This wildfire season, here’s another terrifying threat to worry about
Members of Congress have already proposed bipartisan bills that could shore up pay and benefits for our firefighters. It’s imperative that our government take legislative action to permanently secure and stabilize the earnings of those bravely defending our communities.The consequences of inaction are dire. If lawmakers don’t stabilize firefighter pay, about a third to half of the 11,000 U.S. Forest Service firefighters could leave the service, according to the National Federation of Federal Employees.
FUSEE commends report, calls for paradigm shift from firefighting to firelighting
Tim Ingalsbee, executive director of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology, said the report essentially appeals for “a sociocultural paradigm shift” in society’s relationship with fire.
“Continued fire exclusion and systematic fire suppression is simply unsustainable from a socioeconomic and ecological standpoint,” Tim said. “All fire-dependent species and fire-adapted ecosystems in North America need more fire, not less, to recover from past fire exclusion and prepare for future climate change and wildfires.
Cause of Oregon's devastating 2020 Labor Day wildfires still remains unknown
It’s been more than three years since historic wildfires tore through multiple Oregon communities, burning 1 million acres and forever altering the lives of thousands.
As communities rebuild, survivors put their lives back together and lawsuits assign blame, one element of recovery remains missing: an official cause for almost all of the fires.
Of the nine major Labor Day fires that exploded in Oregon in September 2020, eight remain either under investigation, incomplete or have not been made public.
"It’s shocking to me that they have not concluded the fire investigations," said Tim Ingalsbee, executive director of the Eugene nonprofit Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology.
Thousands of federal firefighters face a looming pay cut. How much is up to Congress
Federal wildland firefighters were on the frontlines of some of the harshest wildfires to hit the U.S. and Canada this summer. But as Congress is inching towards its Sept. 30 deadline to fund the government, those firefighters stand to lose half their salaries.
The threat of wildfires is rising. So are new artificial intelligence solutions to fight them
Wildfires fueled by climate change have ravaged communities from Maui to the Mediterranean this summer, killing many people, exhausting firefighters and fueling demand for new solutions. Enter artificial intelligence.
Firefighters and startups are using AI-enabled cameras to scan the horizon for signs of smoke. A German company is building a constellation of satellites to detect fires from space. And Microsoft is using AI models to predict where the next blaze could be sparked.
With wildfires becoming larger and more intense as the world warms, firefighters, utilities and governments are scrambling to get ahead of the flames by tapping into the latest AI technology — which has stirred both fear and excitement for its potential to transform life. While increasingly stretched first responders hope AI offers them a leg up, humans are still needed to check that the tech is accurate.
Maui firefighters admit to taking lunch as Lahaina fire reignited
A crew of Maui firefighters took a lunch break on 8 August, thinking they had successfully tamped down a blaze threatening the town of Lahaina, only for the fire to later grow and race toward the historic town.
A wildland firefighter argues for setting more fires. Ryan Reed says: “In short, let’s look to Indigenous leadership.”
Reed is a member of the Karuk, Hupa and Yurok tribes in Northern California (those tribal lands are just across the Oregon border, and he got an environmental studies degree at the University of Oregon). Those tribes for years have lobbied the Forest Service for a return to Indigenous forestry practices, which include regular prescribed burns to reduce the underbrush that turns forests into tinderboxes. The concessions they’ve obtained—including the right for the Karuk Tribe to conduct controlled burns in Six Rivers National Forest—have been hard won.
Maui firefighters took lunch as Lahaina blaze seemed dead. Then it grew.
Timothy Ingalsbee, a fire ecologist who is executive director of the education and advocacy group Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology, said Maui firefighters appeared to have followed standard operating procedures.
“It’s not unreasonable that they would disengage from that fire that they thought was fully contained and controlled,” he said. “When you’ve got running flames elsewhere on the island and you’ve got a crew that’s been working hard and needs to get a bit of rest before facing more obvious fire risks, it’s understandable.”
Learn to live with wildfire smoke, British Columbians told
British Columbians are going to have to live with the health effects of huge forest fires for decades to come and need to be prepared to protect themselves individually and as communities.
“We are going to have to face this again and again and again,” Health Minister Adrian Dix said.
He said it means training and hiring more nurses and providing greater support to health workers as they work with affected people in communities.
And, he stressed, among those most affected by fires and the resulting evacuation alerts and orders are the elderly living in care homes.
A Northern California tribe works to protect traditions in a warming world
"One of the first things the government outlawed was cultural burning," said the Southern Sierra Miwuk's Lerma.
State officials made this tribal practice of igniting small fires illegal in 1850. The years of fire suppression that followed have made wildfires worse.
"'Smokey the Bear' all over the place," said Fouch-Moore. "And now our forests are overgrown and in bad health. And they're like, 'Oh wait, maybe we should let the Indians do their thing.'"
In recent years, the National Park Service and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) have started to collaborate with Indigenous communities to return traditional burning to the land.
Fire as medicine: Using fire to manage forests, prevent catastrophic wildfires in the Northwest
Indigenous communities in the region, including Reed’s, hope in turn that the tribal approach of setting beneficial fires will become a major facet of the Northwest Forest Plan’s update – and a way for people to reconnect with the land they inhabit.“We as humans have a responsibility to the landscape,” Reed said. “We’ve had a disconnect with the reciprocal relationship with the landscape and now we’re starting to feel the consequences.”
Preparing homes for wildfires is big business that's only getting started
Some insurance companies give people a break if they invest in home hardening. These are long-recommended techniques: fire-resistant roofs, covered gutters, no plants or mulch within 5 feet of the house, mesh on air vents that can stop embers from flying inside.
Lane Community College's Fire Management program heading into its second year
Fires are becoming more prevalent now more than ever before, and fire crews are doing their best to keep them under control. But at Lane Community College, fire educators said a new approach is needed. Timothy Ingalsbee is one of the instructors of fire courses at LCC. He believes fires are inevitable no matter how much care is taken to prevent them. That's why their program focuses more on wildfire behavior and learning how to map out fires instead of fire suppression.
Where there’s smoke: Lane Community College enters its second year of the wildland fire management program
The fire management program started last year and is being taught by Mike Beasley, a fire behavior analyst; Steve Clarke, past president of the Oregon Fire Contractors Association; and Timothy Ingalsbee, who is a former wildland firefighter and a certified senior wildland fire ecologist, as well as the executive director of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology (FUSEE).
America’s fire spotters aren’t ready to fade away just yet
Wildfires unfold across vast, difficult terrain, in fast-changing conditions and with a frightening amount of random chance. In places like Glacier, officials don’t just put them all out. They must decide, sometimes hour by hour, whether letting a fire burn might provide ecological benefits or whether it is threatening enough lives and property to justify putting firefighters at risk.
New technology aids in these decisions, said Andy Huntsberger, a district fire management officer in the Flathead. But “it doesn’t replace the human element,” he said.
Climate change boosts risk of explosive wildfire growth in California by 25%, study says
Climate change has ratcheted up the risk of explosive wildfire growth in California by 25% and will continue to drive extreme fire behavior for decades to come, even if planet-warming emissions are reduced, a new study has found.
Living with wildfire: How to protect more homes as fire risk rises in a warming climate
Humans have learned to fear wildfire. It can destroy communities, torch pristine forests and choke even faraway cities with toxic smoke.
Wildfire is scary for good reason, and over a century of fire suppression efforts has conditioned people to expect wildland firefighters to snuff it out. But as journalist Nick Mott and I explore our new book, “This Is Wildfire: How to Protect Your Home, Yourself, and Your Community in the Age of Heat,” and in our podcast “Fireline,” this expectation and the approach to wildfire will have to change.
Over time, extensive fire suppression has set the stage for the increasingly destructive wildfires we see today.
North America’s summer of wildfire smoke: 2023 was only the beginning
The pressing question on many people’s minds: “Is this the new normal?” From our perspective as air quality scientists, we think the answer is likely “yes.”
How Indigenous techniques saved a community from wildfire
“When you think about how wildfire seasons are playing out, if we invested more into the proactive, then we would need less of that reactive wildfire response,” said Kira Hoffman, a wildfire researcher at the University of British Columbia. “We’re not going to see probably the effects of a lot of this mitigation and treatment for 10 or 20 years. But that’s when we’re really going to need it.”
Wildfires are an essential component of the natural cycle of forests, but in recent years, more of them have grown so big that containment is nearly impossible. Fire prevention zones — created in the offseason — can help slow approaching blazes so that people can escape, and can also enable firefighters to gain control over some areas.