Washington state’s wildfire future: More volatile forests amid slashed budgets
As the number of fire ignitions continues to rise, each new fire represents a roll of the dice, said Michael Medler, a former wildland firefighter and pyrogeography researcher at Western Washington University. Chances of a major fire in Western Washington might be low in a given year but they’re growing.
The paradigm brings to mind Hurricane Katrina, Medler said. In the aftermath, then-President George W. Bush claimed that nobody anticipated New Orleans’ levees breaching in the storm surge.
Sure they did, Medler said. Anybody who thought about it for an hour anticipated the breach.
“That’s where we’re at. Who could anticipate a $5 billion west-side Cascades fire? Everyone who’s thought about it,” said Medler, referencing the potential cost of damages from such a blaze.
WA’s wildfire future: More volatile forests amid slashed budgets
Put together, said Timothy Ingalsbee, a wildland fire ecologist based in Eugene, Ore., the Trump administration is dismantling the country’s resources to guard against, fight and recover from wildfires at a time when the risk is increasing. And it’s putting much more pressure on states that aren’t financially capable of making up the difference.
“We are running fast in the wrong direction,” Ingalsbee said.
The gap between science and contemporary fire management is huge and growing, said Ingalsbee, who also heads the nonprofit Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology.
Fighting fire with fire. FUSEE hosts its second Fall Fire Festival
“We need more than just a new policy, we need a new culture that welcomes all the gifts that fire brings,” says Timothy Ingalsbee, executive director of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology, a local wildland firefighting nonprofit. Ingalsbee says that FUSEE’s mission is to promote ecological fire management by working with fire instead of fighting against it.
Federal fire agencies take first steps toward consolidation, other reforms
“It seemed from the outset that consolidation was just a means of further downsizing the wildland fire workforce and shrinking the budget for federal fire management,” said Tim Ingalsbee, head of the advocacy group Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology.
But beyond any specific policy, Ingalsbee wants to see a more fundamental change.
“We need to shift from this reactive mode of emergency wildfire suppression to a proactive mode of intentional ecological fire management,” he argued. “We have to increase and facilitate the use of beneficial fire.”
New wildfire agency launched to streamline federal response
Despite the administration’s optimistic outlook, critics have raised concerns that the new agency may overlook the ecological role of fire in land management. Tim Ingalsbee, executive director of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology, cautioned that the discourse surrounding fire management appears to focus solely on its threats, rather than recognizing its role within ecosystems.
Ingalsbee, however, remains skeptical about whether this unification will enhance interagency coordination. He highlighted the distinct differences in fire management strategies between agencies such as the Forest Service and the National Park Service, raising concerns that the initiative could either push the Forest Service towards a more ecological management approach or vice versa.
Interior and Agriculture heads lay out plan for more efficient wildfire collaboration
“It offers a hope for some fundamental change in federal fire management, particularly within the U.S. Forest Service,” Tim Ingalsbee, head of the advocacy group Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology, said of the memos.
But a big part of the change he’d like to see is a reorientation toward putting more beneficial fire on the ground.
“We have to increase and facilitate the use of beneficial fire on the landscape,” he said, referring to practices like prescribed fire. “And there's nothing even hinting of that necessary change in either.”
Instead, he worries that the plans could lead to “further downsizing the wildland fire workforce and shrinking the budget for federal fire management.”
More than 2 million acres of roadless, wilderness area in Oregon could soon lose protections
Tim Ingalsbee, executive director of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology, and one of the environmental advocates on the flight, said he anticipates building roads will increase the chance that Oregon’s remote, hard to reach areas will burn.
"The vast majority, 90% or more of wildfires, happen alongside roads,” Ingalsbee said. “What they might gain from the possibility of ferrying in large convoys of firefighters and dozers and all that stuff, they're going to lose in terms of vastly more wildfire ignitions from careless motorists, campers, or arsonists."
Burgum rolls out plan for Interior-based wildfire service
Tim Ingalsbee, executive director at Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology, said Tuesday that Trump administration rhetoric suggests the key role that fire plays in land management isn’t being prioritized enough. “It’s retrograde, a throwback to talking about fire purely in terms of threat, risk, danger,” Ingalsbee said.
From bandannas to N95s: It’s finally time for wildfire fighters to mask up
According to the Los Angeles Times, Timothy Ingalsbee said masks are unsuitable during strenuous operations on steep terrain when they clog or restrict breathing. “There are times when masks are unsuitable and firefighters overheat and they are uncomfortable. But there’s a lot of times when they’d be very useful in limiting their exposure. And maybe could save some lives.”
The Los Angeles Times reported that masks may be especially useful in base camps or during vehicle movement on dusty access roads. It said such selective use could meaningfully reduce cumulative exposure even if not applied in all field tasks.
Urging Congressman Kevin Kiley to draft legislation opposing rescinding the Roadless Rule by the Trump administration (op-ed)
(P)erhaps the most powerful argument in Congressman Kiley’s arsenal to reinstate the Roadless Rule would be the increased threat of wildfires. Experts have noted that mature forests in these remote areas are highly resistant to fires and that human encroachment will intensify wildfire incidents.
“Roadless areas are some of the most wildfire-resilient landscapes in North America because they are the least degraded by industrial logging and road-building that would have converted fire-adapted native forests into fire-prone tree farms, and provided road access for human-caused ignitions from careless recreationists and sociopathic arsonists,” said Timothy Ingalsbee, executive director of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology.
Forest Service reverses decades-long ban, allows wildfire firefighters to use N95 masks
Ingalsbee said that masks are not always appropriate when fighting fires — there are activities, such as traipsing up and down steep terrain when a N95 mask can get gummed up with debris and sweat and make it difficult for a firefighter to breathe.
However, he said the vast majority of the time, when firefighters are at their base camps, where it’s often smoky, or driving along dusty, sandy roads, masks could go a long way to protect their lungs, reducing exposure.
“There are times when masks are unsuitable and firefighters overheat and they are uncomfortable,” he said. “But there’s a lot of times when they’d be very useful in limiting their exposure. And maybe could save some lives.”
Environmental groups decry plan to rescind Roadless Rule
The Trump administration and the USDA contend that roadless rules have been a hindrance to wildfire prevention.
That assertion is refuted by many experts, who note that roads are one of the primary vectors that cause wildfires and that mature forest in remote and difficult-to-access roadless areas is among the most resilient to fire.
150,000 acres of Six Rivers National Forest wilderness could lose protection if Trump administration rescinds roadless rule
“Roadless areas are some of the most wildfire-resilient landscapes in North America because they are the least degraded by industrial logging and road-building that would have converted fire-adapted native forests into fire-prone tree farms, and provided road access for human-caused ignitions from careless recreationists and sociopathic arsonists,” Timothy Ingalsbee, executive director of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology (FUSEE), wrote in a prepared statement. “Tearing open roadless areas to industrial logging and road-building will do wildland firefighters no favors — just the opposite.”
How a ‘good fire’ in the Grand Canyon exploded into a raging inferno
Timothy Ingalsbee, another former Forest Service firefighter and the executive director of the nonprofit Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology, said the federal firefighting workforce has been shrinking for years due to an inability to recruit new employees for the remote, grueling work.
But losing so many experienced people this year created a huge and sudden “brain drain,” he said.
Between flames and the sky are America’s aerial firefighters
After decades as a wildland firefighter, Timothy Ingalsbee co-founded the nonprofit FUSEE, short for “Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology,” in 2004. Based in Eugene, Oregon, the organization is at the forefront of a shift in how wildfire is fought.
“We need to tell the whole story about fire — not just the sensationalist war-reporting stuff of acres burned, homes destroyed, firefighters killed,” Ingalsbee said. “We want to provide reporters with a wider context of policy, history, ecology and fire management.”
To Ingalsbee, the real issue is not that fire happens, but how we respond to it.
Trump's efforts to reshape the U.S. Forest Service face pushback
"I'm very suspicious of these reorganization proposals." Rich Fairbanks is a retired wildland firefighter in Oregon. Trump's executive order does come as the Administration is trying to consolidate and downsize USDA and its Forest Service while closing most of its regional offices in the west. Fairbanks isn't buying that Trump wants to reform federal wildfire response especially since he's pushing changes in the middle of summer wildfire season. "This Administration wants to create chaos and to break federal agencies. I'm sorry, that's the only explanation that makes sense!"
Fire historian: Dragon Bravo Fire is changing as its burns, posing huge problems for crews
The Dragon Bravo Fire at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, sparked by lightning on July 4, has decreased significantly in containment over the past few days — down to just 4% — as the blaze pushes north with extreme fire behavior.
Stephen Pyne, author of "Pyrocene Park: A journey into the Fire History of Yosemite National Park," joined The Show to talk more about what fire crews are facing.
The truth about the burning forest
This is a transcript and video of an investigative report that critiques the South Korea Forest Service’s proposal to use logging, road-based fuelbreaks, and planting conifers to address wildfire risks.
Note: there are numerous errors in translation from Korean to English
Resources for Oregon firefighters have restrained early-season wildfires but may not last long.
Timothy Ingalsbee, executive director of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology, called the state’s long-standing emphasis on aggressive initial attack a “paradox.”
“Of course, they are successful with initial attack early in the season, those are the same conditions where it would be ideal to manage the fire to reduce the fuel when wildfires burn in peak wildfire season, where they won’t be successful with an initial attack. And that’s the paradox,” Ingalsbee said. “When we are successful with initial attack, it’s probably when we shouldn’t be so aggressive in putting fires out and when we’re not successful with initial attack, it’s during pretty severe fire weather and we wish we had let fires reduce fuel loads earlier in the year.”
He advocates letting fires burn in unpopulated areas, allowing for natural fuel reduction and preserving resources for when lives and property are at risk. Shifting from an “attack” to a “monitoring” mindset, he said, is safer for firefighters and better for ecosystems.
‘It’s unbelievable’: How Trump’s cuts could weaken wildfire prevention
The Trump administration is “doubling down on a failed approach,” said Dave Calkin, who served 25 years in the U.S. Forest Service before leaving in April through the Trump administration’s deferred resignation program. He said the administration’s executive order is a “return to a war on fire” that prioritizes ad hoc responses over investing in the personnel, planning and strategy to prevent blazes before they begin.