Current conditions in the West demonstrate that our U.S. fire management system is struggling and approaching a state of crisis. Spending on fighting fires has climbed dramatically since the 1990s. And there is growing risk of more intense fires with each passing year, given the effects of climate change, accumulated fuels in the landscape, and our inability to extinguish all ignitions.
Our fire management system invariably leads managers to attempt suppression of nearly all wildland fires despite the natural, beneficial role of “good” fires. Ironically, our firefighting system is very efficient at extinguishing such “good” fires while, by default, creating the “bad” fires that have no historic precedents and create great losses.
Such counterproductive polices gradually develop over time, and they persist due to sociopolitical inertia until something happens to break the dysfunctional cycle. That break might be forced by the ongoing changes in our climate, the strains on our federal budget and/or the inability of firefighters to keep pace with extreme wildfires.
Regardless of the reasons behind our current practices, our reluctance to actively manage fire and our wildland resources—the fuel—must end. Indeed, the future of “fighting” wildland fires means actively removing fuel through large-scale prescribed fires.
Fire Benefits
There is little doubt over the historic role of fire in forests throughout North America and much of the world. Fire has been a reality for millennia. Our ancestors recognized this fact, coexisted with fire, and actively set and spread fire to improve their lives for food, water, medicines, and safety.
