This week, USFS chief Moore suspended Managed Wildfire and Prescribed Fire and pushed to suppress all fires quickly. Here's why that's a horrible decision that only exacerbates the wildfire problem. 🧵1/ n wildfiretoday.com/2021/08/03/for…
1) It puts firefighter lives at risk. Wilderness fires are some of the most difficult and dangerous to fight bc you can't use motorized equipment, the terrain is incredibly challenging, and it's very difficult to get in and out. Escape routes are limited if things blow up. 2/n
2) It can pull valuable air resources away from more dangerous WUI fires. Air resources (especially helicopters) are used to ferry firefighters, drop supplies, and drop water on wilderness fires, which 99% of the time threaten no one and no homes. 3/n
3) On Wed, when the #RiverFire started near Colfax, I counted no less than 19 aircraft working to suppress that fire (successfully!). What if several of those aircraft had been working wilderness fires? #RiverFire could have killed people or burned thousands of homes. 4/n
4) Wildfire currently does the vast majority of fuels treatment work. Suppressing wilderness fires simply kicks the can down the road until those fires burn under even more extreme conditions. Bc climate change guarantees it's only going to get more severe/extreme. 5/n
5) We spent a century suppressing all fires, and we made the #wildfire problem much worse thru this policy. Trying to suppress wilderness fires now is going back to the 10 a.m. policy, one of the more ill-fated policies in US forest mgmt history. 6/n
6) The problem is not wilderness fires. It's that communities downhill are vulnerable to #wildfire at all. We can mitigate this vulnerability. Rx fire, fuel treatments, home hardening, brush removal, etc., work and are much more effective than suppressing wilderness fire. 7/n
7) Opponents argue that "it's too dry and hot this yr." Reality check: according to some climate models, this may be the coolest/wettest summer for the rest of the century. It's only going to get worse. Let it burn now and stop deferring the consequences. Focus on mitigation. 8/n
8) This memo also ignores that conditions are very different across the country right now (spatial variability!). In some places, it's the perfect time for managed wildfire and rxfire to do great ecological work and restore resilience. Let local managers on the ground decide. 9/n
9) For example, many of the wilderness fires on USFS land right now are in ID and MT - one of the biggest tracts of wilderness in US. It is a very different situation there than in CA, bc they have 60-yr old wilderness fire program that has restored fire to those forests. 10/n
10) The decision is being tied to recent wilderness fires that made runs down into WUI areas, like the #TamarackFire in CA. But it was also pushed for by pro-logging groups that think the only wildfire solution is more logging. Science shows intensive logging makes it worse. 11/n
11) This recent letter to new USFS Chief Moore from the so-called "National Wildfire Institute" makes clear that they view a reduction in logging as the cause of the wildfire problem. It's full of half-truths and ignores the extensive science. 12/n evergreenmagazine.com/pdfs/letter-to…
12) The science is VERY clear: we need more fire not less. We need to use fire and other tools to protect communities, not try to stop wilderness fire until some future date when we think we can control it better. Bc that day will never come.
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