Wildfire in the Western United States
Past, Present, and Future
Fire season in 2020 has resulted in another year of record setting megafires for the United State's West Coast. Millions of acres have burned and lives have been lost. Six of the twenty largest wildfires in California history were part of the 2020 wildfire season - five of the new wildfires ranking in the top 10 were all a part of the August 2020 lightning fires.
As each successive fire season seems to be worse than the year before, what can be done to protect the people and the West's vast land and resources? Read on to learn about how fire is a powerful land management tool to restore health and balance to wildlands as the climate continues to change.
Fire Ecology & Benefits
Many years of public opinion have molded views of wildfire to be negative and destructive to society and nature. However, while fire may destroy, it also brings new life. Nature has evolved with fire to become an essential contributor to a healthy ecosystem.
Fire cleans the forest floor by removing underbrush and dead or decaying plants. This allows sunlight to reach the soil which prompts new growth of grass and shrubs which in turn provide food and habitat for wildlife. Removing decaying plants also brings nutrients back in the soil increasing soil fertility and creates space for established trees to grow healthier and stronger. Fewer plants competing for water creates more abundant streams which further promote healthy habitats for wildlife.
Forest regrowth after fire ( source )
Additionally, fire kills diseases and insects that would otherwise kill healthy trees. Many forests struggle against disease - more trees die per year from disease and infestation such as bark beetle than fire. When dense forests experience drought, competition for water is amplified, creating weakened trees that are less effective at defending themselves from pests. The US Forest Service estimates that 129 million trees have died in California alone since 2010. Weakened trees are also less likely to survive a wildfire.
Giant Sequoia Grove (Getty Images)
As nature has evolved with wildfire, many species have become fire dependent to germinate and reproduce. Trees have developed thick bark which does not catch fire or burn as easily. It also protects the the living tissues inside of the trunk that transport water and nutrients, from heat damage during low-intensity fires.
For example in California, Chaparral plants such as Manzanita require intense heat for seed germination which in turns prompts the plant to sprout.
Seedling growth in fire ash ( source )
The famous Giant Sequoia Redwood in the Sierra Nevada mountains has thick, protective bark up to four feet thick making it incredibly adapted to withstand fire. When fire strikes, sequoia cones drop en masse and the seeds use the cleared forest floor to germinate.
Ash becomes a rich fertilizer to new seedlings, restarting the natural fire cycle.
History of Suppression
The year 1910 was one of the driest years in many people's memories. By June, hundreds of blazes were burning as the result of loggers, campers, and flying embers from coal-powered locomotives and a lack of spring rain. As summer progressed, lightning storms stuck and started more fires. In August, a hurricane-force wind storm picked up and turned small fires into infernos which burned 3 million acres of land in two days and decimated towns.
Overall land burned in 1910 and the Big Blow Up (source)
At least 85 people were killed and several small towns were completely destroyed. Wildfire smoke travelled to New England. Nationally, wildfires in 1910 consumed more than 5 million acres.
Aftermath of Great Fire of 1910 ( source )
This became known as the Big Blowup of the Great Fire of 1910. The fire fundamentally shaped how the US Forest Service (USFS), then only five years old, would go on to create fire control and forest management policies to this day. Wildfires were to be suppressed to 10 acres or less to reduce resource loss and fire suppression costs. In 1935, the USFS strengthened its policy with the "10 AM Policy" - "If aggressive initial attack did not control a fire, then enough fire-fighting resources would be assigned to control it by 10 A.M. the next day".
Forest Service personnel review the aftermath of the Big Blowup ( source )
Sentiments started to change in the 1960's as fire became recognized as an important part of natural ecology. In 1964, the Wilderness Act recommended that fire be allowed, as much as possible, to play its natural role in wilderness. This prompted the National Park Service in 1968 to adjust its program to natural-process management, which changed the mindset that national parks should be managed as natural ecosystems, not as primarily recreational spaces.
In 1978, USFS instituted new fire management policies to minimize rising fire-suppression costs by defining appropriate suppression response (ASR): contain, confine, and control. ASR implies that suppression may not always be the most cost effective fire response in the event of an escaped fire.
However, after many decades of successful fire suppression which all but eliminated fire influence on ecosystems, land management agencies struggle to reconcile the role of natural processes to maintain healthy ecosystems. As evident in the swipe below, Yosemite Valley after 100 years of fire suppression - forests in the Sierra Mountains typically had about 40 trees per acre in the early 1800s. Now they have 400 or more.
Yosemite Valley in 1899 from Library of Congress vs 2011 ( source )
This continues today.
Present Land Management
Lands throughout the Western US are managed by multiple government agencies including federal, state, and local organizations with federal and state being the bulk of the land area.
Federal agencies include:
- Bureau of Land Management (BLM) of the Dept. of the Interior: 246 million acres of public lands
- US Forest Service (USFS) of the Dept. of Agriculture: 193 million acres of the National Forest System
- National Park Service (NPS) of the DOI: 80 million acres in the National Park System
State agencies include:
- Washington State Department of Natural Resources : 2.1 million acres of working forest
- Oregon Dept. of Forestry : 745,000 acres of forestlands across Oregon
- California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CALFIRE) : 72,000 acres of state forests , 31 million acres of California's privately-owned wildlands for fire protection
Cooperation between government agencies is imperative to properly manage the West's vast environmental resources. For example, in California , 19 million acres or 57% of land is federally owned, 3% is state (CALFIRE) or local owned, and the remaining 40% is privately owned by companies, families, or Native American tribes.
The swipe map below shows what land is federally managed (left) and state managed (right) using the National Land Cover layer .
Federal Responsibility Areas vs State Responsibility Areas
Prescribed burns, also known as controlled burns, are fires intentionally set by trained professionals during specific conditions in order to mimic natural fire and bring health back to the forests. Land management agencies now use prescribed fire to thin out overgrown forests to also help prevent out of control mega-wildfires.
A firefighter closely monitors a controlled burn in the woods of Madison, New Hampshire. Photograph by Cavan/Alamy Stock Photo
Federal agencies that manage lands in Oregon and Washington have come together to commit to increasing use of controlled burns to implement the restoration of fire dependent habitats. California recently pledged to increase the amount of burn treated land from 200,000 to 500,000 acres per year, with a new joint pledge between the State of California and the US Forest Service to increase that amount to 1,000,000 acres per year. It will take years to get forests healthy again, but it is absolutely possible.
(source Getty Images)
Returning western forests back to the natural fire cycle will also save billions of dollars annually from fighting wildfire to damage caused by the destruction. Over the last few years, wildfire suppression has become more costly resulting in inadequate funding for wildfire suppression for the USFS . The 2017 fire season was the most expensive ever, with costs exceeding $2.4 billion, which are increasing yearly. When funding is not enough, USFS is forced to shift funds from other activities such as controlled burns that in turn reduce fire threat. This number does not take into account other state run fire organizations or other costs such as insurance payouts to cover damage to homes.
The USFS wildfire budget exceeded 50% of the total budget for the first time in 2015. Future projections expect wildfire costs to be 67% of the total budget.
CALFIRE's emergency fire suppression costs have also continually risen from around $12 million in 1980 to $890 million during the 2018-2019 fiscal year.
USFS Budget
Funding for new initiatives to treat forested land could cost upwards of $1 billion but that is a drop in the bucket compared to total annual suppression and damage costs between all agencies. Future funds will be saved as costly megafire disasters become less frequent and less expensive due to better managed forests.
Effect of Climate Change
While the shift from fire suppression to fire control is a positive change to bring health back to forests of the Western US, a century of wildfire suppression has resulted in anomalous fuel accumulation.
California has warmed about three degrees Fahrenheit compared to the global average of one degree F in the last 100 years. Higher temperatures and droughts, combined with years of dry vegetation build-up in wildlands, increase the frequency and severity of wildfire. This has led to fire seasons that are now on average 78 days longer than in 1970. These combined factors have resulted in California experiencing 16 of the most destructive 20 wildfires and 17 of the largest 20 wildfires since 2000. Megafires are becoming the new norm.
Firefighters battle the Saddleridge Fire in Southern California on October 11, 2019 (source Associated Press)
Unfortunately, climate change is a double edged sword - wildfire is exacerbated by climate change which in turn makes climate change worse. Trees remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The more destructive the fire, the more carbon is released into the atmosphere as trees are burned. So much so, that from 2001–2014, California’s lands emitted more carbon than they absorbed.
Healthy, managed lands are vital to the climate change solution.
Human Impact
Population encroachment into areas that used to be wildlands - foothills, grasslands, and mountains - combined with dry, hot climate conditions, create severe potential wildfire conditions. Wildfires that could start by natural means such as lightning now have extra potential to start from human means such as powerlines, campfires, and vehicles. Maintaining the natural role of fire and protecting human lives and property becomes much more difficult in wildland-urban interfaces.
Wildfire Hazard Potential
The USFS Fire Modeling Institute creates an index of relative potential for wildfire that would be difficult for fire crews to contain due to extreme fire behavior.
Darker areas have higher potential for more extreme fire events.
Using this data joined with Esri Demographics , we can gauge how many people and homes are at risk.
Click on the map to discover the potential fire risk to the population.
Another way to view fire risk is by comparing wildfire hazard potential to the population footprint.
Bright areas in red have people and high risk.
This is overlaid with fire perimeters from 1984-2018 allowing us to see high risk areas with population that also have burned in the past.
Click on the map for more detail.
As housing has increasingly moved into traditionally wildland areas, wildfires have become particularly devastating.
This map shows higher wildfire risk areas in yellow with size showing the percentage increase of housing over the last ten years.
It is evident that there have been increased housing development in areas that are prone to wildfire.
Click for the popup to discover more.
Home value impacts how much a homeowner will pay in home insurance, which covers fire protection. Areas with more risk may have a harder time insuring their home as extreme wildfires has become increasingly common.
This map shows the relationship (also known as bivariate mapping) between median home value and average wildfire hazard potential.
Areas with both high wildfire hazard potential and high median home values appear in darker reds and purples.
Pan, zoom, or click the map to learn more.
Megafires have resulted in tens of thousands of people evacuating from their homes. In 2020, half a million residents were under mandatory evacuations in Oregon alone. Homes are destroyed and the death toll keeps rising.
Smoke from raging fires spreads across the West and throughout the country creating some of the worst air quality conditions in the world affecting major populations not directly affected by the flames. Poor air quality is a major environmental risk to health estimated to cause 4.2 million premature deaths worldwide in 2016.
2020 wildfire smoke blocked out the sun in the San Francisco/Bay Area, CA (source AFP/Getty Images)
Get Involved
Acknowledging that major fire events are becoming the new norm, it is everyone's responsibility to understand the important role that fire plays in maintaining the health of our ecosystems so that we can better protect lives, property, and the health of our natural lands.
With cooperation, we can reverse the effect years of wildfire suppression has had on the Western United States wild lands and restore balance to the ecosystem in order to be better equipped to handle the changing climate.
While forest management agencies work on managing forests more effectively, individuals who live in riskier wildland areas can help prevent disastrous fire events by clearing a defensible space around their homes, maintaining fire safe landscaping, and following local fire restrictions .
( source )
Everyone can support land conservation agencies and encourage elected officials to address land management problems. Aim to reduce your personal carbon footprint or get directly involved with the Bureau of Land Management to help give back to our land by becoming a resource advisory council member, volunteer, or intern. In California, volunteer to help with evacuations, fire lookouts, or disaster shelters.
Check out the following resources for more.