Good Fire II: Current Barriers to the Expansion of Cultural Burning and Prescribed Fire in California and Recommended Solutions
Humans once experienced an intimate relationship with fire. In some parts of the world—such as within Karuk Tribal Lands—this connection remains unbroken. In North America, widespread Indigenous fire use shaped forests and grasslands, leading to greater biological diversity and healthy watersheds while also mitigating impacts from wildfire and climate variability.
Fly on the Wall: The Northwest Forest Plan Federal Advisory Committee meeting in Eugene (Part 1)
The Federal Advisory Committee (FAC) working on the USFS' Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) amendment held their third in-person meeting in Eugene, Oregon in January. Comprised of 21 volunteers representing diverse interests and groups from across the Pacific Northwest, the FAC has done a remarkable job of producing policy recommendations for the upcoming Environmental Impact Statement. In fact, they delivered 81 single-spaced, double-sided pages full of recommendations divided among the six subcommittees they created (Climate, Fire resilience, Old-growth, Tribal inclusion, Communities, and Biodiversity).
Northwest Forest Plan Amendment: Categories of Focus
With the initial round of public comments and meetings amongst the FAC coming to a close, the focus of the upcoming NWFP amendment will be honing in on protections for old-growth forests, tribal inclusion, and fire resilience. It is clear that current policies that aim to suppress fire have failed to protect native old-growth forest ecosystems, as fire suppression has resulted in uncontrollable wildfires. Old-growth forest ecosystems are one of the planet’s biggest carbon sinks and offer a natural solution to the climate crisis. Logging is one of the region's largest sources of carbon emissions. The NWFP amendment needs to protect forests from commercial logging that removes the most carbon-rich, fire-resilient trees.
Failed National Park Proposal Could Have Displaced the Manhattan Project
Just about anyone who lives in the Los Alamos area recognizes the stunning scenery that we live among daily. Who can ignore the view from the Main Hill Road, looking at the beautiful cliffs, canyons, and distant mountains? But how many people know that there was a big movement to create a new national park in the Los Alamos area before the Manhattan Project?
Between 1905 and 1930, various bills in Congress would have created a national park in the Los Alamos area. Had the bills passed, the Manhattan Project and LANL likely would have been located elsewhere.
Fire Hiring
We have a National Strategy for updating our response to ever-hotter wildfires. With years of learning, careful consultation, and consideration, the Cohesive Wildfire Strategy offers a chance to respond to climate change and its effect on wildfires. But will personnel problems in our federal agencies sabotage the National Strategy?
Driven by the FLAME Act of 2009, the National Strategy gives energy and coherence to fire management during climate change. Inherent in this national strategy is an assumption that governments on all levels can hire a skilled workforce to respond to fires in ever more creative ways over the next few decades.
Review of "Ignition: Lighting Fires in a Burning World" by M.R. O'Connor
I must say I loved this new book by nature and science writer M.R. O’Connor. “Ignition” has O’Connor spending significant time away from her partner and home in New York as she enters the world of fire practitioners plying their trade as nomadic pyrotechnicians, burn bosses and controlled fire specialists. These are wildland firefighters, many of whom maintain the same credentials as local, State and Federal wildland firefighters. Known as the National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG), this body sets training and experience requirements for the many specialized roles that wildland firefighters fill on both wildland and prescribed fires.
Doing What (Be)Comes Natural: Cut, Pile, Burn
On some snowy February days, I drove from my cabin, crossed the Rio Grande Valley north of Santa Fe, and joined other firefighters at sunrise in an icy, snowy place in the Jemez Mountains. I’m used to working on fires in the spring, summer or fall, but here we were with layers of warm gear under our fireproof clothing, blowing into our hands and standing in the sun when it finally came up. Then we set out to burn piles of slash on a snowy slope, deep in the Valles Caldera National Preserve.
USFS Launches Northwest Forest Plan Amendment
The U.S. Forest Service convened the first meeting of a Federal Advisory Committee (FAC) in early September to work on an amendment of the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP). Covering 17 national forests in 3 states, this is one of the most ambitious planning projects the agency has initiated in years. The agency wants to modernize the 30 year old NWFP by developing new strategies for dealing with climate change and wildfires, and engaging Tribal communities and Indigenous perspectives that were largely excluded from the original plan.
FUSEE's program director for the FireGeneration Collaborative, Ryan Reed, serves on the 21-person FAC as the sole designated "public" representative. Ryan is an Indigenous fire practitioner and wildland firefighter, and is the youngest member ever to serve on a FAC.
Oregon Landowner Brings Good Fire Back to the Forest
Rich Fairbanks knows what a healthy forest looks like, so when he and his wife bought forested land in the Little Applegate Valley in Southern Oregon in 2003, he started making plans to bring fire back to the land.
“These forests historically saw fire, on average, about every six to ten years” said Fairbanks. Rich holds a M.S. in Fire Science, is a founding FUSEE Board Member, and has semi-retired after a 32 year career with the Forest Service.
“Since 1911, we have been suppressing fires to the maximum extent possible” Fairbanks adds. This has decreased biodiversity, allowed more fuel to build up, and led to higher intensity fires.
Elers Koch: Early Architect of USFS Firefighting Mission; Early Prophet of Mission Failure
In 2023 when megafires erupt across North America, and our national forests seem trapped in an escalating yet faltering war on wildfire, it might be good to look back on history and see how we got here. How did firefighting on public lands get started? What was US Forest Service firefighting like back in 1905 or 1920? How are those roots relevant today?
Run to the Water. Run for Your Life…Updated 8/23
If you’ve ever visited the beautiful Lahaina town on the west coast of Maui you cannot help but feel a huge loss, not only for the lives lost, a number that is likely to increase, but for the loss of Hawaiian history.
Chief Moore's New Direction on Prescribed Fire
In his 2023 Letter of Direction to USDA wildland firefighters, Chief Randy Moore made a significant change in tone and language when it comes to the use of prescribed fire.
Big Iron & Big Profit
As is in vogue today, business experts are allowed to pose as experts in any and all things. I caught this review of the new book, Running Out of Time: Wildfires and Our Imperiled Forests in Wildfire Today.
Jetstream
“While most of the United States is coming out of a wet winter, large fires are ravaging Alberta and British Columbia just north of Montana. Ninety large fires have burned a million acres in 2023, burning 150 times more area than fires in the last five years combined. While May is typical fire season in western Canada, fires are going to new extremes this year, burning
Indigenous Cultural Burning Crew Returns Good Fire to Oregons Willamette Valley
“As a thirty-plus year veteran of wildland firefighting and retired Fire Management Officer for one of California's eighteen National Forests, I have had the privilege of working with many incredible fire crews over the years. But I must say, the crew of young wildland firefighters I had the opportunity to work with this past fall was truly exceptional.
Biden’s “Burn Back Better”
“The United States has a vast area of public forest that needs to burn. Wildfires chip away at these hundreds of millions of acres of decadent forest every year. Still, nationally the area that needs to burn to restore wildlife habitat and protect towns is staggering. Finally, the Biden administration
Changing Fire's Story from a Source or Symptom of the Climate Crisis to One of its Solutions
“Since it was first sparked on land 420 million years ago, fire has played a major evolutionary role in ecosystems and human societies. Indigenous peoples used fire to nurture habitats for a wide diversity of species that provided them with foods, fibers, and medicines, and their cultural burning protected their villages from unwanted wildfires.
Question Suppression: Getting the Whole Story about Fire Suppression Operations
“Question Suppression: Getting the Whole Story about Fire Suppression Operations” is a tipsheet for reporters who cover wildfire designed to aid them in asking the hard questions. It offers advice and examples to uncover how the fire is actually being managed.
Caldor Fire Story Maps by Courtney Kaltenbach and Maxwell Spiegel
“I’ve never seen a retardant drop successfully contain fire spread and I often see areas of burned forests coated in powdery pink retardant that I know is going to seep into the soil and poison the areas watershed. Aggressive fire-suppression tactics are becoming more futile and more dangerous in the face of climate change. The impacts of the Caldor Fire on Lake Tahoe is an illuminating example of the harm of fire suppression.”
Check out the story map below to learn about the suppressive firefighting tactics used during the 2021 Caldor Fire and their impacts on Lake Tahoe and the surrounding area.
Fire as the Essential Tool: Remembering to Celebrate Success
Looking at the Washburn Fire, there have been dozens of iterations of prescribed burning, thinning, and pile burning around the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias and the nearby community of Wawona. In addition, the park has since the 1970’s had a program of allowing some lightning caused fires to burn. Both the human community of homes and infrastructure that comprise Wawona and the natural community of giant sequoias have benefitted from a single program of work – return fire to the extent possible to fire-dependent and fire-adapted landscapes.