A report from the Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission confirms an increasingly acknowledged phenomenon: that intense, destructive wildfires are the new normal.
The number of wildfires and acreage consumed by wildfires in the United States unquestionably has increased over the past several decades, accelerating in the late 1980s. Decreased forest health due to insects and disease in some older forest stands has been linked to increasing wildfire severity, with climate change–driven drought exacerbating the unstable conditions. For fire-maintained ecosystems, such as the ponderosa pine forests of the interior western United States, aggressive wildfire suppression over the past century has created a fuel-rich environment. In moister forests, the increased frequency of climate change–driven droughts has created conditions that increase the probability of wildfire. And in all cases, the influx of homes and residential communities into undeveloped areas, along with the necessary transportation and power infrastructure, creates additional areas of risk.
A report by the federally established Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission was released at the end of September. The findings and recommendations in the report reflect an integrated approach to wildfire that underscores the need to consider the wildfire continuum, recognizing that sufficient investments in pre-fire management and post-fire restoration and rehabilitation must be commensurate with support for wildfire suppression. Information and financial resources are needed for local communities to better predict wildfire incidents, prepare for wildfire, and plan out scenarios for post-fire recovery. Perhaps the most significant change in attitude is that wildfire mitigation and management must become normalized at every level of government, especially in the current context of a changing climate and changing ecosystems.
While the pattern of wildfires increasing in extent and severity became clear in 1988 with the big burns in Yellowstone National Park, Idaho, and Alaska, the urgency for action accelerated in 2019–2022 as communities such as Paradise, California, and Boulder, Colorado, were overtaken by wildfires that led to extensive loss of human life and property.
Considering the Wildfire “Continuum”
Massive amounts of funding go into wildfire suppression once a fire starts, often through supplemental budget appropriations, and post-fire projects tend to be limited to rehabilitation. In contrast, just a fraction of the cost of suppression can support wildfire prevention and the implementation of mitigation measures. The Congressional Research Service reported on the allocation of wildfire funding in 2011–2020, finding that, while fuels reduction comprised about 20 percent of the combined budgets for the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of the Interior in 2011, that proportion fell to about 10 percent in 2020 as the costs of suppression continued to increase.
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The recent large-scale wildfires have motivated more discussions that consider all aspects of wildfire as a continuum, with management integrated across the timeline from pre-fire to post-fire. Like many bureaucratic systems, agency response is siloed and driven by regulation, other government bodies that receive authority from legislation, and specific appropriations.
Pre-fire activities, such as hazardous-fuels reduction, often are implemented by forestry staff and vegetation-management specialists, while suppression activities during or after a fire are the focus of various fire organizations. Similarly, post-fire rehabilitation may be done by field crews that are trying to stabilize the watershed or burned area, but long-term analysis of the potential impacts of weather events and community response rarely is considered.
In the long run, merging the various funding streams into a single line item that covers both wildfire mitigation and response could incentivize a more holistic and integrated approach to addressing wildfire. For example, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is looking at how its authority can be inclusive of ecological and human communities. And the USDA Forest Service Fireshed Registry could serve as a model for integration of efforts across agencies; all related programs focus on the same geography, and the designation of a fireshed, along with fireshed mapping, shows where fires ignite and where they may pose a threat to a community, thus incorporating both ecological and sociological factors.
Turning Theory into Practice
The recent devastating fire on Maui, Hawaii, may provide a unique opportunity for a comprehensive “lessons learned” exercise, using a modified form of the military’s “after action report” process to demonstrate how the US Department of Defense can help address wildfire in concert with other federal and state agencies, local authorities, community groups, and independent stakeholders. The recent conflagrations in Hawaii were reported as triggered by a downed power line in a dry, overgrown field, and the Department of Defense assisted in battling the deadly blaze from the land, sea, and air.
Hawaii is one of the most important strategic areas for US national security. Four of Hawaii’s main islands, including Maui, contain a combined 14 military installations that host a wide range of military activities. For example, the US Army has been involved in various projects with the Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration Program on Oahu, where federal, state, and local government agencies have partnered with local land trusts, conservation nonprofits, and community groups to mitigate the risk of wildfire to army installations. The army focuses on developing barriers that can help slow wildfires and improving roads on land that’s adjacent to these installations. This experience could provide constructive guidance and assistance in fighting fires in the region.
Living with Wildfire: The New Normal
Concerns about wildfire are not limited to the western US landscape; devastating wildfires are the new normal.
Wildfire affects our water supplies, built infrastructure, natural capital, and public health. In November, Virginia proclaimed a state of emergency due to wildfires after over 2,000 acres burned near Shenandoah National Park. Last summer, smoke from Canadian wildfires blanketed the upper Midwest and the eastern seaboard, making wildfire an indisputable reality and clear health hazard. The Canadian wildfires resulted in health advisories across the East Coast, which encouraged people to stay inside and minimize outdoor activities. Sporting events and outdoor concerts were canceled or postponed due to the air-quality hazards. The insurance companies Allstate and State Farm decided to no longer cover new home insurance policies in California—a serious wake-up call to the significant financial burden we all are facing.
A significant shift in public policy will be essential for the United States to respond proactively to wildfire.
Funding Solutions
With the passage by Congress of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, about $5.5 billion were invested in wildfire mitigation and the restoration of lands and resources that have been entrusted to the Forest Service, alongside many of the landscapes and watersheds that are managed jointly with federal, Tribal, state, private, and other partners. In total, 21 priority “landscapes” were identified for focused activities.
The new funding will help the Forest Service and US Department of the Interior invest in the workforce by establishing a new firefighter job series, increasing base pay for firefighters, and converting more than 1,000 seasonal firefighters to permanent positions. These investments can help tackle issues that have emerged from the megafires of the last few years. The Forest Service responded to the increasing occurrence of wildfires by developing the report that the agency released in January 2022, Confronting the Wildfire Crisis, a 10-year strategy to reduce hazardous fuels on an additional 20 million acres of National Forest System lands and an additional 30 million acres on other federal, Tribal, state, and private lands.
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$5.5 billion
amount of funding made available to the US Forest Service and others by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act
To enable wildfire mitigation through active forest management, a viable forest industry needs to have not only a trained workforce to actively remove hazardous fuels, but also infrastructure that supports an economically viable forest-products sector. A series of regional roundtables with the forest industry and land managers was convened early in 2023, followed by a national event that delved into current capacity, limitations to supporting a healthy forest-products sector, and opportunities for innovation. In characterizing the primary challenges for project implementation, representatives from the forest industry who worked near areas that had received fuel reduction treatments consistently identified the lack of a trained workforce and uncertainty in the supply of wood. Long-term certainty in wood supply (on the order of 10–20 years) is necessary for raising capital and investing in equipment, but certainty often gets compromised by turnover in land managers or challenges posed by environmental groups.
Enthusiasm persists to develop new products using the wood and slash that are removed in the course of fuels treatments. Mass timber construction, which encompasses several types of innovative prefabricated building materials made of timber pieces that often are laminated together, is a twenty-first-century update to an age-old industry.
Mass timber addresses multiple problems. For example, buildings can be constructed from previously unusable wood, which creates an economic incentive to collect combustible material from thin, wildfire-prone forests. Facilities that produce mass timber could help rejuvenate local economies in rural areas of the United States that have lost timber jobs, as well. And significant reductions in construction emissions can be achieved through the sequestration of carbon in the mass timber used in buildings.
Some innovators are converting waste wood into biofuels and bioplastics. The US Department of Energy, working with USDA, has been leading the way to support the development of new product lines from sustainable biomass feedstocks, including forest residues, that can replace petrochemicals. While a few companies have been formed to develop these new products, their economic viability still is unproven in the early stages of development. Will a sustained supply of biomass feedstock for the growth of a new industry be possible within environmental and societal constraints? The Community Wood Grant Program, organized by USDA, is supporting new product development, along with the necessary analysis on feedstock supply. And a recent USDA-sponsored national roundtable highlighted new innovations in the use of wood biomass and the potential for a bioeconomy. Innovations that convert actions to address the wildfire crisis into opportunities for the forest industry could become increasingly valuable moving forward.
