One month in, New Mexico’s largest-ever fire fuels anger and despair
Prescribed burns are controlled, intentional fires meant to clear vegetation and reduce the risk of disastrous wildfires, and experts say they rarely go awry. When considering a prescribed fire, authorities rely on models that take into account temperature, humidity, fuel moisture, wind speed and direction, said Timothy Ingalsbee, a former wildland firefighter and co-founder of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology. Wind in particular tends to be a wild card, he said. “It’s very often that when these prescribed fires burn beyond their plan, it’s because there was a change in the wind, in wind speed or wind direction,” he said. “It’s extremely rare that it’s a matter of negligence.”
Governor promises a temporary halt to prescribed burns while wildfires rage in New Mexico
An expert and wildland firefighter, Tom Ribe, told Source New Mexico that it was “extremely risky” to ignite a prescribed burn on a windy April day in New Mexico. He also said the forecast conditions should have given a burn boss pause April 6, but he also stressed the decision to ignite a prescribed burn is a complex and difficult one based on many factors.
Governor promises temporary halt to prescribed burns
An expert and wildland firefighter, Tom Ribe, told Source New Mexico that it was “extremely risky” to ignite a prescribed burn on a windy April day in New Mexico. He also said the forecast conditions should have given a burn boss pause April 6, but he also stressed the decision to ignite a prescribed burn is a complex and difficult one based on many factors.
COIC, Heart of Oregon Corps receive nearly $1 million to launch C. Oregon Wildfire Workforce Partnership
(The) Central Oregon Wildfire Workforce Partnership…will train and employ over 140 local youth and young adults in wildfire reduction and related skills. In addition to gaining on-the-job training, certifications, and knowledge in fire fuel reduction practices, youth in the program will receive wages, scholarships, additional workforce training in both soft and hard skills to prepare them to enter the professional workforce.
Why climate change makes it harder to fight fire with fire
Last summer, the Forest Service’s chief, Randy Moore, restricted the use of prescribed fire on agency lands to make sure resources were available to fight wildfires. He also ordered a pause on allowing backcountry fires to burn if they provided ecological benefits and didn’t threaten homes or infrastructure.
The halt was temporary, but it was enough to make some ecologists fear that officials’ recent championing of fire could still go into reverse. If the goal is to return the land to an older ecological state, one in which frequent natural fires kept forests vibrant and resilient, then the scale of the task is staggering.
Cerro Grande fire expert: Feds doing a prescribed burn in spring ‘extremely risky’
The guy who literally wrote the book on the destructive Cerro Grande fire in New Mexico said federal officials ignored the notorious blaze’s lessons when they decided to ignite a prescribed burn on a windy April day this year, sparking what’s now known as the Hermits Peak fire.
“It’s clear that it was an extremely risky time to do that, given that the fuels are so dry this year, given the way the winter was, and given the way springs are always windy here,” said Tom Ribe, author of “Inferno by Committee: A history of the Cerro Grande Fire.”
This app is helping Californians stay on top of wildfire risks
Zeke Lunder, an analyst with two decades of experience mapping wildfires, was already in the habit of sharing his expertise on Facebook, often writing posts providing insights into official announcements. This fire hit close to home, though, and he wanted to expand his offerings. Lunder started a website, The Lookout, which he populated with maps he built based on publicly available data, as well as analysis and interviews. Rather than offering emergency alerts, like Watch Duty, Lunder wanted a space to provide additional context for people interested in, and impacted by, wildfires—context that was not restricted by official protocols or talking points.
Many factors influenced the severity of burns from Oregon's devastating 2020 megafires
"90% of the burning occurred during high winds," said Dr. Cody Every, a Research Associate in the Department of Environmental Science and Management at Portland State and the study's lead author. "But we also found that vegetation structure and canopy height were significant in determining where the fire burned more severely."
The research team found that areas with younger trees and low canopy height and cover were particularly susceptible to high mortality rates. As Holz pointed out, this finding is of particular consequence to lumber production in the state, where trees grown on plantations are typically younger, uniformly spaced and located near communities and critical infrastructure.
Questions raised after controlled burn near Las Vegas, N.M., goes out of control
Given that history, it’s always big news when a prescribed burn turns into a wildfire, said Tom Ribe, a longtime public advocate and author of a book that retells the Cerro Grande Fire with a critical eye about what went wrong.
Ribe said he’s reluctant to criticize forest managers in this situation because he doesn’t want to discourage them from what’s otherwise a healthy practice.
Prescribed burns are tricky because they must be done when forest debris is dry enough for the flames to consume an ample amount, Ribe said. Sometimes fall and winter are too damp, so forest managers opt for the spring, when the debris is drier but also when New Mexico is windy, he said.
“It definitely is risky this time of year,” Ribe said.
How the Indigenous practice of ‘good fire’ can help our forests survive
“There is so much to learn from cultural practitioners — not just about traditions and techniques, but also about stewardship and connectedness,” she says. “Fire is a reflection of culture, and the kinds of fires we’ve been experiencing in California are a projection of our own disconnection and imbalance. It’s time to reclaim the balance, rebuild the relationship. Cultural practitioners can help show us how.”
Forest Service stands firm in dispute on fire retardant
Photos of red or orange retardant being dropped from airplanes make good, but misleading, public relation images, said Tim Ingalsbee, executive director of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology in Eugene, Ore.
"We used to call them photodrops," said Ingalsbee, a wildland fire ecologist and former firefighter with the Forest Service and the National Park Service.
Ingalsbee said "bureaucratic inertia" keeps the federal government from a deeper examination of fire retardant, for which the Forest Service contracts for helicopters and airplanes, a lucrative arrangement for companies.
Women firefighters from around train in Virginia’s forest
Women make up only about 10% of the national wildland firefighting force. Many are the only woman or transgender person in their division and often feel they have to represent their gender, Quinn-Davidson said. She said she wasn't sure what to expect during the first training exchange.
“We were really surprised by how powerful it was,” Quinn-Davidson said. “It could’ve just been another training event that just had more women. But instead there was this level of camaraderie that we just didn’t anticipate. And it was a pretty emotional event.”
Prepare your yard for wildfire season by creating a low-flammable landscaping plan, finding fire-resistant plants with new database
Oregon’s $200 million wildfire bill includes stricter building codes to make new or remodeled structures more fire hardened, but all owners need to maintain their property to prevent and slow a fire.
Research has found that fire suppression work reduces the vulnerability of a home and the entire community.
Indigenous fire practices can help Oregon wildfires, land management
As fires appear to haunt Oregon’s imagination of summertime, we sit to reflect on the need to define our collective relationship with fire through an engagement with Indigenous science or ways of knowing and understanding the world.
Native American communities in western Oregon have been tending the land with fire since time immemorial. This practice, known today as cultural burning, offers many lessons on the value of fire to care for land and water. Cultural burnings are an ecological practice grounded in Indigenous science that prevents disastrous fire seasons, nourishes watersheds, sustains traditional food sources and maintains cultural practices and keeps memories alive across generations.
In western Oregon, Native communities have carefully burned to maintain oak groves for acorns, used mindful fire in meadows for camas and other foods and pruned and burned hazel patches for basketry materials. These practices, among many others, require the use of fire as a transformational element — fire to clear grassland, maintain forest health and encourage new growth, while rejuvenating springs and water tables.
California Congressmen Push for Aggressive Fire Suppression
Timothy Ingalsbee of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology said that this effort represents a mindset back from the 1930s. "We live in a very different world now. Climate-driven wildfire events have really surpassed human abilities to control all fires, to prevent all fires, to put them out when they burn." He said that it's past time to start working with fire not just for the good of the land, but also for our own health and safety, and for the health and safety of wildland firefighters.
Interview: Wildfire scientist says LaMalfa’s recently introduced wildfire suppression legislation takes the wrong approach
"This legislation that proposes that we put out every wildfire--it's impossible to implement. There's nothing about that [legislative proposal] that would change the outcome of a fire like the Dixie Fire or the Caldor Fire because they're not proposing at the same time to build up more resources or to support wildland firefighters doing their job better. They're just taking away one of the tools we have." said wildfire scientist, Zeke Lunder.
"To say that there's absolutely no time to let public lands burn for resource benefits--that's ridiculous!"
Indigenous firefighter training teaches traditional Native practices in woodlands management
Thousands of years before colonization, Indigenous people did controlled burns to rejuvenate habitat and reduce fuel buildup.
Kimbol said he’s heartened that after a century of fire suppression, non-tribal governments are becoming more open to what many Native people call “cultural burns”, patterned after the practices of their ancestors.
Don’t blame national forests for America’s massive wildfires
National forests often get the blame for wildfire conditions in the West, says Christopher Dunn, a fire ecologist at Oregon State University. But more importantly, the Tamarack Fire isn’t representative of the fires that threaten most Westerners. According to recent research co-authored by Dunn, and published in the journal Scientific Reports, fires beginning in national forests are “a rare occasion.” Instead, “those ignitions are more likely to come off private land and move into national forest or into communities,” Dunn explains.
Climate scientists warn of a ‘global wildfire crisis’
“There isn’t the right attention to fire from governments,” said Glynis Humphrey, a fire expert at the University of Cape Town and an author of the new report. More societies worldwide are learning the value of prescribed burns and other methods of preventing wildfires from raging out of control, she said. Yet public spending in developed nations is still heavily skewed toward firefighting instead of forest management.
Wildfires are getting more extreme and burning more land. The UN says it's time to 'learn to live with fire'
Researchers say governments aren't learning from the past, and they are perpetuating conditions that are not environmentally and economically beneficial for the future.
"The world needs to change its stance towards wildfires -- from reactive to proactive -- because wildfires are going to increase in frequency and intensity due to climate change," Christophersen said. "That means we all have to be better prepared."