) 2001. The National Fire Plan: Managing the Impacts of Wildfires on the Communities and the Environment. [Online]: http://www.fireplan.gov/index.cfm [6 Nov. 2002].

WGA et al. (Western Governors Association, USDA-FS, USDI-BLM, and others). 2002. A Collaborative Approach for Reducing Wildland Fire Risks to Communities and the Environment: 10-Year Comprehensive Strategy, Implementation Plan. [Online]:  http://www.fireplan.gov/10yrIPfinal.pdf [6 Nov. 2002].