Fire in the American West:

Nothing about the wildfire problem in the Western United States is simple.

The crisis of increasingly catastrophic fire seasons springs from a dizzying blend of factors: 

• a century of mismanagement
• climate change
• more and more homes built in fire-prone landscapes
• beetle activity

Adapting to this new wildfire reality can feel like an insurmountable obstacle, rife with red tape, legislative deadlock, and unpredictable or insufficient funding for programs that can help us all adapt to and mitigate wildfire impacts. 

But fires will only grow more destructive—both on a human scale with community losses and widespread wildfire-related trauma, and ecologically, in places that had long coexisted in balance with the natural process of fire.

With this in mind, we present the stories of five recent wildfires that burned in five different regions of the West over the last three years, each touching on a critical challenge or solution related to our growing wildfire problem. 

While the fires outlined below burned from 2017-2020, the 2021 fire season was equally destructive, and further emphasized just how critical fire resilience measures will be moving forward. California, especially, had yet another big fire year, as fires like the Dixie, Caldor, and Tamarack Fire collectively destroyed thousands of homes, forced massive evacuations, and burned millions of acres. The Dixie Fire alone approached one million acres burned, though the cultural losses were even more staggering—entire communities and livelihoods were lost in areas like Greenville, CA. Further south, fires like the KNP Complex and the Windy Fire have threatened stands of treasured old-growth sequoias in both Sequoia National Forest and Sequoia National Park.

As extreme fire seasons continue, exploring successful strategies and actions implemented before, during, and after wildfires—whether through effectively hindering fire spread with fuels management or leading a successful evacuation of tens of thousands of people—will be a big step towards understanding what we can do in other fire-prone communities and landscapes in the West.

It's never been more clear that the time is now to implement policies that will protect communities, ecosystems, cultural values, and lives from future wildfires. Equally important is recognizing the disastrous effects wildfires will have if we continue down our current path with no or slow progressive change. 

There’s zero question about it: lessening the impacts of destructive wildfires will require widespread legislative, structural, and cultural changes to the way we think about, prepare for, respond to and recover from wildfires.

Chaparral ecosystems are found in Mediterranean-type climates around the world. Nearly 70% of the vegetation on federal forest lands in Southern California is classified as chaparral. Common plants associated with a chaparral ecosystem include manzanita, scrub oak, mountain mahogany and chamise—among many others. Chaparral ecosystems are biodiversity hotspots, but have been deeply impacted by development, shortening fire-frequency intervals and climate change.

There are innumerable steps we must take — legislatively, personally, and culturally — to lessen the impacts of severe wildfires.

Better adapting our homes and communities to fire is mentioned often, but what exactly does that look like on the ground? It could mean:

Hardening our homes and neighborhoods to the risk of wildfires through regular prescribed fire, thinning and the creation of defensible space.

• Hardening our homes and neighborhoods to the risk of wildfires through regular prescribed fire, thinning, and the creation of defensible space.
• Using fire-resistant materials to build or remodel our homes.
• Clearing gutters and brush close to homes.
• Creating better evacuation plans for communities at all risk levels.
• Categorizing communities that are most at risk, and prioritizing fuels management or fire mitigation activities in those areas first.

It will almost certainly mean partnering with and empowering Indigenous fire practitioners so that we can learn more about the practices they used for centuries to keep fire on the landscape and better coexist with fire in general.

No matter what, learning to live with wildfire is going to require a vast, coordinated effort on the part of politicians, land management agencies, fire organizations, tribal members, and almost every other stakeholder in fire-prone areas — which, is arguably, almost everyone who lives, works or plays in the American West.

Even more, it will require a cultural change on a personal and community level — a change of philosophy that lessens the amount of “bad,” destructive fires, and moves towards a future where we coexist with fire and frame our livelihoods around its inevitable presence. 

Extinguish fires when needed

Use fire where allowable

Manage our national resources

Learn to Live with wildland fire

Learn about the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy here:  wildfireinthewest.org 

LANDFIRE's (LF) Biophysical Settings (BPS) represents the vegetation system that may have been dominant on the landscape prior to Euro-American settlement and is based on both the current biophysical environment and an approximation of the historical disturbance regime.

This glossary provides the wildland fire community a single source for wildland fire and incident management terminology commonly used by the NWCG and its subgroups.