It has been a busy month for wildfires in the Western U.S., with a few recent fires hitting a little close to home for us Reno-ites.
The hard truth of it is wildfires are becoming more frequent and widespread. This trend is predicted to continue throughout our lifetimes. Currently, one in six Americans live in areas with significant wildfire risk. And even as wildfires worsen, we continue building further into vulnerable areas.
Our future is one where wildfire is a fixed variable. Fire will not adapt to us. Therefore, we need to adapt to fire.
Unfortunately, there are significant barriers in place preventing us from adapting. The first is how we manage fire, our landscapes, and our climate. The second is our cultural perception of wildfire. The third is that we continue to focus on the backcountry rather than our communities. Overcoming these barriers could be the key to a sustainable future with wildfire.
Management, Landscapes, and Climate
Our landscapes evolved with and are dependent on wildfires to maintain their healthy ecological functions. Unfortunately, ecology has never been at the forefront of the wildfire conversation.
Over the last century, we have perfected putting fires out (fire suppression), to a point where 98% of wildland fires are now contained within the first 24 hours. Many of these fires exist in the backcountry with little to no immediate threat to communities. While an impressive feat, our focus on immediately suppressing fires is essentially just depriving a necessary ecological function from our wildlands.
There is a wildfire paradox that states that by suppressing fires, we are building up fuels in our wildlands that make future fires worse. Long before humans set foot on this part of the world, regular interval fires managed our landscapes, burning at various intensities and severities. By keeping fire away from our landscapes, trees, shrubs and grasses that would have historically burned are left to grow and regrow to a point where many parts of our landscapes are overcrowded with vegetation. This vegetation will at some point have to burn, as is the natural cycle. The wildfire paradox points out that the longer we wait for these areas to burn, the more intensive the eventual burn will be.
But continued suppression of fires isn't the only recent alteration to our landscapes that is affecting fire. A century of intensive logging has removed the necessary fuels, and created unnatural second and third growth forests that burn in unprecedented ways. Logging has gone through several transitions over this century. The most disastrous clear cutting tactics are now far less common. Replaced today with more sustainable logging such as “thinning” with the goal of mimicking fire behavior by spacing out the vegetation.
Unfortunately, ecologically speaking, there is no form of logging that mimics or maintains the environment's natural functions. We cannot log our way out of destructive wildfires. Fire functions cannot be mimicked without fire. And more and more research is emerging from fields outside of forestry showing devastating effects of even the most minimalistic forms of logging. Something that we will have to grapple with as we continue our dependency on wood products.
And lastly, you cannot discuss our future with fire without talking about climate change. The fact is, climate is the biggest driver of the wildfires that we are facing today. On average we are experiencing a greater number of hotter and drier days, greater surface level and jet stream wind speeds, and less predictable weather patterns. All of this affects wildfires. From longer wildfire seasons, to how they spread across our landscapes.
To overcome these barriers we need to: 1) Reexamine our fire suppression policies. 2) Grapple with our dependence on wood products while recognizing that there is no such thing as sustainable logging. 3) Address the fact that climate change is going to continue making wildfires worse and that we need to start acting accordingly. Unfortunately, deeply embedded in all of these changes are our public perceptions of wildfire. Perceptions that are steering us further away from overcoming barriers.
Cultural Perceptions and Misconceptions:
Wildfires are not only becoming more widespread, they are becoming more destructive. With destruction stirs confusion, fear, mistrust, and conspiracies.
Journalist Naomi Klein writes that conspiracies often get the feelings right, but the facts wrong. This is very present in our perception of wildfire. People are drawn to conspiracies for their ability to make complex issues simple. Wildfire is about as complex of an issue as it gets, and is therefore, ripe for conspiracy.
Following every new wildfire news post is a slew of comments about government laser beams, insurance companies, real estate moguls, or environmental extremists. There is always a “follow the money” or “follow the narrative” agenda, often persuading readers away from the real and tangible causes of climate change and unintentional mismanagement.
The consequence of this rhetoric is fear. Not only from the public, but from those tasked with managing fires. Land managers know, for the most part, that continuing to suppress fires is only making future fires worse. Yet, letting a plume of smoke in the backcountry go unattended is political and career suicide. People want to see wildfires managed. We want to see our political leaders release additional suppression funds. We want land managers to call in air tankers and engines. And the second these protocols are not followed, fear based conspiracies jump in to fill in the gaps for the confused, frightened people.
To overcome this barrier we need to 1) Recognize that wildfires and the science surrounding them is complex. 2) We need to refrain from the simple, compelling conspiracies that surround wildfire. 3) We need to become open to the idea of letting more fires onto our landscape, and allowing those fires to burn for longer periods of time. The only way through the wildfire paradox is with more fire. Unfortunately, the gravest barrier of all is that our communities are not yet prepared for this future with fire. And as more destruction continues to occur, so will the spread of conspiracies.
Wildfire is a Community Problem:
There is a difference between “wildfire” and “wildfire destruction.” Wildfires are natural, ecologically beneficial occurrences. Wildfire destruction is when homes, communities, or lives are lost during these ecological occurrences. The science of wildfire is ever evolving. It is a complex field, filled with debate and dialog from a myriad of academic fields and specialities. But there is one thing that we do know. That is, how to save homes and communities from burning down during these events.
Decades of research from the front lines of fires, high-tech laboratories that simulate wildfire, and exhaustive investigation have provided us with the knowledge of how to stop buildings from burning down. It essentially boils down to updating building codes, retrofitting existing buildings, and implementing landscape plans around individual homes and communities. These tactics are called home and community hardening and defensible space.
Furthermore, we know roughly how much it would cost to implement this on a scale large enough to be impactful. And we know that if we reallocate a portion of wildfire funds away from extinguishing fires in the backcountry, we could easily have enough to invest in our communities, making sure that they were safe from wildfire.
Unfortunately, until our focus shifts away from fire suppression, we will continue to neglect building up resilience from within our communities. Preventing fires in our wildlands is ultimately futile. The more we continue to suppress them, the worse they will eventually become. We need to reframe wildfire; to worry less about the fires far outside of our communities, and instead prepare and harden for when fires enter our communities.
To overcome this barrier we need to: 1) Reallocate funding away from backcountry fires, and invest into making our communities safe from fire. 2) Reframe fire, worry less about backcountry fires, and more about community safety. 3) Acknowledge that community hardening means working together with your neighbors. Like a herd immunity, it works best when done as a collective.
In conclusion, fire is not going away. Wildfires are, and will continue to get worse. Thankfully, there are things that we can all do to carve out a better future for ourselves within this future with fire. Barriers can be overcome. Management practices can change. Public perception can shift. And we can build up resilience within our communities. We know the barriers, but will we take steps towards overcoming them? Or will we continue to sit back and watch newsreels of destruction while being comforted by conspiracies?
Citizen’s Forum Contribution by Michael Stohlgren
Bio: Michael currently works creating wildfire resilient landscapes around homes in the Reno/Tahoe areas for MO’s Defensible Space. He has a master’s degree in environmental science where he studied ecology, ecosystem health and community resilience.