More research—this time by Oregon State, Colorado State, and the Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Research Station—suggesting that the U.S. Forest Service and timber industry continues to bark up the wrong tree with a focus of logging on public lands as a means to protect communities from wildfire. This quote from Dr. Chris Dunn of Oregon State’s College of Forestry (who’s researcher areas are silviculture, fire, and forest health) was particularly interesting: “The Forest Service’s new strategy for the wildfire crisis leads with a focus on thinning public lands to prevent wildfire intrusion into communities, which is not fully supported by our work, or the work of many other scientists, as the best way to mitigate community risk.”
The following article was published by Oregon State University.
CORVALLIS, Ore. – Research led by Oregon State University shows that fires are more likely to burn their way into national forests than out of them.
The findings contradict the common narrative of a destructive wildfire igniting on remote public land before spreading to threaten communities, said Chris Dunn of the OSU College of Forestry.
The study, which looked at more than 22,000 fires, found that those crossing jurisdictional boundaries are primarily caused by people on private property.
It also showed that ignitions on Forest Service lands accounted for fewer than 25% of the most destructive wildfires – ones that resulted in the loss of more than 50 structures.
“In the old framing, public agencies bear the primary responsibility for managing and mitigating cross-boundary fire risk and protecting our communities, with their efforts focused on prevention, fuel reduction and suppression,” Dunn said. “This has been the dominant management approach of years past, which is failing us.”
The findings, published today in Nature Scientific Reports, follow by a few weeks the Forest Service’s release of a new 10-year fire strategy, Confronting the Wildfire Crisis. The strategy aims for a change in paradigm within the agency, Dunn said.
“We are long overdue for policies and actions that support a paradigm shift,” he said.
Scientists including Dunn and OSU’s Will Downing investigated 27 years of fires that crossed jurisdictional boundaries. The collaboration also included scientists from Colorado State University and the Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Research Station.
Cross-boundary fires consumed just over 17 million acres during the study period of 1992 to 2019, and about half of the burned area was Forest Service land. The study area covered almost 141 million acres across 11 states and included 74 national forests.
Of all ignitions that crossed jurisdictional boundaries, a little more than 60% originated on private property, and 28% ignited on national forests. Most of the fires started due to human activity.
“The Forest Service’s new strategy for the wildfire crisis leads with a focus on thinning public lands to prevent wildfire intrusion into communities, which is not fully supported by our work, or the work of many other scientists, as the best way to mitigate community risk,” Dunn said.
“A substantial portion of the wildfire problem is a community destruction problem,” added Michael Caggiano of Colorado State. “The Forest Service can contribute to an advisory or facilitation role to address the home ignition zone, including fire resistant design and zoning, and fuels management on private lands, but states, local government and homeowners are better positioned than the USFS to manage those components of wildfire risk.”
A paradigm shift that could mitigate wildfire risk would begin with the recognition that the significant wildfires occurring in western states is a fire management challenge with a fire management solution, not a forest management problem with a forest management solution, Dunn said.
“The only way we are going to address the wildfire problem on large public lands at the scale of the challenge is through the effective and efficient management of wildfires over the long run,” he said.
Dunn said that means allowing some fires or portions of fires to burn to provide risk reduction and ecological benefits, identifying and preparing locations where suppression is likely to be effective, and developing strategies to rapidly distribute resources to where they are most needed and can do the most good.
“Our research has significant potential to inform and guide development of effective cross-boundary risk mitigation strategies, including identifying where and how work on the ground can be most effective,” he said. “The main source of our communities’ exposure to wildfire risk is clearly not our national forests.”
The study showed that in many cases, national forests were a net receiver of cross-boundary wildfire rather than a source, and that those fires tend to happen in areas with higher densities of roads and people.
Dunn credits the Forest Service for accepting the modern realities of wildfire and for embracing collaborative governance and cross-boundary partnerships. He added that managing fire in multijurisdictional landscapes has become a centerpiece of wildfire strategic planning and that evidence suggests fire transmission across boundaries will continue to increase.
“As the Forest Service’s strategy moves forward, we think there could be opportunities to learn from what their state partners are doing, such as the more comprehensive policies passed in Oregon in 2021,” he said. “Oregon’s omnibus wildfire bill is a science-driven approach that recognizes the shared responsibility we all have in adapting to the fire environment.”
The legislation requires those homes at greatest risk to mitigate at the home ignition zone and also addresses landscape resilience and improved wildfire response.
Dunn calls it “the type of comprehensive policy we need to address the multitude of impacts wildfires have on communities, ecosystems, industry, etc. It recognizes that the Forest Service is neither the sole source of the problem nor the sole solution to the problem, but rather one of many pieces to a paradigm shift society needs to make.”
Matthew Thompson and Karen Short of the Rocky Mountain Research Station also took part in the cross-boundary fire study, which was partially funded by the Forest Service.
What about our forests? Chris Dunn is piling on to Chad Hanson’s argument that we should not thin our forests, because thinning is not the answer to community wildfire protection. A concern for our forests is being buried by a focus on community. I don’t doubt that more ignitions cross from private land to public land than the other way around, but don’t we care what happens when the fire get’s there? Do we want forests or no? Moreover, so what if a fire starts on private land instead of public land? It is still going to spew embers back on to communities.
Hi John: Since 1987, most of the fires in western Oregon on private land started on federal land. Someone below says 0% of Oregon structures lost in these fires started on federal lands. Say what?
Here’s a good example of the quality of Hanson’s work (may have been posted here before): https://acconsensus.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/190312_Peery_etal._chad_hansen.pdf
Same old one-sided mindset from people who don’t analyze ‘the big picture’. Of course, ad nauseum, Forest Service thinning projects don’t have just one purpose and need (that being fire safety on private lands).
Whomever wrote the headline for Mr. Koehler’s article and the article for Oregon State University for this informative article need to be reminded that–with very few exceptions (e.g., non-national forest land acquired by the Forest Service for use as administrative sites, communications sites, etc.), there’s no such thing as “Forest Service land.” It’s “national forest land” that belongs to the people of the United States–the citizen-owners of the National Forest System–and are administered for them by the Forest Service as prescribed by law, not “Forest Service land.” A small point? A nitpick? Not at all! This is an all-important distinction that informs–or should inform–the perceptions (and, thus, the operational realities) of the politicians, the public servants, and the publics they serve of their respective roles, responsibilities, and prerogatives vis-a-vis the national forests and each other.
Hi Les, I totally agree with you. I simply used the headline directly from OSU. Thanks.
From the published supplemental data: 100% of the structures lost in Arizona (723) originated on federal lands, 100% of the structures lost in WY (55) originated on federal lands, 90% of the structures lost in New Mexico (663) originated on federal lands, 54% of structures lost in Montana (159) originated on federal lands, 27% of structures lost in Colorado (1706) originated on federal lands, 12% of structures lost in California (35,613) originated on federal lands and 0% of the structures lost in Idaho, Oregon, Utah, and Washington (116, 109, 146, 515) originated on federal lands.
PatrickF.. Thanks for digging into this! that’s fascinating.. that goes back to the scale at which you analyze the problem and the scale at which people deal with it. Or “one size does not fit all” . People might wonder at the dynamics of why the forests in Arizona and New Mexico and Wyoming had so many fires that started on federal land compared to Calif. Arizona and NM have similarities but Wyoming not so much. Based on that, you could argue that the “science” says that all the 10 year money should be prorated to states based on these percentages.. sorry, OR UT and WA. Hurray AZ NM and WY!
These very large fires in Oregon originated on USFS ground:
2020:
Beachie Creek, 193,573 acres, 1,323 structures destroyed, 5 fatalities
Riverside Fire, 138,054 acres, 139 structures destroyed
Lionshead Fire, 204,469 acres, 280 structures destroyed
2021:
Bootleg Fire, 413,765 acres, 408 structures destroyed
The paper only included structure losses from wildfires that took place between 2000-2018. I am surprised that the USFS doesn’t maintain a more comprehensive database of all wildfires that have occurred, where they started, where they burned, how much was spent on suppression and any losses that resulted because of it: homes, other structures, lives, etc.. It is challenging to develop comprehensive solutions to a problem when we don’t fully understand it.
I just published an article on this very topic as it applies to western Oregon, with the North Umpqua being the focus. Virtually all of these fires are coming from USFS and BLM Lands. I’ve lost a lot of faith in OSU Forestry — where I have three degrees — over the past 30 years. Eisenhower warned us. This is more evidence.
In my February 16, 2022, 9:14 comment on Matthew Koehler’s piece “OSU research suggests Forest Service lands not the main source of wildfire affecting communities” I absolutely did not suggest that “Forest Service lands [are] not the main source of wildfires affecting communities.” I specifically objected to use of the term “Forest Service lands” for “National Forest System lands” or “national forest lands” and explained the reason why. That was absolutely all that I said. Mr. Koehler in his February 16, 2022, 10:38 response to my objection specifically replied “I totally agree with you. I simply used the headline directly from OSU. Thanks.” Please correct this erroneous attribution to me of a statement about “the main source of wildfire affecting communities” which I did not make. Thank you.
“A paradigm shift that could mitigate wildfire risk would begin with the recognition that the significant wildfires occurring in western states is a fire management challenge with a fire management solution, not a forest management problem with a forest management solution, Dunn said.” A classic case of “if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” Or more to the point, if the only thing you get paid to do is hammer, you want to make everything look like a nail.
The whole discussion about where fires start that destroy structures isn’t particularly relevant if those lost structures could have been protected by defensible space around them. And even where we would rather not have national forest lands burn for their own sake, protecting them is not what Congress says is the priority with this funding.
I like it when someone says “something is not something” when I would argue that it is all of the above. All of residents, their fire folks, and IMTs and fire staffs and fuels folks and fuel removers (including tree removers and users). The fire scientists said “all hands and all the tools in the toolkit”. So certainly Dunn is entitled to his point of view. I don’t agree.