Fire Prevention Week: Resilient Forests

“Wildfires are unplanned fires that burn in forests and other wildlands, such as shrub or grass communities. Preventing and fighting unwanted fires begins with understanding the science of how they start, and why they continue to be such a big problem. Why has the number of acres burned remained so high over the last few years?

Many factors are involved in the increase in the number and size of wildfires:

• Increased complexity of implementing fire suppression, especially with the increased residential development in the wildland urban interface (WUI).

• Increased complexity of implementing fuels treatment programs has resulted in hazardous accumulations of forest and rangeland debris, and fuels such as fallen leaves, branches, excessive plant overgrowth, ladder fuels, and dead vegetation. “Ladder fuels” are positioned so that fire can spread from low to medium to high vegetation (for example from grass to bushes to trees). On a single tree, the fire can spread from ground level branches to mid branches and eventually to the crowns (tops) of the trees.

• Climate change is producing drier and hotter weather patterns and longer 'fire seasons.'

Overcrowded stands and drought patterns result in cyclical insect and disease outbreaks, which create large areas of dead and dying wood” (Fire Science | Smokey Bear).

One goal of fire mitigation is to create resilient forests, or rather bring back resilient forests. These healthy, thriving ecosystems are less vulnerable to extreme wildfires (the ones that ruin watersheds, destroy wildlife habitat, and even risk lives), and they are able to adapt to climate change, invasive species and insect infestations.

If we humans collectively have done one thing too well, it’s been keeping fire out of our wildlands. The result of this is to leave forests and grasslands just packed with flammable fuels.

A strategy to restore these resilient forests includes thinning crowded forests and implementing prescribed fire. This is being utilized by the US Forest Service and their partners on two to three million acres each year.

“Assessments of more than 1,400 fuel treatments since 2006 have shown that they are effective in reducing both the cost and damage from wildfires. In certain locations, when conditions are right, we will even manage naturally caused wildfires to perform their natural role in controlling fuel buildup, rejuvenating vegetation, and restoring ecosystems that benefit from fire. Thinning, prescribed fires, and managing naturally caused wildfires to achieve natural resource management objectives can help prevent extreme wildfires with minimal impacts to air quality while smoke from extreme wildfires may pose significant risks to public health and safety” (US Forest Service).

To read a brief article about the success of having thinned fuels in an area before a wildfire click here.

According to the Fire Defenders Blog, fire is so important for the health of many ecosystems that it is sometimes referred to as a keystone process. Like a keystone species, a keystone process has a disproportionate influence on an ecosystem and removing such a process dramatically changes an ecosystem’s ability to remain healthy and diverse. Restoring natural fire regimes is necessary for long-term sustainable management that protects both humans and wildlife, to read more about fire as a keystone process click here.