cqr managing wildfires - forestry.co.za news/2012/nov 201… · 944 cq researcher and m ore people...

Managing WildfiresCan they be controlled in a warming world?

Record-setting heat and intense drought have made

2012 one of the worst wildfire seasons in a decade

of intense fires. Climate change, residential develop-

ment in fire-prone rural areas and the impact of

past firefighting policies have combined to put many areas of the

United States at risk, especially in the West. Federal agencies spend

more than $2.5 billion yearly to control wildfires, and the cost is

rising. Scientists widely agree that fire plays an important ecological

role, and federal land managers are working to reintroduce fire in

controlled settings to regenerate forests and reduce combustible

brush that can cause wildfires to burn out of control. Public officials

are under heavy pressure to fight fires that threaten homes, but few

are willing to make homeowners bear more of the costs to protect

their property. Using fire-resistant building materials and clearing

brush around homes can reduce fire risks. Some advocates want to

go further and bar new development in fire-prone areas.

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THE ISSUES ....................943

BACKGROUND ................949

CHRONOLOGY ................951

CURRENT SITUATION ........954

AT ISSUE........................957

OUTLOOK ......................958

BIBLIOGRAPHY ................962

THE NEXT STEP ..............963

THISREPORT

Firefighters battle a brushfire in the Meadowlands inCarlstadt, N.J., on April 11, 2012. Drought, low

humidity and strong winds were blamed for a rash ofwildfires throughout the country this year.

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CQ Researcher • Nov. 2, 2012 • www.cqresearcher.comVolume 22, Number 39 • Pages 941-964

RECIPIENT OF SOCIETY OF PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISTS AWARD FOR

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942 CQ Researcher

THE ISSUES

943 • Should some wildfiresbe allowed to burn?• Should development belimited in fire-prone areas?• Can logging reduce firehazards?

BACKGROUND

949 Fire on the FrontierAs colonists moved West,they altered fire patterns.

949 Suppressing FirePresident Theodore Rooseveltestablished the U.S. ForestService in 1905.

950 New AttitudesIn the 1960s scientistsbegan to argue that firecan be beneficial.

953 Fire in the ExurbsA 2001 study found severefire risks where develop-ment adjoins wildland.

CURRENT SITUATION

954 Budget ShortfallIntense wildfires havedrained fire-fighting budgets.

955 Hotter and DrierScientists worry that cli-mate change will intensifyfire risks.

956 Using FireThe Nature Conservancyadvocates controlled burn-ing for land restoration.

OUTLOOK

958 “Common Vision”“We should be talkingabout land-use planning.”

SIDEBARS AND GRAPHICS

944 Wildfire Funding Downfrom PeakFederal wildfire appropriationsfell sharply beginning in 2008.

945 West Is Wildfire HotspotMore than 5 million acres inTexas, New Mexico and Ari-zona burned in 2011.

947 Wildfires’ Deadly TollMore than 300 firefighters andother personnel died battlingwildfires from 1990 to 2007.

948 Wildfires Consume MoreAcreageFires burned an average of6.8 million acres annuallysince 2000.

951 ChronologyKey events since the 1860s.

952 Wildfires Threaten Air,Water QualitySmoke and erosion lead tosafety concerns.

954 Wildfires Offer Both Risksand Rewards“A lot of fires do good eco-logical work.”

957 At IssueShould Congress allow morelogging to reduce wildfirethreats?

FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

961 For More InformationOrganizations to contact.

962 BibliographySelected sources used.

963 The Next StepAdditional articles.

963 Citing CQ ResearcherSample bibliography formats.

MANAGING WILDFIRES

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Managing Wildfires

THE ISSUESA s temperatures cool

and trees change col-ors in autumn, mil-

lions of Americans head out-doors to hike and camp orgo fishing, hunting or bird-watching. But fall is less care-free in much of the UnitedStates this year. Across Wash-ington state, for example,after an August without mea-surable rainfall and the third-driest September on record,the National Weather Servicewarned that conditions wereideal for wildfires.“We have not seen wild-

fire conditions this bad in Oc-tober in a lifetime,” said PeterGoldmark, Washington’s com-missioner of public lands. 1

With four large, uncon-tained wildfires burningacross the state, Washing-ton’s Department of NaturalResources issued rules in earlyOctober to prevent more fireson state-managed lands: nocampfires, no smoking out-side of an enclosed vehicle,no target shooting except onestablished ranges, no chain-saw use and no operatingvehicles off-road, where heatfrom exhaust systems couldignite dry grass. 2

As of late October, wildfires hadburned nearly 9 million acres acrossthe United States in 2012 — the thirdhighest total in a decade of large andintense fires. (See graph, p. 948.) Inthe 1960s about 4.5 million acres onaverage burned each year; from 2002through 2011 the yearly average was7 million acres. 3

“When I first started fighting fires inCalifornia in 1970, we wouldn’t get toogunned up until nearly the 4th of July,

and we’d go through Thanksgiving,” saysTom Harbour, director of fire and avi-ation management for the U.S. ForestService. “Today the wildland fire sea-son starts in the Southeast early in thespring and may last through New Year’sDay or longer in Southern California.”The Forest Service, which is part

of the U.S. Department of Agriculture,manages fire on 193 million acres ofnational forests and grasslands. It sharesthis mission with other agencies that

manage public lands: the Na-tional Park Service, Bureau ofLand Management, Bureau ofIndian Affairs and the U.S. Fishand Wildlife Service, plus stateforestry managers. 4 In recentyears the Forest Service hasreceived about 70 percent offederal funding for wildfirecontrol. (See graph, p. 944.) 5

Experts say wildfires posea growing threat to lives, prop-erty and natural resources inmany parts of the UnitedStates, due to several factors:• Climate change is mak-

ing many parts of the nationhotter and drier.• For most of the past

century federal policy calledfor fighting every wildfire onpublic lands, instead of lettingsmaller and more isolated out-breaks burn naturally. Thisstrategy allowed brush anddense stands of trees to ac-cumulate, creating huge po-tential fuel stocks.• Americans are moving

from cities into fire-prone ruralareas, where they expect fire-fighters to protect their homesand property from nearbywildfires.Impacts are most severe in

Western states, which havelarge expanses of public wild-lands. But wildfires also occurregularly in the Plains and

Southeast. (See chart, p. 945.) “Fire wasa very well known historic visitor in allof our trusts and territories. We thinkabout it the most in the West, but itwas very common in the East at thetime of early settlement,” says Harbour.Several multiyear droughts have

worsened fire conditions in the Westand central Plains states over the pastdecade, extending fire seasons and in-creasing supplies of dry fuel. With morecombustible material on the ground,

BY JENNIFER WEEKS

AFP/Getty Images/Mark Ralston

Tiffany Brain salvages items from her uncle’s cabin,destroyed in the Station Fire in Angeles National Forestnear Los Angeles on Sept. 2, 2009. The fire, started by anarsonist, burned more than 160,000 acres and claimedthe lives of two firefighters. Experts say wildfires pose agrowing threat to lives, property and natural resourcesthroughout the United States because of development

encroaching on wild areas and changing climate conditions.

944 CQ Researcher

and more people living near wild areas,the cost of suppressing wildfires has risenfrom $1.1 billion in 1994 to $2.7 billionin 2011.* And since agencies cannotforecast precisely how much moneythey will need to fight fires in an up-coming year, federal land managersmust shift funds from other accountsand seek reimbursement from Con-gress during intense fires seasons.“There’s a real funding crisis. Fire-

fighting is eating up a bigger and big-ger share of the Forest Service’s totalbudget,” says Stephen Pyne, a profes-sor of life sciences at Arizona StateUniversity and an expert on the his-tory of fire. “You have to respond tofires, but nobody wants to pay forthem. It’s similar to health care: Wepay obscene amounts of money for

emergency services, but we won’t fixthe system.”Led by the National Park Service,

federal land agencies have been work-ing since the 1970s to restore fire grad-ually to wild lands, both throughplanned burns and by letting somewildfires burn themselves out undercareful supervision. Scientists andland managers say fire can producemany benefits, such as thinning denseundergrowth and making room fornative plant species. “It’s the best wayto make forests more resilient,” saysScott Stephens, an associate professorof fire sciences at the University ofCalifornia at Berkeley.Others, including timber industry

leaders and some politicians from ruralareas, argue that the way to reducefire risks is to allow more logging andgrazing on overgrown public lands —an approach sometimes referred to as

“active management.” In their view,laws such as the Endangered SpeciesAct that limit logging and grazingblock land managers from taking stepsthat would generate revenues and makeadjoining communities safer.“Fire behavior is affected by weath-

er, terrain and fuels. Fuels are the onlypiece of that equation that humanscan modify in a short time throughactive management,” Gov. C. L. “Butch”Otter, R-Idaho, wrote in an Octobernewspaper column, noting that 1.7 mil-lion acres had burned in his state in2012, of which 93 percent was pub-lic land. “Removing fuel by logging orgrazing isn’t the answer for every acreof public land, but it should certain-ly be considered where it’s needed,”Otter asserted. 6

But environmentalists strongly op-pose this approach and say today’s firehazards are partly due to decades offire suppression — not allowing wild-fires to burn. “Fire suppression has re-moved ‘good’ fire that naturally thinnedforests,” says Andy Stahl, executive di-rector of Forest Service Employees forEnvironmental Ethics (FSEEE), a watch-dog group that promotes land steward-ship in the national forest system.“From an ecological perspective,

we have too little fire on the land-scape. The acres burning today are atenth of what burned before fire sup-pression started,” Stahl contends.Moreover, he argues, many large wild-fires occur on non-federal lands notsubject to federal environmental laws.(See “At Issue,” p. 957.)Federal, state, local and tribal gov-

ernments and nongovernmental orga-nizations are working together to de-velop a National Cohesive WildlandFire Management Strategy that will setpriorities for managing wildfire threatsand costs. Pyne calls the initiative,which Congress mandated in 2009after years of recommendations fromthe U.S. Government AccountabilityOffice, an attempt to create a “fireconstitution.”

MANAGING WILDFIRES

0

1,000

2,000

3,000

4,000

5,000

Wildfire Funding Down from Peak

U.S. Forest Service and Interior Department wildfire appropriations, which fluctuate year to year depending largely on the severity of the preceding fire season, peaked in 2008 before falling sharply as congressional Republicans pushed for cuts in federal spending. Wildfire funding trended upward over the past decade following efforts by President Bill Clinton in 2000 to increase funding.

Source: Ross W. Gorte, “Federal Funding for Wildlife Control and Management,” Congressional Research Service, July 2011, p. 4, www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33990.pdf

Wildland Fire Management Appropriations, 1994-2012(in $ millions)

Forest Service

Department of Interior

19941995

19961997

19981999

20002001

20022003

20042005

20062007

20082009

2010

2011 (enacted)

2012 (requested)

Fiscal year

* The figures are not adjusted for inflation.


“We have to redefine the politicalstructure for making these decisions,”he says.As federal land agencies, Congress

and advocacy groups debate how tomanage wildfire risks, here are someissues they are considering:

Should some wildfires be allowedto burn?From the early 1900s through the

1960s, federal land managers soughtto suppress wildfires on public landsas soon as the fires were detected.Today the policy is different. Agenciesallow some wildfires to burn, or theycontrol them in areas near homes andpeople but let them progress naturallyin remoter zones.“Fire protection requires an appro-

priate response to wildfire — not onlysuppression, but also, where safe andbeneficial, the use of fire for man-agement purposes,” Forest Service chiefTom Tidwell said in September. 7

Yet, the Forest Service had official-ly suspended that policy four monthsearlier for the 2012 fire season, basedon forecasts that the costs of fightingfull-scale wildfires during this year’sintense drought could exceed theagency’s budget. Wildfires could be al-lowed to burn only with approval ata senior level, Deputy Chief James E.Hubbard instructed regional forestersand directors on May 25. “I acknowl-edge that this is not a desirable ap-proach in the long run,” he added. 8

Many observers assumed that theorder sought to control costs bystamping out small burns before theycould explode into mega-fires. ButTidwell asserted that the order was is-sued because of unusually high firerisks. “It’s not a change of policy. It’snot about saving money. It’s about rec-ognizing the conditions we have thisyear,” Tidwell said in August. 9

Stahl of Forest Service Employeesfor Environmental Ethics (FSEEE) sug-gests another motive. “It may be a po-litical strategy, so that if suburbs are

overrun by fire, the administration canargue that it didn’t happen becauseof a fire that was allowed to burn,”he says. FSEEE has criticized the For-est Service for putting too much em-phasis on firefighting at the expenseof other missions. The group also hassuccessfully sued the agency to forceit to assess environmental impacts offirefighting tactics, such as dumpingflame retardant from airplanes.“When the Forest Service attacks a

fire in a wilderness area with bull-dozers, there’s no environmental re-view or any post hoc assessment ofwhether it was worth it. Those im-pacts are just seen as a casualty ofthe campaign,” Stahl says.Many scientists are studying the

ecology of various wildland areas,

particularly in Western states, seekingto measure what role fire played inthose zones before government agen-cies began suppressing wildfires. Byanalyzing multiple sources — includ-ing historical records, fire scarring onolder trees and charcoal deposits insoil — researchers can draw conclu-sions about how often and how in-tensely different areas burned.Stephens at the University of Cali-

fornia-Berkeley, for example, has an-alyzed Forest Service records from 1911that describe areas in the Sierra Neva-da Mountains in and around what isnow Yosemite National Park. “Theseforests used to burn about every sevento 15 years, but now they haven’tburned for something like a century,”he says.

West Is Wildfire Hotspot

Wildfires burned more than 5 million acres in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona combined in 2011. Wildfires occur more frequently in the West but are not uncommon in the Great Plains and Southeast.

Source: “National Report of Wildland Fires and Acres Burned by State,” National Interagency Fire Center, 2011, www.predictiveservices.nifc.gov/intelligence/2011_statssumm/fires_acres.pdf

Most Acres Burned by Wildfires by State, 2011

Texas 2,722,623New Mexico 1,286,487Arizona 1,016,428Nevada 424,170Idaho 384,103Florida 299,991Oklahoma 293,381Alaska 293,018Oregon 285,712Montana 168,010Colorado 161,167Georgia 149,222Wyoming 135,878Minnesota 135,650California 126,854North Carolina 119,482Kansas 111,128

946 CQ Researcher

Because they were more fire-pronebefore they came under human man-agement, those forests looked very dif-ferent in 1911 from today, Stephenssays. “In 1911 the canopy [the areawhere crowns of trees meet] shadedabout 27 percent of the forest floor.Now it ranges be-tween 55 and 70 per-cent. If we walkedthrough those 1911forests, we’d needhats and sunscreen,”he says. “Tree diam-eters used to bemuch bigger, andstands were domi-nated by more oaksand ponderosapines, which are fire-tolerant species.” Inhis view, Americanshave significantlychanged U.S. forestsby suppressing firesfor most of the pastcentury. Many forestsare less healthy andresilient today than they were in thepast, Stephens says.But other scientists contend that

limited forest thinning (logging sometrees) and prescribed low-level fires— the Forest Service’s general strate-gy up to the 2012 fire season — maynot be the right way to reduce firerisks across the West. A recent studyat the University of Wyoming, basedon records kept by 19th-century landsurveyors, concluded that large, in-tense fires were more the norm inmany parts of the West. According tothis view, which is considered a mi-nority position among fire researchers,thinning and prescribed burns maynot actually help prevent mega-fires,and they could harm ecosystems. 10

Forest managers know about thestudy but can point to areas wherethinning and low-level prescribed burnshave helped save homes from wild-fires. Many factors determine whether

low- or high-intensity fires are moresuited to a given area, including localplant and tree species, elevation, topog-raphy and moisture levels. “I have totake it all into consideration,” said LindaWadleigh, a Forest Service fire ecolo-gist in fire-prone northern Arizona. 11

Should development be limitedin fire-prone areas?Over the past 50 years, residential

development has dramatically increasedin zones near wild areas — the so-called wildland-urban interface (WUI).Protecting homes in the WUI is a keyfactor driving up firefighting costs.Nearly 17 million new homes were

built in the United States between 1990and 2008, of which 10 million werein the WUI, according to a recentstudy by CoreLogic, a California-basedfinancial research company. The re-port estimates that more than 740,000homes in Western states, valued atmore than $136 billion, are in areaswhere the risk of wildfire is high. 12

Official responsibility for fire pro-tection on non-federal lands falls tostates or, if states choose not to pro-vide protection, to local governmentsor private landowners. However, fed-eral agencies are responsible for pre-

venting fires that start on federal landsfrom spreading onto private or statelands. And when agencies decide howto fight wildfires, they are required toconsider whether buildings or other re-sources are at risk. “I have to treat afire differently when I know there are

people or structures onthose acres then whenthey are uninhabited,”says the Forest Service’sHarbour.Many experts, in-

cluding economists andanalysts at the Govern-ment Accountability Of-fice, say the federal gov-e rnmen t pays adisproportionate shareof fire-managementcosts. 13 States canapply to the FederalEmergency ManagementAgency (FEMA) forgrants that pay 75 per-cent of the costs of fight-ing major fires on pub-lic or private lands. 14

The Forest Service provides about$100 million annually in fire protec-tion support to state and local gov-ernments. 15 And the Healthy ForestRestoration Act of 2003 requires thatat least half of federal funds for fueltreatment (removing excess grasses,trees and brush to reduce fire risks)must be used in the WUI. 16

Critics want to shift more responsi-bility to state and local governmentsand landowners. “People who makedecisions about land use aren’t direct-ly accountable for the costs of theiractions,” says Ray Rasker, executive di-rector of Headwaters Economics, a non-profit research group in Montana. Ana-lyzing firefighting data from Montana,California and Oregon, HeadwatersEconomics has found that protecting asingle home within one to six miles ofa wildfire can cost hundreds of thou-sands of dollars, especially if the homeis in an isolated area. 17

MANAGING WILDFIRES

A wildfire threatens a home in Strawn, Texas, on April 19, 2011. Dry conditions, high winds and low humidity fueled the fire. More

than 2.7 million acres burned in Texas in 2011, the most of any state.

Getty Images/Tom Pennington


“Local officials should consider is-sues like road access and waterhookups before they permit develop-ments in wooded areas. But if it’s nextto Forest Service or BLM land, theyassume costs of firefighting will beborne by the feds,” says Rasker.The Forest Service and Interior De-

partment co-sponsor Firewise, an ed-ucation program managed by the Na-tional Fire Protection Association thatencourages homeowners, communityleaders, planners and developers totake steps that will reduce wildfirerisks. 18 More than 800 neighborhoodsand sites in 40 states have become“Firewise Communities” by encourag-ing members to limit flammable vege-tation near homes and use fire-resistantbuilding materials. 19

However, Firewise standards are vol-untary in most communities that haveadopted them. California, Oregon andUtah have adopted statewide codesfor construction or vegetation manage-ment in WUI zones and either requireor offer incentives to local governmentsto enforce those standards. 20 Elsewhere,however, WUI development is regu-lated at the city or county level, andpolicies vary widely.Rasker agrees that Firewise upgrades

can help make existing houses in fire-prone areas less vulnerable, but hesays regulators should have the powerto bar new construction where firerisks are very high. “Firewise isn’t fire-proofing. We don’t tell people that it’sOK to build on river flood plains aslong as they put their houses on stilts,”he contends. “Firewise is the easiestconversation to have because every-one can agree on it, but encouragingpeople to build in fire-prone areas isdangerous.”But property-rights advocates say

the choice should be up to individu-als and that development in WUIzones does not need more regulation.“People already bear the full risk oftheir choices, except when the ForestService comes in and puts fires out,”

says Randal O’Toole, a senior fellowwith the Cato Institute, a Washington-based think tank that promotes liber-tarian views on public policy issues.“If private landowners want to buildon land near forests, they should rec-ognize that it’s not the Forest Service’sresponsibility to protect their homes.”Most regulations governing WUI

development apply only to new con-struction projects, and sometimes tomajor renovations, but not to existinghomes. “Broad-based initiatives to applynewer, safer standards to existingproperties are extremely rare, not onlybecause they are generally unpopularwith voters, but because they tend tobe expensive,” a 2011 review of com-munity fire protection regulationsobserved. 21

Ironically, surviving a raging wild-fire may be the biggest motivator toadopt stricter fire regulations. DianePaton, a Colorado Springs resident,had been considering replacing hercedar roof with a fire-resistant versionlast June but had not scheduled the

project. Then her home was destroyedin this summer’s Waldo Canyon fire,Colorado’s most-damaging wildfire onrecord. It burned 392 homes, killedtwo people and caused $350 millionin property damage. “When you seeyour grand piano — something sosolid and big — destroyed, you can’tbelieve how hot this fire must haveburned,” she said. 22

Can logging reduce fire hazards?Timber industry representatives and

many officials from rural areas havelong argued that logging lowers wild-fire risks by reducing the amount ofcombustible fuel, especially when it tar-gets dead or damaged trees (a methodcalled salvage logging). Currently, log-ging advocates are particularly concernedabout widespread outbreaks of barkbeetles, tiny wood-boring insects, aboutthe size of a grain of rice, that are na-tive across the West and periodicallyspread in massive outbreaks. Since 1997bark beetles have killed or damagedmillions of pine, spruce, fir and other

Wildfires’ Deadly Toll

More than 300 firefighters and other personnel died battling wild-fires from 1990 to 2007. Common causes of death are burnovers, in which firefighters are overrun by flames, and falling trees, vehicle accidents and heart attacks. The most deadly year for wildfires was 1910, when 78 firefighters died in fires that swept across 3 million acres in Idaho and Montana. That so-called “Big Blowup” led to heightened government efforts to extinguish wildfires, improve prevention strategies and make firefighting safer.

Source: “Wildland Fire Fatalities by Year,” National Interagency Fire Center, 2011, www.nifc.gov/safety/reports/year.pdf

Wildfire Fatalities, 1990-2007

5101520253035

2007’06’05’04’03’02’01’00’99’98’97’96’95’94’93’92’911990

No. of fatalities

948 CQ Researcher

trees over more than 41 million acresin Western states. 23

Logging advocates and many West-ern politicians argue that large swathsof standing dead trees will burn read-ily and feed wildfires. In July, aftertwo intense wildfires, six Western Re-publicans introduced a bill that wouldlet state and local land managers logdamaged trees in designated “high-risk”areas even if they are federal land. 24

“I believe that local communities knowtheir forests best and know whatneeds to be done to restore them tohealthy conditions,” Rep. Scott Tip-ton, the bill’s main sponsor, said inOctober. 25

But Forest Service and academicscientists say the relationship betweenbark beetle attacks and wildfires iscomplex and that beetle-killed treesare not always more flammable thanhealthy trees. When bark beetles killpine or spruce trees, the trees turnreddish-brown and retain their dried-out needles for one or two years.Then, three to five years after the in-sect attack, needles turn gray and fall

to the ground. Later, dead trees begintoppling. Fire dangers vary with eachof these stages, researchers say.“One big debate in fire science is

whether red needles enhance crownfires” — hot, intense fires that canspread rapidly between treetops, saysUniversity of Wisconsin zoologist Mon-ica Turner, who has conducted ex-tensive research on ecosystems in theGreater Yellowstone region of the north-ern Rocky Mountains. “Red needles aredrier and more flammable than greenones, so the issue is what relative ef-fect they have. The question is notwhether beetle-killed forests will burn,it’s how much more flammable theyare compared to healthy forests.”In a 2011 study Turner and her

colleagues analyzed factors that af-fected fire risk, such as fuel quanti-ties, moisture levels and soil surfacetemperatures, in Rocky Mountainlodgepole pine forests severely af-fected by mountain pine beetles. 26

“Our results suggested that beetle killsdon’t increase risks of crown fire, andin some cases they may actually re-

duce it by thinning out the canopies,”Turner says.Separately, Forest Service scientists

and others recently reviewed severaldozen studies on bark beetle kills andwildfires and found that while beetleoutbreaks increased some fire factors,the outbreaks decreased or did notaffect others. Moreover, the researcherspointed out, time passage betweenbeetle outbreaks and fire matteredbecause risks were different in red-needle and grey-needle phases. Thescientists concluded that more studyin different types of forests was need-ed and warned against generalizingabout the relationship between beetleattacks and fire risks. 27

Another longstanding controversycenters on the impacts of logging afterlarge-scale fires. Forest managers havemany concerns after fires: They wantto ensure that trees will regenerate;preserve enough growth for animalsand birds that return to the burnedarea (see sidebar, p. 954); reduce thelikelihood that insects will infest fire-damaged trees; and minimize chancesthat the forests will burn again. Theyalso want to recover valuable timberbefore it begins to rot.President George W. Bush’s admin-

istration (2001-2009) approved salvagelogging after the 2002 Biscuit Fire inOregon’s Siskiyou National Forest, in-cluding in old-growth and roadless areasthat previously had been protected fromlogging. Opponents demonstrated againstthe plan, and timber companies wereless enthusiastic about logging in theburned areas than advocates had ex-pected because many of the trees hadbeen damaged by fire. 28

A study later found that trees re-generated more slowly in areas thathad been logged after the Biscuit Firethan in non-logged areas. Loggingdisturbed the soil and smotheredseedlings. 29 Another study conclud-ed that the Biscuit Fire caused moresevere damage in areas that had beenlogged after an earlier major wildfire,

MANAGING WILDFIRES

Wildfires Consume More Acreage

Wildfires have burned an average of 6.8 million acres annually since 2000, more than twice the annual average of the previous decade. Experts attribute the increase to climate change, which has made certain areas hotter, drier and more fire-prone, and to high fuel loads that built up for decades as wildfires were suppressed.

* Does not include North Carolina state lands

Source: “Total Wildland Fires and Acres (1960-2009),” National Interagency Fire Center, 2012, www.nifc.gov/fireInfo/fireInfo_stats_totalFires.html

Total Acres Burned by Wildfires,1990-2011

0

2

4

6

8

10

’11’10’09’08’07’06’05’04’03’02’01’00’99’98’97’96’95’94’93’92’91’90

Burned acres(in millions)

*


the 1987 Silver Fire,than in areas thathad no t beenlogged. 30

Forest Serviceresearch suggeststhat the length oftime since a forestlast burned hasmore influence onthe risk of futurefires than post-firelogging. Fires canreach from the sur-face to crowns oftrees if “fuel ladders”are present — fall-en branches oryoung trees that thefire can climb. “Aone-size-fits-all storyof how fire behavesin the forests is notpossible,” said Forest Service researcherTom Spies, an author of the studycomparing impacts from the Silver andBiscuit fires. 31

BACKGROUNDFire on the Frontier

F ire has been present in North Amer-ican ecosystems for millions of

years. Before European settlers arrived,Native Americans used it extensivelyfor cooking, shaping tools, clearingfields, hunting and waging war. ManyNative Americans were nomadic, so iftheir living area burned from lightningstrikes or manmade fire, they movedand started over.Colonists used fire in many of the

same ways but also altered fire pat-terns across the continent. Along theEast Coast, farmers cleared large tractsand drained wetlands, leaving hugepiles of brush that could fuel wild-

fires. Later, as settlers moved west inthe 1800s, they grazed sheep and cattleon the prairies. Overgrazing reducedfire on the plains by stripping nativegrasses that fueled small-scale local fires,and it allowed tough woody plantssuch as mesquite to take over. 32

“This disruption of fire regimes putfire into landscapes where it had notbeen significant before and removed firefrom landscapes where it had been com-mon,” writes Arizona State’s Pyne. 33

Some of the biggest recorded fires in19th-century America were in the Eastand Midwest. In 1825 the MiramichiFire burned 3 million acres and killed160 people in Maine and Canada. Andon Oct. 8, 1871, fires in Wisconsin andMichigan burned more than 3.7 mil-lion acres and killed 1,182 people, onthe same day that the Great ChicagoFire killed 250 people and destroyedmore than 17,000 buildings. 34

As the country’s population explodedin the late 1800s, conservationists andsome national leaders recognized thatunrestricted use could harm scenicplaces and damage valuable resources.In 1872 Congress created Yellowstone

Na t iona l Pa rk inWyoming, followed byother parks in the Sier-ra Mountains of Califor-nia. And in 1891 theForest Reserve Act au-thorized the presidentto create national forestreserves on public lands.The 1897 Organic

Act stated three purposesfor these reserves: pro-ducing timber and pro-tecting forests and water-sheds, which are largeareas where all streamsand rivers merge andflow to one outlet. Ex-perts recognized thathealthy forests were im-portant sources of cleandrinking water becausethey filtered and cooled

water as it flowed through. Moreover,keeping lands planted with trees,shrubs and grasses protected againsterosion, which could carry silt intorivers and streams.

Suppressing Fire

I nitially Congress did not specifywho would manage national parksand forests or how to protect themfrom fires and other threats. But in1905 President Theodore Roosevelt(1901-09) — an avid conservationistwho embraced the idea of preservingand actively protecting valuable lands— established the U.S. Forest Servicewithin the Department of Agricultureto operate the national forest system.Gifford Pinchot, the service’s first

chief, believed that preventing fireswas crucial. In a 1905 manual, he ar-gued that “probably the single great-est benefit derived by the communi-ty and the nation from forest reservesis insurance against destruction ofproperty, timber resources, and watersupply by fire.” 35

Residents in Porter Ranch, Calif., evacuate their homes as anapproaching wildfire fills the air with smoke and haze on Oct. 13,2008. The fire began when high winds downed a power line that

ignited dry brush. It burned more than 14,000 acres.

Getty Images/David McNew

950 CQ Researcher

MANAGING WILDFIRES

In the Forest Fires Emergency Actof 1908, Congress gave the ForestService an unusual power for a pub-lic agency: It could spend any amountnecessary in emergency fire situationsand Congress would reimburse it withsupplemental funds. But even with ablank check from Congress, the For-est Service was unprepared to stopenormous wildfires that swept acrossIdaho and Montana in 1910, killing78 firefighters and nine civilians andburning more than 3 million acres.After the “Big Blowup,” as it was

called, the Forest Service committedto an intensive strategy that cast fireas an enemy to be vanquished.Agency leaders opposed some experts’view that moderate fires could bene-fit forests by burning away undergrowthand reducing the risk of larger fires.In 1926 the ser-

vice adopted a pol-icy that wildfiresshould be extin-guished before theyreached 10 acres insize. And in 1935 itadded a goal of sup-pressing every fire by10 a.m. on the dayafter it was reported(or if not, by 10 a.m.the next day, and soon). The rule had ascientific basis: it con-centrated firefightingefforts during thenight and early morn-ing, when tempera-tures were typicallylower and windscalmer. It also set aclear operating guide-line for forest crews across the nation.In 1944 the Forest Service launched

a campaign to educate the public aboutways in which humans caused fires,such as throwing away lit cigarettes orleaving campfires smoldering. TheSmokey Bear campaign became thelongest-running public service advertis-

ing campaign in U.S. history, best knownfor the catchphrase it carried from 1947through 2001: “Remember . . . OnlyYOU Can Prevent Forest Fires.” 36

Initially foresters fought fires withaxes, saws and shovels, cutting treesand removing brush to create fire-breaks — open areas without com-bustible fuel. But the Forest Serviceconstantly sought new tools and strate-gies. In 1930 it developed the firstmodern bulldozer, designed to createfire protection roads in steep back-country areas. 37 During the 1930sthousands of young men belongingto the Civilian Conservation Corps —a Depression-era public works reliefprogram set up by President FranklinD. Roosevelt — built fire roads andlookout towers and fought fires onpublic lands.

In 1939 the Forest Service begantraining “smokejumpers” to parachuteinto remote areas to fight fires. Andin the 1940s and ’50s, as surplus mil-itary equipment became available afterWorld War II and the Korean War, theForest Service began using helicoptersand tanker planes to drop water on

wildfires. In the 1960s firefighters beganlarge-scale drops of chemical retar-dant, which was developed to slowthe spread of fires so that they couldbe fought more effectively on theground.Firefighting was a dangerous job.

Although the 78 fatalities of 1910 werenever equaled, another 255 people diedfighting wildfires between 1911 and1960. The most common cause wasburnovers, which occur when firesoverrun firefighters. Other hazards in-clude falling trees, vehicle accidents andhealth issues such as heart attacks. 38

New Attitudes

I n the 1960s attitudes toward wild-fire began to change. Conserva-tionists and some re-searchers — notably atthe nonprofit Tall Tim-bers Research Stationand Land Conservancyin Tallahassee, Fla. —argued that fire had aplace in wild systemsand that not every wild-fire should automatical-ly be suppressed. Sci-entists began discussing“fire ecology,” the studyof how fire affects plants,birds and animals in dif-ferent settings. In manycases, they found, firewas beneficial: It helpedplants germinate andbloom, reduced infesta-tions of forest pests andcreated new habitat foranimals and birds. (See

sidebar, p. 954.)These ideas were buoyed by a grow-

ing conservation movement. In 1964Congress passed the Wilderness Act,which directed federal land managersto maintain large, undeveloped tractsof federal lands in a wild condition.

Continued on p. 952

A California Department of Forestry plane drops fire retardant on theStation Fire near Los Angeles on Aug. 29, 2009. Forest ServiceEmployees for Environmental Ethics, a watchdog group, has

successfully sued the Forest Service to force it to assess environmentalimpacts of dumping flame retardant chemicals from airplanes.

Getty Images/Tom Pennington


Chronology1600s-1900As settlers move across NorthAmerica, fire evolves from atool to a threat.

1860s-1890sThe spread of livestock grazingacross the West strips native grassesthat fueled small-scale local firesand allows tough, woody plantssuch as mesquite to take over.

1872Congress creates Yellowstone Na-tional Park in Wyoming, the firstU.S. national park, for conservationand public enjoyment.

1891Forest Reserve Act authorizes thepresident to set aside publicly heldforests as timber sources.

•

1900s-1950sFederal policy emphasizes firesuppression.

1905U.S. Forest Service establishedwithin Department of Agricultureto manage forest reserves.

1908Forest Fires Emergency Act allowsunlimited spending by Forest Ser-vice for fire suppression.

1910Wildfires burn more than 3 millionacres in Idaho and Montana, killing78 firefighters. In response, ForestService leaders commit to an inten-sive firefighting strategy.

1935Forest Service sets goal of sup-pressing fires by 10 a.m. the dayafter they are reported.

1944Wartime Advertising Council intro-duces Smokey Bear as fire preven-tion symbol.

1956Tanker planes first used to quenchfires.

•

1960s-1995Fire policy shifts away fromsuppression and toward theuse of fire to clear combustibleunderbrush and make areas lessprone to uncontrollable burns.

1962Tall Timbers Research Station in Talla-hassee, Fla., holds first conferencefocusing on wildfires’ effect on theenvironment and forest ecology.

1964Wilderness Act mandates protectionfor wild sections of federal lands.

1967National Park Service drops 10 a.m.suppression policy and endorsesuse of fire to clear excess growthand underbrush, reducing risks oflarge-scale wildfires.

1978Forest Service changes its strategyfrom controlling to managing wild-fires. . . . Congress repeals ForestFires Emergency Act and beginsproviding annual appropriationsfor fire fighting.

1988Amid a multiyear drought, massivesummertime wildfires burn nearly800,000 acres in Yellowstone Na-tional Park, more than a third ofthe park’s area; firefighting agen-cies spend $120 million and use25,000 people to fight the fires.

1995Agriculture and Interior depart-ments adopt Federal Fire Policycalling for the use of controlledburns on public wildlands when-ever safe as a means of restoringa zone’s natural habitat.

•

2000-PresentFirefighters grapple with heat,drought and the legacy ofdecades of fire suppression.

2000Prescribed burns at National ParkService sites in Arizona and NewMexico expand out of control,forcing public evacuations.

2002President George W. Bush’s HealthyForests Initiative promotes loggingand thinning in national forests toreduce fire risks, over oppositionfrom environmental groups.

2009With the FLAME Act, Congresscreates reserve funds to help payfor firefighting.

2011Congress rescinds $600 millionfrom Forest Service and Depart-ment of Interior fire suppressionand management funds to helpplug budget gaps. . . . Wildfirescause record-setting damage inArizona and New Mexico.

2012Congress rescinds $192 million inForest Service fire managementfunds. . . . Record-setting wildfiresdestroy hundreds of homes in Col-orado. . . . Forest Service receives$400 million in emergency fundsto manage intense wildfire season.

952 CQ Researcher

Three years later the National Park Ser-vice announced that it would end the10 a.m. goal for suppressing wildfiresin national parks. Instead, it would useplanned burns — fires designed andignited by forest managers to destroybrush and other fuel that could leadto a bigger conflagration — or let wild-fires burn in situations where fire wasexpected to have positive effects.Over the next decade Congress

rewrote the laws governing the For-est Service and other public-land agen-cies. The National Forest ManagementAct (1976) required the Forest Serviceto develop plans for managing forests,with public input. And the FederalLands Policy and Management Act (1976)

directed the Interior Department’sBureau of Land Management (BLM) tomanage public lands for multiple useswhile protecting their environmentalquality. Reflecting this growing focus onecology and natural processes, the For-est Service and BLM adopted a newpolicy: Naturally occurring fires — thosenot started by humans — would be al-lowed to burn themselves out, when itcould be done safely.This approach, sometimes referred

to as “let it burn,” received little no-tice at first. But throughout the sum-mer of 1988, during a multiyear drought,massive wildfires burned nearly 800,000acres in Yellowstone National Park,36 percent of the park’s area. Initial-ly park managers let the fires burn,

but after dry conditions and windsfanned the flames, they switched to firesuppression. Firefighting agencies spent$120 million and used 25,000 peopleto fight the fires, but the burn wasnot permanently extinguished untilsnow fell in September. 39

Some critics argued that the ParkService had failed to do its job, butfederal officials emphasized that firewas an important part of the ecosys-tem and would not ruin park lands.Field studies over the next severaldecades supported their view. But someexperts began to worry that afterdecades of fire suppression, the Westwas overgrown with massive fuelloads that could spark more large-scalefires. Intense wildfires in Oakland, Calif.

MANAGING WILDFIRES

D amage from wildfires often extends beyond blackenedtrees, destroyed houses and dead or displaced wildlife.Fires generate smoke and other emissions that harm

human health either directly or when they combine to formatmospheric haze. Wildfires also threaten nearby water sup-plies, which can become polluted when burned-over areaserode and debris washes into waterways. And in some areaswildfires help create conditions for dangerous landslides.Smoke is a complex mixture of particulate matter, water vapor,

carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and other chemicals, which varydepending on such factors as the type of fuel, weather and tem-perature. Of greatest concern to human health are fine particles,with diameters of 2.5 micrometers or less — a fraction of thewidth of a human hair. Small enough to be absorbed deeply intothe lungs, these particles can worsen respiratory problems such asasthma and increase heart attack and stroke risks. 1

Carbon monoxide alone is a serious health threat. The odor-less, colorless gas is produced when wood or fossil fuels donot burn completely. Exposure to high concentrations can causedizziness, headaches, poor concentration, and, in extreme cases,loss of consciousness or even death. In wildfires the highestcarbon monoxide risks occur very close to smoldering fires.Other chemicals in wildfire smoke include nitrogen oxides,

ozone and volatile organic compounds — substances that wouldbe regulated as air pollutants if released from a factory. 2

Large forest fires that burn for long periods can cause se-rious regional air quality problems when wind transports thesmoke over long distances. Such fires have taken a toll world-

wide, especially in tropical Africa, the Amazon, Siberia andSoutheast Asia. Pollution from fires in Indonesia causes recur-ring health and visibility problems in Malaysia, Thailand andother neighboring countries. 3

In the United States, smoke from Western wildfires earlierthis year was visible from space and triggered widespread air-quality alerts from public health agencies advising people wholived near fire zones to stay indoors. 4 Forest fires on the Alaska-Canada border in 2004 worsened air pollution in Houston, morethan 3,000 miles away. 5

Wildfires can also pollute drinking water supplies and dam-age water treatment facilities. Fires release soil chemicals such asnitrate, which is harmful in high concentrations in drinking water,and phosphorus, a nutrient that causes algae blooms in water-ways. 6 And burned-over areas are vulnerable to erosion. With-out layers of leaf litter and other natural debris on the groundto soak up rainfall, or shrubs to anchor the soil, rain detachessoil particles and carries them away. Sediments, ash, charcoal anddebris wash into rivers, muddying waters and killing fish.Other pollutants also can be picked up in runoff. For ex-

ample, tailings — waste materials left over from processingmetal ores — are present around abandoned mine sites inmany Western states. After the 2010 Fourmile Canyon fire inBoulder, Colo., the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) found ele-vated levels of aluminum, iron and manganese from mine wastewashing into local drinking water. These materials did not posea health threat, but concentrations were strong enough to af-fect the water’s taste and odor. 7

Wildfires Threaten Air, Water QualitySmoke and erosion lead to widespread safety concerns.

Continued from p. 950


(1991); Malibu, Calif. (1993); and StormKing Mountain, Colo. (1994) fueledthese concerns.In response, the Agriculture and In-

terior departments adopted a unifiedFederal Fire Policy in 1995 that calledfor restoring fire on public lands wher-ever it could be done without in-creasing risk for firefighters or nearbyresidents. “Catastrophic wildfire nowthreatens million of wildland acres,”the policy stated. “Enormous publicand private values are at risk, and ournation’s capability to respond to thisthreat is becoming overextended.” Thenew policy called wildland fire “a crit-ical natural process [that] must be rein-troduced into the ecosystem.” 40

It also spotlighted an important and

growing factor adding to wildfire risks:the growth of wildlife-urban interfaceareas where human development ad-joins wild lands. The report estimat-ed that federal agencies had spent$250 million to $300 million in 1994protecting these areas and called forclearer plans, more public educationand greater cost-sharing with state andlocal governments to reduce fire risksin these zones. 41

Fire in the Exurbs

F ire threats appeared to outrun na-tional strategy over the next several

years. In 1998 wildfires in Florida forcedmore than 80,000 people to evacuate their

homes. And in 2000, two prescribedburns at National Park Service sites —the North Rim of the Grand Canyonin Arizona and Bandelier NationalMonument in New Mexico — spreadout of control, forcing evacuations. 42

A 2001 review of the national fire pol-icy concluded that fire hazards on over-grown lands were “worse than previ-ously understood” and risks in the WUIzones were “more complex and ex-tensive” than understood in the origi-nal fire plan. 43

President George W. Bush’s ad-ministration focused on reducing fuelloads with its 2002 Healthy ForestsInitiative, which authorized tree thin-ning and logging to reduce fire riskson public lands. 44 Congress passed

Post-fire erosion can also threaten public safety. In the South-west, fall wildfires and heavy winter rains create a dangerousform of erosion called a debris flow. Massive landslides, some-times big enough to crush houses, occur when wet soil wash-es down fire-hardened mountain slopes. Nature writer JohnMcPhee described this process in Los Angeles, where wildfiresand flash floods are endemic and many neighborhoods are builthigh up on hillsides:“Debris flows amass in stream valleys and more or less re-

semble fresh concrete,” McPhee wrote. “They consist of watermixed with a good deal of solid material, most of which isabove sand size. Some of it is Chevrolet size. Boulders biggerthan cars ride long distances in debris flows. Boulders groupedlike fish eggs pour downhill in debris flows.” 8

Massive debris flows occurred in Colorado in 1994 and ’95after the South Canyon fire near Glenwood Springs. Debris washedonto Interstate Highway 70 in four places, engulfing 30 cars (withonly minor injuries) and spilling into the Colorado River, whereit blocked nearly half of the river channel. 9 Last August the USGSestimated that a high risk for debris flows existed in New Mex-ico’s Gila National Forest, where a major wildfire occurred ear-lier in the year. In several areas of the forest USGS calculatedthat flows could exceed 500,000 cubic meters — enough to fillthe Olympic Aquatics Centre in London. 10

— Jennifer Weeks

1 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Particle Pollution and Health,” 2012,www.epa.gov/pm/2012/fshealth.pdf.

2 “Wildfires, Weather and Climate,” University Corporation for AtmosphericResearch, 2012, www2.ucar.edu/news/backgrounders/wildfires-weather-climate.3 Liz Gooch, “Malaysia Haze Points to a Regional Problem,” The New YorkTimes, June 23, 2012, www.nytimes.com/2012/06/24/world/asia/smoky-haze-over-malaysia-signals-a-regional-problem.html; “Gas from Pollutants, ForestFires at Potentially Toxic Levels,” Science Daily, July 16, 2012, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120716214857.htm.4 “New Mexico Fire Visible From Space,” NBC Nightly News, June 1, 2012,http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/47653300#47653300; ”NASA SatelliteSees Several Western U.S. Fires Blazing,” National Air and Space Administra-tion, June 22, 2012, www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/fires/main/western-us.html;Russell Contreras, “Smoke from Huge Wildfire Envelops Parts of New Mexico,Ariz.,” The Associated Press, May 26, 2012, www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2012/05/26/smoke_from_wildfire_envelops_parts_of_new_mexico_ariz/.5 “NASA Study: Alaskan Fires Affected Houston Air Quality in 2004,” RiceUniversity, Sept. 21, 2006, http://news.rice.edu/2006/09/21/nasa-study-alaskan-fires-affected-houston-air-quality-in-2004/.6 “Water Quality and Erosion Following Wildfires,” University of WyomingCollege of Agriculture, October 2006, www.uwyo.edu/barnbackyard/_files/documents/resources/fire/fire-recovery-water-quality-1006.pdf.7 “Wildfire Effects on Source-Quality Water — Lessons from Fourmile CanyonFire, Colorado, and Implications for Drinking-Water Treatment,” U.S. Geo-logical Survey, July 2012, http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2012/3095/.8 John McPhee, “Los Angeles Against the Mountains,” reprinted in The Con-trol of Nature (1989), p. 185.9 “Geologic Mapping Along the I-70 Corridor in Western Colorado,” U.S.Geological Survey, updated April 15, 2010, http://esp.cr.usgs.gov/info/i70/index.html.10 “Estimated Probability of Postwildfire Debris Flows in the 2012 Whitewater-Baldy Fire Burn Area, Southwestern New Mexico,” U.S. Geological Survey,2012, p. 8, http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2012/1188/ofr2012-1188.pdf; “Amount ofwaste flytipped each year would fill Olympics Aquatics Centre, says ESA,”Environmental Services Association, July 25, 2012, www.esauk.org/reports_press_releases/press_releases/120725_Amount_of_waste_flytipped_each_year_would_fill_Olympics_Aquatics_Centre_says_ESA.pdf.

954 CQ Researcher

the program in 2003 over protests fromenvironmental groups. They argued thatthe plan was an excuse to increase log-ging in protected areas, such as old-growth forests, and would not reducefire risks. 45

However, no high-level actions weretaken to restrict development in WUIzones, driven in many areas bywealthy second-home buyers. Accord-ing to one analysis, between 2000 and2005 the Forest Service and Bureau ofLand Management spent an averageof $630 million to $1.2 billion to pro-tect private property from wildfires. 46

In 2006 and 2007, more than 9 mil-lion acres burned each year — morethan in any fire season since the 1960s.As the Forest Service worked to

control wildfires, it repeatedly over-spent its funding for fire suppressionand was forced to transfer money from

other activities, such as maintainingtrails or planting new trees. In 2009Congress passes the FLAME Act, whichsought to address the rising cost offighting fires by creating two reservefunds at the Agriculture and Interior de-partments for fire suppression. But whenRepublicans gained strength in Con-gress after the 2010 elections and con-fronted the Obama administration overfederal spending, Congress took back$600 million from the suppression fundand other wildfire management accountsin fiscal 2011 and an additional $192 mil-lion in fiscal 2012 to help pay for com-promise budget cuts. 47

“The FLAME Act set up a reserveaccount for Interior and the Forest Ser-vice so that in milder fire years un-spent money could be banked for moreintense years,” says Jake Donnay, pol-icy director for the National Associa-

tion of State Foresters, which supportedthe FLAME Act. “Obviously, when timesare tough you have to decide whereto cut, but this year the FLAME ac-count has been drained. It’s not a per-fect system.”

CURRENTSITUATION

Budget Shortfall

J ust three years after Congress passedthe FLAME Act in an effort to pre-vent funding shortfalls, fire-suppressionbudgets are drained again because ofthis year’s intensive wildfire season.

MANAGING WILDFIRES

T he headlines are often predictable: A wildfire has becomea “catastrophic natural disaster” that has “ravaged” a pris-tine forest and “devastated” trees, plants and wildlife.

But such characterizations can be greatly exaggerated, ex-perts say. Some fires burn only parts of the areas they movethrough. What’s more, many plants and animals derive sur-prising benefits from fire.“A lot of fires do good ecological work, even if they also

cause ecological harm,” says Scott Stephens, an associate profes-sor of fire science at the University of California-Berkeley. “Weneed to stop characterizing all fire in ecosystems as negative.”Surface fires move along the ground, mainly burning shrubs

and underbrush, and are usually the least-intense type of fire.Understory fires rise higher, but not to the tops of trees, and aremore intense. However, trees often survive fires even after beingpartially scorched, especially if fire moves through an area quick-ly and does not heavily damage trees’ trunks and roots. 1 Crownfires are usually the most intense: They move through the topsof trees and typically kill all trees that burn. Wind, terrain andmoisture levels affect where a fire moves: Wildfires can leave un-touched patches of green next to burned areas.One well-studied case is Yellowstone National Park, where

researchers have found that most forests and meadows recov-ered naturally from massive wildfires in 1988. “The 1988 fireswere really large and very severe, but they were not remotely

an ecological catastrophe as some people said,” says MonicaTurner, a professor of zoology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has done extensive research on the ecology ofthe Greater Yellowstone region.“A lot of grasses, wildflowers and shrubs survived. It looked

as though everything was dead, but a year later plants werere-sprouting. The fires didn’t burn very deeply into the soil, somany roots were still alive after the fire. Two years later theyflowered profusely — it was just beautiful.”Some plants and animals actually need fire to grow and re-

produce successfully. For example:• Lodgepole pine trees, which grow throughout the Rock-

ies and Pacific Northwest, produce seeds that are enclosed inwaxy cones. After wildfires melt the coating, the seeds fall ontoashy ground, where they can sprout without heavy competi-tion from other plants.• Fireweed, a tall grass with bright pink flowers, grows across

much of the northern United States and Canada. It spreads quick-ly in burned-over forests, where its roots stabilize the soil andits leaves shade less sun-tolerant plants. Fireweed is consumedby many grazing animals and produces nectar for bees. 2

• Some insects, including wood wasps and numerous speciesof wood-boring beetles, actually are attracted to forest fires,which they detect by the smell of burning foliage or the fires’heat. The insects bore into burned trees and lay their eggs. 3

Wildfires Offer Both Risks and Rewards“A lot of fires do good ecological work.”


On Aug. 27, Forest Service chiefTidwell warned agency managers thatthe service was likely to overspend its$948 million fire-suppression budgetfor fiscal 2012 and was making plansto transfer $400 million from other ac-counts. In the meantime, Tidwell in-structed agency chiefs and directors todefer all non-critical travel, purchasesand contracts.“I recognize that this direction will

have a significant effect on agency op-erations,” Tidwell wrote. “[H]owever,we must be in a position to protectlife and property from wildfire, anddo so within the funds available tothe agency.” 48

In response, a coalition of conser-vation, recreation, forestry, timber andwildlife organizations wrote to Con-gress and the Agriculture Departmentasking for $400 million in emergency

supplemental funds for the Forest Ser-vice. The groups called transfers fromother Forest Service accounts “a short-term solution that will reduce the abil-ity of the Forest Service and collabo-rators to treat forests and reduce wildfiredangers and risks in the future.” 49

Congress included the $400 millionin a continuing resolution enacted inlate September to fund the govern-ment through March 2013. The act alsoincreases fire-suppression funding forthe same period. But forest advocatessay firefighting agencies need moresustained long-term support.“The intent of the FLAME Act was

that the Forest Service should budgetfor fire suppression based on a 10-year average of past costs, and Con-gress should fund it at that level, witha reserve account that would let theInterior Department and the Forest

Service bank any unspent funds leftover after mild fire years,” says Don-nay of the National Association of StateForesters. “We support the intent ofthe act, but we expect a commitmentfrom Congress and the administrationto bank reserve funds.”

Hotter and Drier

S cientists widely agree that climatechange will make much of the

United States — especially the West— hotter and drier in coming decades,which will intensify fire risks.In a study published in August James

Hansen — a prominent climate expertand head of NASA’s Goddard Institutefor Space Studies — reported that ex-treme heat covered 4 to 13 percent ofEarth during the months of June, July

• Many types of birds, includingkestrels, woodpeckers and flickers,nest in dead trees, known as snags,and feed on wood-boring insects.Some species, such as the black-backed woodpecker, seek outburned-over sites. 4

• Small mammals such as chip-munks, mice and squirrels moveinto the holes that birds create indead trees and forage on freshplants that sprout in newly openareas. In turn, these animals drawpredators such as foxes and coyotesback to the area.Wildfires also affect the health of

ecosystems in many other ways. Theycan make soil either more or lessfertile, depending on the intensityof the fire. Fires also kill off forest pests and pathogens, al-though insect outbreaks can occur after a fire in weakened anddamaged trees.Over time, scientists can learn about the strengths and weak-

nesses of different ecosystems by studying how they recoverafter fires. “The 1988 Yellowstone fires may end up being a

very valuable benchmark,” says Turner.“There will be more fire in the future,so we can use what we’ve learned sincethe 1988 fires to predict how the areawill respond next time.”

— Jennifer Weeks

1 For details see Peter F. Kolb, “After Wildfire,”Section 4, Montana State University Extension Ser-vice, 2002, http://forestandrange.org/modules/afterwildfire/pdfs/tree.pdf.2 “Index of Species Information,” U.S. Forest Service,www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/plants/forb/chaang/all.html; Jackson Hole Land Trust, “Field Notes,”www.jhlandtrust.org/fieldnotes/fieldnotes_details.php?fieldnotes_id=793 Daniel S. Burgess, “Bugs Lead the way to BetterDetectors,” Photonics Spectra, June 2001, www.photonics.com/Article.aspx?AID=9319; “Fire-ChasingBeetles Sense Infrared Radiation From Fires Hun-dreds of Kilometres Away,” Discovermagazine.com,May 27, 2012, http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/

notrocketscience/2012/05/27/fire-chasing-beetles-sense-infrared-radiation-from-fires-hundreds-of-kilometres-away/.4 Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Black-backed_Woodpecker/lifehistory; “Managing Forests After Fire,” U.S. ForestService, Pacific Northwest Research Station, Summer 2007, p. 6, www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/science-update-15.pdf.

Wildfires can devastate forests, but theyalso can help regenerate natural areas.

Here, new growth sprouts in the shadow of a burned tree.

www.firepix.nifc.gov

956 CQ Researcher

MANAGING WILDFIRES

and August from 2006 through 2011,compared to just 0.2 percent of theplanet during summers from 1951through 1980. Based on this finding,Hansen and his co-authors argued thatextreme heat waves during the past sev-eral years were a direct consequence ofclimate change be-cause it was ex-tremely unlikely thatthey would have oc-curred in the absenceof such warming. 50

Hansen, whoseoutspoken demandsfor action on climatechange have madehim controversial,asserted in inter-views that climatechange was alsothe likely cause ofthis year’s cripplingd rough t a c ro s smuch of the UnitedStates. Some scien-tists agreed with hisargument about pat-terns of increasingwarmth, but otherswere skeptical. “Per-ception is not a sci-ence,” said Martin P.Hoerling, a climate researcher with theNational Oceanic and AtmosphericAdministration (NOAA). 51

Another study, by University of Cal-ifornia researchers, used 16 differentclimate change models to assess howwarming could alter wildfire patterns.In many parts of the world, includingthe Western United States, the scien-tists projected that wildfires will be-come more frequent. “We need tolearn how to coexist with fire,” saidMax Moritz, a cooperative-extensionspecialist at the University of Califor-nia and lead author of the study. 52

In some areas, more frequent firescould change ecosystems drastically.In Greater Yellowstone, for example,average summer temperatures are

predicted to increase by as much as6 degrees Fahrenheit in the comingcentury, but effects on rainfall are un-certain. “If we get higher temperaturesand the same amount of precipitationthat we have today, there will be moredrought, which will push the system

into a zone associated with big fires,”says Turner of the University of Wis-consin. “Our modeling suggests thatthere will be fewer years without fire.At some point, fires could come soquickly that forests don’t have enoughtime to regrow in between them.”If that scenario occurs, the mix

of plants growing in the Yellowstonearea would change. “More area wouldbe occupied by young forests. Wewould expect to see dry coniferslike Douglas fir and aspen expand-ing to higher elevations, and high-elevation species like whitebarkpine and Engelmann spruce declin-ing,” says Turner. “At lower eleva-tions we would have more sagebrushand grassland habitat in zones that

are forested now. The key questionis whether climate and fire regimeswill change enough to cause forest-ed areas to shift to non-forests. Ifdrought years follow fire years, thatcould keep tree seedlings from re-generating,” she says.

University of Califor-nia fire science profes-sor Scott Stephens agreesthat climate change andmore frequent fires couldsignificantly alter U.S.forests, but he believesaction now could helpslow the process. “Thenext 10 to 30 years willbe a critical time forrestoring forests andmaking them more re-silient to fire,” he says.“After that, climatechange could make it im-possible. We’re not doingenough fuel treatment,”such as thinning trees,shredding brush me-chanically and using pre-scribed fire to burnaway excess growth, headds. “Right now the For-est Service is doing aboutone-fifth of what we

should be doing yearly. Foresters needto find new ways of doing business.”

Using Fire

A mid debates about federal firepolicy, some conservation groups

are working with government agen-cies to use fire safely as a conserva-tion tool. The Nature Conservancy, anenvironmental advocacy group thatworks to protect ecologically impor-tant lands in the United States andworldwide, has long advocated con-trolled burning as a cost-effective landrestoration tool. In 2011 the Conser-vancy carried out planned burns on

Continued on p. 958

Flames from the Porter Ranch fire near Los Angeles threaten homes onOct. 13, 2008. Over the past 50 years, residential development hasdramatically increased in zones near wild areas — the so-called

wildland-urban interface (WUI). Protecting homes in the WUI is a keyfactor driving up firefighting costs. Nearly 17 million new homes were built in the United States between 1990 and 2008, of which

10 million were in the WUI, according to CoreLogic, a California-based financial research company.

Getty Images/David McNew

no


At Issue:Should Congress allow more logging to reduce wildfire threats?yes

yesU.S. REP. PAUL GOSAR, R-ARIZ.

FROM TESTIMONY BEFORE HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEEON NATIONAL PARKS, FORESTS AND PUBLIC LANDS,JULY 20, 2012

l ast year, our communities were victims [of] some of thelargest forest fires in recorded history. The Wallow Firegrew to over 800 square miles, over just a few short

weeks, charring in its wake some of the most treasured parts ofour Ponderosa Pine country. The Horseshoe Fire, the MurphyComplex, the Stanley Fire and the Monument Fire blackenedanother 200,000-plus acres. This year’s fire season has not beenany better. Over 900 fires have charred nearly 6,000 square milesin Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregonand Utah. Over 50,000 of those acres are in Arizona alone. . . .Our ecosystems are suffocating. Where we once had 10 to 25trees per acre, we now have hundreds. Roughly 80 million acresof forests across the West are overgrown and ripe for catastrophicwildfire, according to the [federal] Landfire multiagency database.Our forests have been mismanaged for a long time, and it isway past due to change our strategy.The current federal system continues to prioritize fighting

fires. Although the need to suppress fires is never going to goaway, we must shift priority towards pro-active management.We simply cannot afford to do otherwise.Catastrophic wildfires are difficult to control and cost the

federal government millions of dollars in immediate fire re-sponse and many millions more in restoration and rehabilita-tion. The Western Forestry Leadership Coalition, a state andfederal government partnership, estimates the costs [of post-firerehabilitation and restoration] are two to 30 times the reported[fire] suppression costs. Last year, the Forest Service spent arecord . . . $48 million on burned-area recovery work, [and]$25 million has already been spent to prepare for the immedi-ate aftermath of this year’s wildfires, putting the U.S. ForestService on track for another possible record year of spendingon burned-area recovery efforts.Forest thinning works! In eastern Arizona, the areas that

were treated as part of the White Mountain Stewardship Pro-ject, a contract designed to thin the Apache-Sitgreaves NationalForest and White Mountain Apache tribal lands, and the areasmanaged locally by the Apache Tribe and the state of Ari-zona, were properly cleared. Today there are still healthy treeswith burned underbrush. In the lands that were untouched bythinning practices — the majority of the U.S. Forest Service-administered land in the state — fire has left only scorchedearth behind. We simply need to make ecological restorationeasier. no

ANDY STAHLEXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, FOREST SERVICEEMPLOYEES FOR ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS

WRITTEN FOR CQ RESEARCHER, OCTOBER 2012

w ould repealing federal environmental laws to allowincreased logging reduce wildfire size, intensity andhome losses, as some in Congress suggest? Consider

Texas. In 2011, 27,976 fires burned 3.9 million acres, destroying2,862 homes. All of these destructive fires were on private land,where federal environmental laws do not regulate land practices.In 1991, California’s Oakland Hills Fire, the most destructive firein dollar value of property damage in U.S. history, burned onprivate, municipal and state-owned land not subject to federalenvironmental laws. The firestorm was fueled by non-nativeeucalyptus trees planted after unregulated private-land logginghad removed the original fire-resistant forests.The relevant federal environmental laws — the National

Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act and NationalForest Management Act — were enacted in the 1970s. If theselaws are the cause of destructive fires or have contributed tothem, one would expect few such fires in the decades preced-ing these laws. Not so. In 1970, the Laguna Fire in San DiegoCounty, Calif., burned over 280,000 acres as it swept 30 milesthrough the Cleveland National Forest, destroying 382 homesand killing eight people. Between World War II and 1970, theCleveland National Forest alone saw major fires in 1944, 1947,1950, 1956, 1958, 1967 and 1969.In every case cited above — and for every other major

wildland fire — the conditions that led to the conflagrationare unaffected by federal environmental laws. Firefightersthroughout the world know these conditions well. They aredrought and wind. Alone, drought or wind is manageable.Ignition on a windy day during damp conditions poses littlecatastrophic risk. Under calm conditions, fire burning throughtinder-dry vegetation creeps along slowly and is easily con-tained. Combined, however, drought and wind create fireconditions that are deadly and uncontrollable.Blaming destructive wildfires on environmental laws risks

overlooking real policy solutions. Forest Service research showsthat 90 percent of homes lost to wildland fires could havebeen saved by lessening flammable vegetation within 150 feetof the house and building homes with a fire-resistant designand materials. These “Firewise” policies are being adopted bylocal and state governments throughout the nation becausethey work. The federal government and Congress shouldsupport these efforts instead of seeking to use fire to burnaway environmental laws that have protected our nation’swater, fish, wildlife and recreation for a generation.

958 CQ Researcher

130,000 acres of con-servation lands. 53

Some of that worktook place in theShawangunks, a forest-ed mountain ridge inNew York state west ofthe Hudson River. TheConservancy’s localchapte r conduc t splanned burns jointlywith other groups toreduce the amount ofleaves, litter and woodon the forest floor. “Wewant to keep the for-est healthy and resilientand reduce risk for peo-ple who live around theridge,” explains CaraLee, director of thegroup’s ShawangunkRidge Program. “Peoplearound here recognizethat using prescribedfire makes firefightersand neighbors saferbecause it reduces therisk of large, intensewildfires.”Without fire, forests

in the Shawangunkpreserve would grad-ually change from amix of oaks and pitchpines to maples, ac-co rd ing to GabeChapin, the preserve’sforest ecologist and firemanager. “Oaks provide acorns, whichare an important food source forwildlife, and they store a lot of car-bon, so we want to maintain them,”he says. Both oaks and pitch pineshave thick bark and very deep rootsystems, so they are adapted to re-sprout after fires. “They grow well ina post-fire environment, where theyhave more light and growing spaceand less competition,” Chapin says.For each planned burn, the Con-

servancy and local partners review thetarget zone’s ecology and reasons forusing fire. Then the groups write adetailed blueprint that spells out ac-ceptable conditions for the burn, suchas temperature, humidity, wind speedand direction and fuel moisture lev-els. The plan also assesses what localemergency-response services will beneeded to manage the operation. Burnplans are reviewed and approved bystate regulators.

For a burn to take place,all of the experts listed inthe plan have to be pre-sent, including forestrangers. Often, operatorslight a test fire and watchhow the smoke and firebehaves. “We’ll set up anignition pattern that willlet the fire burn towardthe center of the land unitand effectively burn itselfout when all the fuel isused up,” says Chapin.“And we watch smoke verycarefully to make sure it’slifting above the groundand dispersing away fromhouses and roads. There’sno such thing as a firewithout any risk, but allof the planning, managingand crew training that gointo this process mitigatethe risk, and we don’t pro-ceed unless we’re verycomfortable with the waythe fire is behaving.”Fire historian Pyne lauds

the Nature Conservancy forits expertise in using firefor land management andfor working with govern-ment agencies and con-servation groups on fireprojects. “The Conservancyis creating working land-scapes where people arepresent and doing thingswith fire, and they are using

it for good purposes,” he says.

OUTLOOK“Common Vision” Needed

L and managers, scientists and otherexperts widely agree that it will

MANAGING WILDFIRES

Continued from p. 956

Firefighters take a break as they monitor smoldering “hot spots” inareas burned in the Waldo Canyon Fire west of Colorado Springson June 29, 2012. The fire killed two people, destroyed more than

300 homes and burned more than 18,000 acres in the Pike National Forest and in Colorado Springs.

AFP/Getty Images/Robyn Beck


take more than money and equipmentto manage wildfires in a warming world.“We won’t ever get ahead of the prob-lem at the federal level just by throw-ing money at it,” says Harbour of theForest Service. “We need a commonvision about the responsibility of home-owners, communities and government.”Harbour and others point to de-

velopment in the wildland-urban inter-face as a critical issue. Rasker of Head-waters Economics points out that about80 percent of WUI land is still unde-veloped. He argues that growth inthose areas should be restricted be-fore it drives fire-suppression costs evenhigher over the next several decades.“No one seems to want to have a

conversation about what we shouldbe doing with the rest of our WUIland, what kind of development wewant there and who will bear re-sponsibilities,” says Rasker. “We shouldbe talking about land-use planningand getting the incentives right tokeep people from building in dan-gerous areas. Insurance companieswon’t come up with the answer —they benefit from the federal subsidy[for fire suppression], which lowerstheir risk.”Many experts also say that Ameri-

can attitudes toward fire will have toevolve as it becomes more unavoid-able in many regions. “We’ve createdan ecological insurgency” — fuelbuildups on public lands — “andwe’re not going to bomb it out,” saysArizona State University’s Pyne.Stahl of Forest Service Employees

for Environmental Ethics agrees thatAmericans will have to become moreused to fire, and says part of the prob-lem lies with politicians and journal-ists. For example, he says, officialsoften call for tankers to drop fire re-tardant on big, wind-blown fires neartowns and cities. “That’s not the sce-nario where it’s effective — it was de-signed to slow down low-level firescreeping through remote wildernessareas, so firefighters would have time

to get to them,” Stahl says. “But now,if you don’t do [dramatic] ‘CNN drops’on big fires, politicians get upset andhomeowners want to know why theForest Service isn’t using everythingit’s got.”

Land managers such as the NatureConservancy’s Chapin want to seecontrolled burns applied more wide-ly. “Wildfires in the United States arebecoming more severe and hard toput out,” Chapin says. “Controlled burnsare a tool we can use to manage thatthreat.” The University of California’sStephens agrees. “Most people whotalk to Congress about ‘active man-agement’ of forests are talking aboutmechanical means like thinning treesand shredding brush. But managingwildfires is an active decision, too, andcan have great benefits,” he says.After intense fire seasons like this

year’s, Americans who visit nationalforests and parks will have many op-portunities to see fire’s impacts. Thatshould not deter them, says DavidNimkin, Southwest regional directorfor the National Parks ConservationAssociation.“It’s exciting to see how land

changes,” Nimkin says. He cites MesaVerde National Park, a popular desti-nation located on a high, forestedplateau in southwest Colorado. “Wild-

fires over the past several years haveopened up the mesa. There arescarred tree trunks, but the fires openedup extraordinary views from the plateauthat are a really new experience,”Nimkin says.

Notes

1 Washington State Department of NaturalResources, “Dry Conditions and Extreme Wild-fire Risk Lead to Burn Ban Extensions byDNR,” Oct. 4, 2012, www.dnr.wa.gov/RecreationEducation/News/Pages/2012_10_04_dry_conditions_nr.aspx.2 Washington State Department of NaturalResources, “Severe Fire Conditions We Have NotSeen in Our Lifetimes,” and “Fire PreventionGuide,” posted at Ear to the Ground, Oct. 4,2012, http://washingtondnr.wordpress.com/.3 National Fire Information Center, “Total Wild-land Fires and Acres,” www.nifc.gov/fireInfo/fireInfo_stats_totalFires.html.4 For background see Jennifer Weeks, “Man-aging Public Lands,” CQ Researcher, Nov. 4,2011, pp. 929-952.5 Ross W. Gorte, “Federal Funding for Wild-fire Control and Management,” CongressionalResearch Service, RL33990, July 5, 2011, p. 6,www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33990.pdf.6 “Otter Calls for More Logging, Grazing onPublic Land to Prevent Wildfire,” SpokaneSpokesman-Review, Oct. 4, 2012, www.spokesman.com/blogs/boise/2012/oct/04/otter-calls-more-logging-grazing-public-land-prevent-wildfire/.

“Firefighting is eating up a bigger and bigger share of

the Forest Service’s total budget. You have to respond

to fires, but nobody wants to pay for them.”

— Stephen Pyne

Professor of Life Sciences,

Arizona State University

960 CQ Researcher

7 “State of the Forest Service,” Sept. 18, 2012,www.fs.fed.us/news/2012/speeches/09/state_of_fs.shtml.8 Online at www.documentcloud.org/documents/407523-2012-wildfire-guidance-memo-may-25.html; for an analysis, see RichardManning, “In a Major Policy Reversal, the For-est Service Is Fighting Every Fire This Year —But at What Cost?”, On Earth, Aug. 7, 2012,www.onearth.org/article/forest-service-fire-fighting-policy-reversal.9 Rocky Barker, “Debt Standoff Makes AgencyFight All Fires,” Idaho Statesman, Aug. 23,2012, www.idahostatesman.com/2012/08/23/2241641/debt-standoff-makes-agency-fight.html.10 Jim Robbins, “Forest Fire Research Questionsthe Wisdom of Prescribed Burns,” The New YorkTimes, Sept. 17, 2012, www.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/science/earth/forest-survey-questions-effect-of-prescribed-burns.html?pagewanted=all; Emily Guerin, “Fire Scientists Fight OverWhat Western Forests Should Look Like,”High Country News, Sept. 17, 2012, www.hcn.org/issues/44.16/fire-scientists-fight-over-what-western-forests-should-look-like.11 Laurel Morales, “Fire Study Stirs Contro-versy,” Fronteras.org, Sept. 28, 2012, www.fronterasdesk.org/news/2012/sep/28/fire-study-stirs-controversy/.12 “2012 CoreLogic Wildfire Hazard Risk Re-port,” CoreLogic, 2012, www.corelogic.com/about-us/researchtrends/wildfire-hazard-risk-report-2012.aspx, pp. 7, 9.13 “Wildland Fire Management: Federal Agen-cies Have Taken Important Steps Forward,but Additional, Strategic Action Is Needed toCapitalize on Those Steps,” U.S. GovernmentAccountability Office, September 2009;Gwenlyn Busby and Heidi J. Albers, “Wild-fire Risk Management on a Landscape withPublic and Private Ownership: Who Pays forProtection?” Environmental Management,

Vol. 45 (2010), pp. 296-310; Timothy Ingalsbee,“Getting Burned: A Taxpayer’s Guide to Wild-fire Suppression Costs,” Firefighters United forSafety, Ethics and Ecology, 2010, www.idahoforests.org/img/pdf/FUSEE.pdf.14 “Fire Management Assistance Grant Program,”Federal Emergency Management Agency, www.fema.gov/fire-management-assistance-grant-program.15 Gorte, op. cit.16 Busby and Albers, op. cit.17 For dollar figures, see “Northern California,Homes and Cost of Wildfires,” HeadwatersEconomics, http://headwaterseconomics.org/wildfire/northern-california-homes-and-cost-of-wildfires/, and “Oregon Homebuilding, HigherTemperatures Drive Price Tag Ever Higher,”http://headwaterseconomics.org/wildfire/oregon-homes-and-cost-of-wildfires/.18 For details see “Firewise,” www.firewise.org.19 “Firewise Communities,” www.firewise.org/communities.aspx.20 “Addressing Community Wildfire Risk: A Re-view and Assessment of Regulatory and Plan-ning Tools,” Clarion Associates, December 2011,p. 27, www.nfpa.org/assets/files/Research%20Foundation/RFWUIRegulatoryAssessment.pdf.21 Ibid., p. 11.22 Fred Durso, Jr., “After Waldo Canyon,” NFPAJournal, September/October 2012, p. 4, www.nfpa.org/publicColumn.asp?categoryID=2644&itemID=58466.23 U.S. Forest Service, “Western Bark BeetleStrategy,” July 11, 2011, p. 6, www.fs.fed.us/publications/bark-beetle/bark-beetle-strategy-appendices.pdf. For background, see JenniferWeeks, “Invasive Species,” CQ Researcher,Feb. 17, 2012, pp. 153-176.24 H.R. 6089, the Healthy Forest Managementand Wildfire Prevention Act.25 “Congressman Scott Tipton Addresses 2012Colorado Forest Summit,” press release, Oct. 12,

2012, http://tipton.house.gov/press-release/congressman-scott-tipton-addresses-2012-colorado-forest-summit; Valerie Richardson, “Callsfor Removing Beetle-Kill Trees Intensify,” TheColorado Observer, July 10, 2012, http://thecoloradoobserver.com/2012/07/calls-for-removing-beetle-kill-trees-intensify/.26 Martin Simard, et al., “Do Mountain Pine Bee-tle Outbreaks Change the Probability of ActiveCrown Fire in Lodgepole Pine Forests?” Ecologi-cal Monographs, Vol. 81, No. 1 (2011), pp. 3-24.27 Jeffrey A. Hicke, et al., “Effects of BarkBeetle-Caused Tree Mortality on Wildfire,” For-est Ecology and Management, Vol. 271 (2012),pp. 81-90.28 Blaine Harden, “”Salvage Logging a Key Issuein Oregon,” The Washington Post, Oct. 15, 2004,www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33571-2004Oct14.html; Kathie Durbin, “Un-salvageable,” High Country News, May 16, 2005,www.hcn.org/issues/298/15501.29 D.C. Donato, et al., “Post-Wildfire LoggingHinders Regeneration and Increases Fire Risk,”Science, Vol. 311, Jan. 20, 2006, p. 352.30 “Managing Forests After Fire,” U.S. ForestService, Pacific Northwest Research Station,Summer 2007, p. 5, www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/science-update-15.pdf.31 Ibid.32 Mary Ramos, “The Ubiquitous Mesquite,”Texas Almanac, www.texasalmanac.com/topics/science/ubiquitous-mesquite.33 Stephen J. Pyne, America’s Fires: A HistoricalContext for Policy and Practice (2010), p. 11.34 “U.S. Major Wildfires Timeline,” Forest His-tory Society, www.foresthistory.org/Education/Curriculum/activity/activ9/Wildfire%20Timeline.pdf; “Large Fires and Fatalities,” NationalPark Service, www.nps.gov/fire/wildland-fire/learning-center/fireside-chats/history-timeline.cfm#text.35 Quoted in Pyne, op. cit., p. 26.36 In 2001 the line was changed to “OnlyYou Can Prevent Wildfires,” www.smokeybear.com/vault/history_main.asp.37 Howard R. Jones, “The Modern Bulldozer:A Forest Service Project,” Forest History Society,www.foresthistory.org/ASPNET/Publications/region/1/early_days/4/sec28.htm.38 National Interagency Fire Center, “WildlandFire Fatalities by Year,” www.nifc.gov/safety/reports/year.pdf.39 “The Yellowstone Fires of 1988,” NationalPark Service, 2008, www.nps.gov/yell/naturescience/upload/firesupplement.pdf.40 “Federal Wildland Fire Management Poli-cy & Program Review, Final Report,” Dec. 18,

MANAGING WILDFIRES

About the AuthorJennifer Weeks is a Massachusetts freelance writer whospecializes in energy, the environment and science. Shehas written for The Washington Post, Audubon, PopularMechanics and other magazines and previously was a pol-icy analyst, congressional staffer and lobbyist. She has anA.B. degree from Williams College and master’s degreesfrom the University of North Carolina and Harvard. Herrecent CQ Researcher reports include “Gulf Coast Restora-tion” and “Energy Policy.”


1995, p. iii, www.nwcg.gov/branches/ppm/fpc/archives/fire_policy/mission/1995_fed_wildland_fire_policy_program_report.pdf.41 Ibid., pp. 21-27.42 “U.S. Major Wildfires Timeline,” Forest His-tory Society, www.foresthistory.org/Education/Curriculum/activity/activ9/Wildfire%20Timeline.pdf.43 “Review and Update of the 1995 FederalWildland Fire Management Policy,” January 2001,p. ii, www.nwcg.gov/branches/ppm/fpc/archives/fire_policy/history/index.htm.44 “Healthy Forests,” http://georgewbush-white-house.archives.gov/infocus/healthyforests/.45 Anthony Ambrose, “Logging Without Laws:Bush’s ‘Healthy Forests Initiative,’ ” Sierra ClubRedwood Chapter newsletter, December/January 2003, www.redwood.sierraclub.org/articles/December_02/LoggingWOLaws.html;“Native Forest Network Statements RegardingPresident Bush’s ‘Healthy Forest Initiative,’ ”Aug. 22, 2002, www.nativeforest.org/press_room/release_8_22_02.htm.46 Patricia Gude, Ray Rasker and Jeff van denNoort, “Potential for Future Development onFire-Prone Lands,” Journal of Forestry, June 2008,pp. 200, 203, http://headwaterseconomics.org/pubs/wildfire/PGude_2008_Forestry.pdf.47 Gorte, op. cit.48 Letter provided by Andy Stahl, executivedirector, Forest Service Employees for Envi-ronmental Ethics.49 “Partners Caucus on Fire SuppressionFunding Solutions,” letter to Sens. Jack Reedand Lisa Murkowski, Sept. 10, 2012, www.stateforesters.org/sites/default/files/publication-documents/Simpson-Moran%20FLAME%20Letter%20with%20Groups%20Sep%2010.pdf.50 James Hansen, Makiko Sato and Reto Ruedy,“Perception of Climate Change,” Proceedingsof the National Academy of Sciences, pub-lished online Aug. 6, 2012, www.nature.com/nature_education.51 Justin Gillis, “Study Finds More of Earth isHotter and Says Global Warming Is at Work,”The New York Times, Aug. 6, 2012, www.nytimes.com/2012/08/07/science/earth/extreme-heat-is-covering-more-of-the-earth-a-study-says.html.52 “Climate Change to Alter Global Fire Risk,”Science Daily, June 12, 2012, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120612144805.htm.53 Blane Heumann, “Reflections on 50 Yearsof Burning in the Nature Conservancy,” TheNature Conservancy, April 26, 2012, http://blog.nature.org/2012/04/reflections-on-50-years-of-burning-in-the-nature-conservancy/.

FOR MORE INFORMATIONCato Institute, 1000 Massachusetts Ave., N.W., Washington, DC 20001; 202-842-0200;www.cato.org. Think tank promoting principles of individual liberty, limited govern-ment and free markets.

Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, P.O. Box 11615, Eugene,OR 97440; 541-484-2692; www.fseee.org. Watchdog group that includes present,former and retired U.S. Forest Service employees and works to hold the agencyaccountable for responsible land stewardship.

Goddard Institute for Space Studies, 2880 Broadway, New York, NY 10025;301-286-8955; www.giss.nasa.gov. A NASA agency that studies Earth and space-based issues, including atmospheric and climate change.

Headwaters Economics, P.O. Box 7059, Bozeman, MT 59771; 406-570-8937;www.headwaterseconomics.org. Independent, nonprofit research group working toimprove community development and land management decisions in the West.

National Association of State Foresters, 444 N. Capitol St., N.W., Suite 540,Washington, DC 20001; 202-624-5415; www.stateforesters.org. Represents officialswho manage and protect state and private forests across the United States and itsterritories.

National Center for Atmospheric Research, P.O. Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80307;303-497-1000; www.ncar.ucar.edu. Federally funded research and developmentcenter focusing on service, research and education in the atmospheric sciences,including weather, climate, and atmospheric pollution.

National Fire Protection Association, 1 Batterymarch Park, Quincy, MA 02169-7471; 617-770-3000; www.nfpa.org. Develops, publishes and disseminates more than300 fire codes and standards intended to minimize the possibility and effects offire and other risks.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 1305 East-WestHighway, Silver Spring, MD 20910; 301-713-4248; www.noaa.gov. U.S. governmentagency that oversees coastal and marine resources.

National Parks Conservation Association, 777 Sixth St., N.W., Washington, DC20001; 202-223-6722; www.npca.org. Private, nonprofit organization that works toprotect and enhance America’s national parks.

The Nature Conservancy, 4245 North Fairfax Dr., Suite 100, Arlington, VA 22203;800-628-6860; www.nature.org. U.S.-based group that works to preserve lands andwaters at home and in 33 countries abroad.

Tall Timbers Research Station and Land Conservancy, 13093 Henry BeadelDr., Tallahassee, FL 32312; 850-893-4153; www.talltimbers.org. Private organizationthat studies fire ecology and forestry and protects land in north Florida.

U.S. Forest Service, 1400 Independence Ave., S.W., Washington, DC 20250-0003;202-720-8732; www.fs.fed.us. Department of Agriculture agency that manages 193 mil-lion acres of national forests and grasslands and receives the largest share of fed-eral funding for wildfire management.

Western Forestry Leadership Coalition, 2850 Youngfield St., 4th floor, Denver,CO 80215; 303-445-4362; www.wflccenter.org. Alliance of 34 state and federalforestry agencies that promotes science-based forest management.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

962 CQ Researcher

Selected Sources

BibliographyBooks

Connors, Philip, Fire Season: Field Notes from a Wilder-ness Lookout, Ecco, 2011.A former Wall Street Journal editor recounts his experi-ence as a seasonal fire lookout in Gila National Forest.

DeBuys, William, A Great Aridness: Climate Change andthe Future of the American Southwest, Oxford UniversityPress, 2011.A New Mexico writer examines the likely harsh impact ofclimate change in the Southwest.

Egan, Timothy, The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and theFire That Saved America, Houghton Mifflin, 2009.A journalist tells how the disastrous 1910 wildfires prompt-ed major investments in the national forest system.

Articles

Barker, Rocky, “Memo Orders Forest Service to FightFires to Save Money,” Arizona Daily Sun, Aug. 24, 2012,http://azdailysun.com/news/national/memo-orders-for-est-service-to-fight-fires-to-save-money/article_ff972874-b880-51a4-9e59-207130096df3.html.The Forest Service’s deputy chief ordered forest managersto suppress all wildfires immediately because of a high dangerthat burns would escalate in hot, dry conditions.

Bryan, Susan Montoya, “Scientists Scrutinize Beetle-FireInterplay,” Seattle Times, July 2, 2012, http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2018585228_firebeetles03.html.Scientists are studying whether a massive outbreak of barkbeetles across the West is increasing wildfire risks, with mixedevidence so far.

Draper, Electa, “Black Sludge Coats Poudre River AfterHigh Park Fire,” Denver Post, July 13, 2012, www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_21069966/black-sludge-left-poudre-river-after-high-park?source=pkg.Long-term impacts of wildfire can include erosion, soil dam-age and fish kills.

Fattig, Paul, “The Biscuit Fire: Ten Years Later,” The MailTribune (Medford, OR), July 8, 2012, www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120708/NEWS/207080320.Ten years after a massive wildfire in the Siskiyou NationalForest in southern Oregon, both positive and negative effectsare evident.

Peterson, Jodi, “Good Policy and Good Intentions Won’tStop Big Wildfires,” High Country News, Oct. 17, 2011,www.hcn.org/issues/43.17/good-policy-and-good-inten

tions-wont-stop-big-destructive-wildfires/article_view?b_start:int=0&-C=.Federal agencies have adopted science-based fire policiesbut need to apply them at much larger scales.

Wald, Matthew L., “U.S. is Urged to Change its FirefightingAir Fleet,” The New York Times, July 30, 2012, www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/us/forest-service-urged-to-update-firefighting-fleet.html?_r=1&ref=forestandbrushfires.The Forest Service is rejecting a study it commissioned thatrecommends replacing its aging tanker planes with modern“scooper” aircraft that use water from local lakes and rivers.

Weidensee, Derek, “Clearcuts Don’t Burn,” Range Maga-zine, Fall 2011, www.rangemagazine.com/features/fall-11/range-fa11-clearcuts.pdf.A land surveyor and former logger argues that clear-cuttingis an effective way to reduce fire risks in Western forests.

Zuckerman, Laura, “Smoke from Idaho Wildfire PosesHealth Risk: Officials,”Reuters, Sept.12, 2012, www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/12/us-usa-wildfires-idUSBRE88B03M20120912.Smoke from a long-burning fire in Idaho causes symptomsthat include fatigue, headaches and chronic coughing.

Reports and Studies

“Forest Service: Continued Work Needed to Address Per-sistent Management Challenges,” U.S. Government Ac-countability Office, March 10, 2011, www.gao.gov/assets/130/125695.pdf.To fight wildfires effectively, the Forest Service needs a clear strat-egy and goals that will help it spend limited funds effectively.

“Wildfire Effects on Source-Quality Water — Lessonsfrom Fourmile Canyon Fire, Colorado, and Implicationsfor Drinking-Water Treatment,” U.S. Geological Survey,July 2012, http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2012/3095/.Forest fires lead to flooding and erosion, which can degradedrinking water quality and damage water treatment systems.

“Wildfire Hazard Risk Report,” CoreLogic, 2012, www.corelogic.com/about-us/researchtrends/wildfire-hazard-risk-report-2012.aspx.A Santa Ana, Calif., company estimates that more than740,000 homes in 13 Western states, valued at more than$136 billion, are at high risk from wildfires.

Pyne, Stephen J., “America’s Fires: A Historical Contextfor Policy and Practice,” Forest History Society, 2010.An Arizona State University professor who has written widelyon fires throughout history provides an overview of fire issuesand policies in the United States.


Development

Kodas, Michael, and Burt Hubbard, “Policies Put MoreColoradans at Risk of Losing Homes to Wildfire,” DailyCamera (Colo.), June 30, 2012, www.dailycamera.com/state-west-news/ci_20980375/red-zone-policies-put-more-coloradans-at-risk.Forested Colorado areas zoned for future development areat greater risk of wildfire, a geography professor has found.

Kraft, Michael E., “Wildfires: Climate Change and HomeConstruction Likely Causes,” Centre Daily Times (Pa.),Sept. 24, 2012, www.centredaily.com/2012/09/24/3347313/climate-change-and-home-construction.html.Home construction near forested areas has led to the con-struction of power lines that can cause fires, says an envi-ronmental affairs professor.

Wickham, Shawne K., “Wildfire Risk Keeps NH Vigilant,”Union Leader (N.H.), July 29, 2012, p. A1, www.unionleader.com/article/20120729/NEWHAMPSHIRE03/707299977.Supporters of development in forested areas say roads oftenserve as natural fire breaks.

Ecological Benefits

Bien, Walter, “Fire Vital to Pinelands Ecology,” AsburyPark (N.J.) Press, Nov. 15, 2011.Wildfires historically have helped New Jersey’s Pine Barrensregenerate after beetle infestations, says a columnist.

Finley, Bruce, “Things Looking Up,” Denver Post, Sept. 5,2012, p. A1.Wildfires release nutrients into soil and allow light to reachplaces where forests were unnaturally dense.

Knudson, Tom, “In an Environmental Exchange, SomeAncient Trees Are Killed to Help Others,” Sacramento(Calif.) Bee, Aug. 12, 2012, p. A1, www.sacbee.com/2012/08/12/4717554/in-an-environmental-exchange-some.html#storylink=misearch.Wildfires have helped conifers and aspen trees spreadthroughout the Sierra Nevadas over thousands of years.

Health Risks

Dodge, John, “Thurston County Air Quality Risky forSome as Fire Smoke Drifts In,” The Olympian (Wash.),Sept. 13, 2012, www.theolympian.com/2012/09/13/2249841/thurston-county-air-quality-risky.html.A wildfire has caused air quality to plummet to unhealthylevels in certain parts of Washington state.

O’Malley, Jaclyn, “Smoke From Calif. Wildfires Continuesto Choke Reno,”Reno (Nev.)Gazette-Journal, Aug. 23, 2012.Pregnant women, children, the elderly and those sufferingfrom heart or lung disease face the greatest risk from in-haling wildfire smoke.

Palmer, Brian, “Wildfire Management: A Costly Oxy-moron,” The Washington Post, July 10, 2012, p. E2.Water quality can be compromised up to 100 miles fromwildfires.

Logging

Boxall, Bettina, “New Blueprint for Sequoia Monument,”Los Angeles Times, Sept. 5, 2012, p. B3, articles.latimes.com/2012/sep/05/local/la-me-sequoia-monument-20120905.The U.S. Forest Service has unveiled a plan allowing thecutting of young sequoia trees around the Giant SequoiaNational Monument in California to reduce wildfire risks.

Cockerham, Sean, “Otter Says No Logging Puts State atRisk,” Lewiston (Idaho) Morning Tribune, Feb. 29, 2012,lmtribune.com/northwest/article_cea58c1b-9b5e-533d-973a-3234af5c7150.html.Gov. C. L. “Butch” Otter, R-Idaho, says his state is at riskof a catastrophic wildfire because the U.S. Forest Serviceisn’t thinning forests enough.

Erhard, Evelyn Madrid, “Pearce Cuts Funding, ThenBlames Forest Service,” Las Cruces (N.M.) Sun-News,July 15, 2012.Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., says increased logging could haveprevented a recent string of intense wildfires in the state.

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CHICAGO STYLEJost, Kenneth. “Remembering 9/11.” CQ Researcher, September

2, 2011, 701-732.

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