Wildfire Issues in 2019: Background and Wilderness Society Experts

WASHINGTON, April 10 -- The Wilderness Society issued the following news release:

Wildfires, especially in the western US, are likely to continue to grow in size and intensity due to climate change, which has created hotter, dryer conditions, and also due to the long-standing US policy of preventing fires where periodic, less-severe wildfires had freely burned historically. The result of that fire suppression is a build-up of plant material that now fuels hotter fires.

One way to protect people and property from wildfires is to reduce the available "fuel" adjacent to homes and communities. Building homes in or near previously wild areas (the wildland-urban interface) means that wildfires also present a greater danger to lives, property and the residential environment than ever before. Building more fire-resistant homes, removing vegetation around buildings and having community preparedness and evacuation plans can all help reduce fire risk.

To carry out the right kind of forest and fire management activities, it's important to provide the necessary funding. Fortunately, a deal struck in Congress last year should do just that, starting in fiscal year 2020.

What follows is a brief review of several key issues:

- Realistic Approaches to Wildfire

- Obstacles to Sound Policy

- Logging: The Mythical Solution

- Firefighting Priorities

- Where Wildfire Provides Benefits

- Federal Budget Progress to Address Wildfire

- Shared Stewardship

- Wilderness Society Experts Who Can Answer Questions

- Links to Reporter Resources

Realistic Approaches to Wildfire

In recent decades, the escalation of firefighting costs coupled with a reduction in capacity to perform forest management have been the top issues preventing serious work to reduce destructive wildfires. Congress took meaningful action to address wildfire in March 2018 when it passed a bipartisan package to provide a funding solution as well as forest management reforms focused on wildfire.

The fiscal year 2018 omnibus bill fundamentally changed the way the federal government pays for wildfire suppression, addressing wildfires more like other natural disasters (see Federal Budget Progress to Address Wildfire, below). It also provided new authorities for hazardous fuels projects, fire and fuel breaks, longer-term stewardship contracting, and cross-boundary wildland management, among other provisions.

Obstacles to Sound Policy

However, this has not stopped the Trump Administration and their allies in Congress from trying to use the tragic 2018 California fires to push their anti-public lands agenda. Congress rejected those efforts when it enacted the Farm Bill in December. But Trump signed an Executive Order (E.O. 13855) on December 21 that signaled his intention to boost timber production. The so-called "active forest management" advocated by the Administration hinges largely on rolling back environmental laws and limiting public input regarding the management of our public lands.

The government shutdown earlier this year did not help. Consider the US Forest Service goal of reducing wildfire threats to communities that are at risk. The hazardous fuel reduction and prescribed burns that would have occurred during January 2019 had to be postponed. Also, the environmental analysis and public engagement the Forest Service conducts on projects to restore forests and increase their health have been delayed.

Former USFS Chief Tom Tidwell observes that because the capacity of the Forest Service is already maxed out, the postponed forest restoration and hazardous fuel reduction work will have a ripple effect over the coming years.

The men and women who perform dangerous work managing wildfire and the families displaced by wildfire deserve a thoughtful and meaningful response from our elected leaders - not political posturing or veiled attempts to gut bedrock environmental laws.

Logging: The Mythical Solution

The timber industry argues that thinning the nation's forests will solve the wildfire problem. However, logging deep in backcountry forests far from communities does not address the risk to residential communities. Logging in remote areas degrades water quality, recreation experiences and wildlife habitat and does not make people safer from wildfire.

One specific type of logging, "salvage logging," is particularly damaging. Salvage logging refers to the removal of burned trees after a fire. While this may sound harmless, scientists say that burned trees left in the wake of fires serve an important role in western forests, spurring improved biodiversity and supporting life ranging from shrubs to bears. In fact, removing these trees could actually exacerbate fire damage, increase future risks and send ash and sediment into area streams.

Firefighting Priorities

Protection of life and property is always the top priority during any wildfire. But longer, more intense fire seasons have produced skyrocketing suppression costs and have pulled resources from the restoration and management work intended to reduce fire risk in the first place.

Wildfire is not just a forest issue. Shrubs and grasslands often make up the majority of areas burned. But, when it comes to forest management, the most impactful management relies on removing smaller diameter fuels and doing prescribed burns near communities, NOT the removal of large, more fire-resistant trees commonly sought by the timber industry.

Where Wildfire Provides Benefits

Fire is a natural part of forest ecology and is essential to maintaining healthy forests and wildlife habitats. When human life and property are not threatened, allowing naturally caused fires to burn can serve as a cost-effective management strategy that helps address the buildup of fuels, creates natural fire breaks, and reduces the risk of future catastrophic wildfires in the area. Some plants depend on periodic wildfires as part of the natural cycle of recovery, and many others easily tolerate naturally occurring periodic fires.

Historically, logging and forest management targeted big, economically valuable, but also more fire-resilient trees. The past logging of our old growth forests has amplified extreme fire behavior, leaving many forests populated by overly dense stands of younger, smaller, and more fire-prone trees. We should consider how this legacy of large-scale logging has contributed to the current conditions of our forests before we replicate the mismanagement of the past.

Federal Budget Progress to Address Wildfire

The disaster cap allocation for wildfire starts in fiscal year 2020 (Oct 1st, 2019) at $2.25 billion and increases to $2.95 billion in FY27 to keep up with the projected increase in the cost of fighting wildfire.

This fix also freezes the 10-year suppression average at the FY15 level ($1.011 billion for US Forest Service; $384 million for Department of the Interior). This is intended to provide Interior and the Forest Service with the opportunity to propose budgets in FY2020 through FY2027 without the annual disruption of "fire borrowing" (using up a huge portion of the agency's funds to pay for enormous firefighting costs).

Unfortunately, the Trump Administration's proposed FY 2020 budget proposes substantial reductions in many important Forest Service programs, including State and Private Forestry, Research, and Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration. We expect Congress to reject the Administration's inadequate budget proposals.

Shared Stewardship

Released in August 2018, the Forest Service report, "Towards Shared Stewardship across Landscapes," cuts through some of the rhetoric, recognizes existing tools and new authorities and focuses on working with partners to maximize resources and impact. Since then, the Forest Service has entered into shared stewardship agreements with the Western Governors Association and the State of Idaho and is working on similar agreements with several other western states.

The Wilderness Society is encouraging Forest Service officials to reach out to stakeholders and scientists beyond those in state governments to ensure that the shared stewardship strategy is broadly supported and results in environmentally sound forest management.