Beyond wildfire: perspectives of climate, managed fire and policy in the USA (Kolden & Brown, 2010)

Full Citation: Kolden CA, Brown TJ. 2010. Beyond wildfire: perspectives of climate, managed fire and policy in the USA. International Journal of Wildland Fire 19: 364–373.

Abstract: Climate–wildfire relationships have been widely addressed by the scientific community over the last two decades; however, the role of climate in managed fire in the US (i.e. prescribed fire and wildland fire use) has not yet been addressed. We hypothesised that if climate is an important component of managed fire, the fire community would already be aware of this and using climate information in order to mitigate risks associated with managed fires. We conducted 223 surveys with fire managers to ascertain how climate information is utilised in managed-fire decision-making. We found that wildland fire use managers consider climate to be an important aspect of managed fire and use various types of climate information, but prescribed-fire managers do not generally consider climate or use climate information in their planning activities. Survey responses also indicate a lack of agency training on climate information and decision-support tools. This is partly attributed to obstacles in US fire policy that inhibit widespread utilisation of climate information. We suggest these results are indicative of a broader conflict in US wildfire policy, which does not directly address climate despite two decades of scientific research showing climate plays a key role in wildfire regimes.

Key Excerpts: “Despite the urgency of the San Diego Declaration, the countless hours of testimony before the US Congress, and the overwhelming scientific evidence that developing strategies to deal with climate change is critical to the success of US fire management, the US federal fire policy has not yet been updated to reflect this. There is no policy designating that fire managers focus on or even deal with the climate issue, no requirement for training on climate information and wildfire links, no emphasis on developing decision-support tools that could allow fire managers to utilise climate information to mitigate risks, and certainly no indication that climate will play a role in funding policies for wildfire suppression or managed fire programs. This highlights a crucial gap between the applied science showing fire to be a critical factor for fire-management concerns and the US fire policy that actually dictates priorities for federal fire-management programs.”

Keywords: fire risk, prescribed fire, wildland fire use