Wildfire management LTTE

[Ben Lamb]

The USFS is currently looking for applicants for several RAC's (Resource Advisory Councils). Those councils help bring local perspectives to land management, as well as help spend Secure Rural Schools funds on approved projects which would include fire resiliency, restoration post fire, etc.

Your congresswoman sits on the Conservation & Forestry subcommittee for the Agriculture committee. She would be a good person to develop a relationship with in order to raise the issue at the federal level (become the PITA I know you can be!)

Run for county commission. CC's have outsized influence on how local lands are managed. They also have to partner with the USFS on roads, etc. it's a good profession to also wear a lot of seersucker suits, smoke cigars and drive a Cadillac w/longhorns on the front.

I'm not aware of NEPA planning with public facing components around a national fire plan. Given that it would also have significant national security issues as well as the need to act fast and be nimble, I can't see the gov't wanting to get too mired in the public process. Here's the FS's fire response page: https://www.fs.usda.gov/managing-land/fire/response

 

[Dakotakid]

Having my house survive a major wildfire when 60 of my neighbors houses burned, I joined the local vfd.
That fire with the wind was traveling much faster than crews could fight.
The origin was lightening. That fire also jumped across a bare summer fallowed field without delay.

Lots of valuable information above but I do think different states have different agenda in fighting fires. I also think the environmental industry has done a disservice to wilderness health. Large beetle killed forests creating heavy fuel loads, are ripe for hot intense fires.
That is a different “fire” than even the next fire in the same location.

 

[mtmuley]

Final thought...any criticism of fire operations...if federal at least...have to take into account the greatly reduced capacity to fight them due to DOGE/ Trump. Fewer staff will only decrease ability to protect property, and increase the likelihood of closures to hunters and others.

The criticism has been going on since decades ago. Might be less personnel now but the scrutiny isn't new by any stretch. mtmuley

 

[TheTone]

Fire just started a bit ago 20 or so miles south of me. Right along a highway and on private, grazed, brushy, weed infested, and what timber is there is big and mature. I’m guessing there wont be any log it, graze it or watch it burn comments on Facebook about this one

 

[Irrelevant]

This is actually what I was looking for:

"The Forest Service has been managing wildland fire on National Forests for more than 100 years. This is more important than ever because over the last few decades, wildland fire management has profoundly changed. Longer fire seasons, more acres burned on average each year, and more extreme fire behavior have become the norm.

To address these challenges, the Forest Service and its other federal, tribal, state, and local partners are implementing a National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy that has three key components: Resilient Landscapes, Fire Adapted Communities, and Safe and Effective Wildfire Response. One of the methods to help control more extreme wildfire, is to take preventative action with controlled or prescribed burns."

National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy

www.forestsandrangelands.gov

https://www.forestsandrangelands.gov/documents/strategy/strategy/CSPhaseIIINationalStrategyApr2014.pdf

The National Strategy explores four broad challenges:

1. Managing vegetation and fuels;
2. Protecting homes, communities, and other values at risk;
3. Managing human-caused ignitions; and
4. Effectively and efficiently responding to wildfire.

This does effectively reinforce what I've seen. Minimal effort is made to "put out" naturally caused fires (after all, they're natural, and natural is good, right?). And that no actual value or weighting is applied to societal impacts from unhealthy air quality, though it is acknowledged as a concern, but only for prescribed fires. The document portrays a quite resigned perspective that fires will simply burn, over large areas, for long durations, and at great costs. And there isn't anything to be done.