The
hazardous fuel treatment and ecological restoration
job that lies before federal land management agencies,
tribes, states, counties, and local communities
is enormous. Nationally, there has been a steady
increase in acres affected by wildfire over the
past four and a half decades, with a trend towards
uncharacteristically severe and uncontrollable
fire behavior. Two to three percent of all ignitions
escape initial attack, becoming the problem fires
that damage resources, threaten communities, and
cost millions of dollars in suppression efforts.
While not all wildland fires grow to catastrophic
proportions, “problem fires” are those
events that are large, destructive, dangerous,
and costly to manage. They are the symptoms of
a larger forest health issue, where ecological
realities conflict with social expectations and
economic limitations.
We must
continue to treat the symptoms of problem fires
through fire suppression efforts to protect communities,
assets, resources, and investments. At the same
time, the causes must be addressed through hazardous
fuel reduction and vegetation management activities
that are consistent with a variety of management
objectives. These fuel and vegetation projects
must be designed to encourage landscapes that
offer a mixture of species and stand characteristics
that are sustainable given the expected disturbance
processes, including fire, insects, and disease.
Only through dedication and the alignment of integrated,
interagency efforts can meaningful progress be
made toward restoration and maintenance of more
resilient ecosystems.
Given the
size of the task, annual priorities are set that
address the most urgent issues first. While fuel
reduction treatments have proven effective in
changing fire behavior and effects at the individual
stand level, the more complex issue of changing
landscape-scale fire behavior, effects, and suppression
costs may also be addressed with fuel treatments
designed to reduce problem fire spread and intensity
on the landscape. Gaming expected fire behavior
scenarios at the landscape scale with tools like
FARSITE or FlamMap suggests that the deliberate
and strategic placement of hazardous treatments
on 20-30% of the landscape may dramatically reduce
the size and intensity of the problem fire affecting
the entire landscape. A strategic approach to
the placement of treatments, including their arrangement
on the landscape, orientation relative to the
prevailing wind, treatment size, treatment shape,
and treatment prescription, could reduce the undesired
effects of problem fires and acres burned with
undesired severity. |