Improving the Fuels Problem

The goal for improving the wildland fire and fuels problem is to reduce the long-term risk wildfire poses to human and ecological communities. Managers need to weigh the short-term risks posed by active management against the long-term risks posed by continued inaction, and to communicate these risks in a meaningful way to the public (Bosworth 2003). Managers cannot change weather or topography, but fuels can be modified to change the burning and value-loss characteristics at specific locations as well as across large landscapes. This not only reduces the negative impacts on those forests but the wildfire itself may also provide benefits (Finney 2005). Benefits include environmental risks prevented by management actions (Davies 1996). For example, before enjoining “an agency action under an authorized hazardous fuel reduction project, the court reviewing the project shall balance the impact to the ecosystem likely affected by the project of (1) the short- and long-term effects of undertaking the agency action; against (2) the short- and long-term effects of not undertaking the agency action” (HFRA 2003, title 1, section 106).

Fire hazard in a given area is partly a function of the combustible materials located on site. Thinning and prescribed burning are the primary fuel management activities and repeatedly have shown to reduce fire intensities and increase survival of some forest types (Finney 2005). Considering anticipated changes in Interior West forests, including climate, Covington and others (1994) concluded that the undesirable consequences of inaction far exceed those of action. Without active management of fuels, many forests will continue to be subject to uncharacteristically severe fires, and the costs of firefighting will continue to increase (Stephens and Ruth 2005). Active management can mitigate wildfire risks to watersheds in some situations, but, in others, forest management may not be effective (Bisson and others 2003, Schoennagel and others 2004, Westerling and others 2006).

Benefits from prefire management are most likely to come from prioritizing treatment areas (Dunham and others 2003). Priorities can be based on ecological value, evolutionary significance, and the risk of loss (Bisson and others 2003). The scale of the problem, however, is enormous. High priority treatment areas cover 397 million acres of forests and grasslands across all ownerships, public and private, an area three times the size of France. Some 73 million acres of forests in the low- and mixed-severity regimes are far denser than they ought to be, increasing their vulnerability to stand-replacing fires. These have been identified as high-priority treatment areas (USDA-FS 2006a).

Successful projects for reducing fire hazard depend on taking many factors into account and developing protocols for deciding which stands should be thinned and how much, with each situation evaluated on its own merit and operations planned carefully to ensure that the cure is not worse than the disease (NRC 2000). In risk management, avoiding actions in which the cure is worse than the disease means avoiding extreme events, i.e., the worst and the most disastrous situations (Haimes 2004).

Problem fires are today’s parlance for extreme fire events (NIFC 2006b). Of all ignitions, 2-3 percent escape initial attack and become the problem fires that damage resources, threaten communities, and cost millions of dollars in suppression efforts. Whereas not all wildland fires grow to such proportions, problem fires are those events that are large, destructive, dangerous, and costly to manage. Problem fires are the symptoms of a larger forest health issue, where ecological realities conflict with social expectations and economic limitations (NIFC 2006b). Spatial fire behavior models used in collaborative settings (see Strategic Fuel Treatment) offer some promise in dealing with social issues at various spatial and temporal scales. Especially on National Forest System lands (see National Forest System Issues), institutional improvements may be necessary to help put such technologies in place.