Climate Change

Deciding when and where to conduct prescribed burns is becoming increasingly important as the climate warms, and, according to a recent study, the timing and frequency of appropriate weather will also play a larger role.

Prescribed burns are an essential tool land managers use in reducing fuel availability for extreme wildfires, and conditions favorable to prescribed burns will become far less frequent in much of the West, especially the Southwest, according to a study published in October 2023 in Communications Earth & Environment.

However, the study found that parts of the northern Rocky Mountains will have more days to use prescribed burns, especially during the early and late winter months.

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.

Forty firefighting professionals from the U.S. and Canada gathered recently in the Deschutes National Forest in Central Oregon to gain hands-on experience with prescribed fires.

Such fires help reduce fuel load, improve forest health and protect communities from wildfires which have grown more intense due to climate change and 100 years of suppressing fires.

Since its launch 15 years ago by the U.S. Forest Service, the Department of the Interior and The Nature Conservancy, the Prescribed Fire Training Exchange Program, or TREX, has taken place in more than a dozen states and has grown to include the involvement of Tribal nations, state and local governments, private landowners and other partners.