NFPA Journal - July/August 2017 - 22

Dispatches
Resources Conservation Service under
President Obama, recently told 60 Minutes. "So our fires are burning hotter.
They're burning bigger. They're more
catastrophic." Bonnie thinks even today
we spend too much money on fighting
wildfires that, like hurricanes, "we can't
stop." Last year alone, federal agencies
spent almost $2 billion fighting wildfires.
But in some areas, the narrative is
changing. "We're seeing a new strategy
evolve, at least in the West, which is a
kind of managed wildfire-a half-suppressed, half-prescribed fire," Pyne said.
"[Agencies are] backing off. Rather than
going toe-to-toe with every fire at every
point, they're finding areas they really
need to protect, like communities, and
focusing their efforts on that." Pyne said
WILDFIRE
the strategy saves taxpayers money,
keeps firefighters safer, and gives Mother
Nature what it wants, which is more fire.
It could also be one of the reasons behind
the rise in the number of acres burned by
wildfires throughout the country.
For some state land management
WHY MORE ACRES CONSUMED BY WILDFIRE MAY BE
agencies, though, the new approach isn't
EXACTLY WHAT WE NEED. By Angelo Verzoni
always tenable. That's the case for CaliThese so-called checks and balances
n our May/June issue, we
fornia's Department of Forestry and Fire
are old indeed-wildfire has existed
reported that wildfires
Protection, or CAL FIRE, the country's
on Earth for at least 400 million years.
had burned more than
largest state fire service. "For CAL FIRE,
Since there's been sunlight to grow
2.2 million acres of land
our protection area is private land," said
plants and plants to produce oxygen,
in the United States from
David Shew, staff chief of planning and
there have been fires to destroy them
January 1 through April 21-more than
risk analysis at CAL FIRE, who spoke
and start the process over again. Plants
three times the average for the previous
about the department's efforts to preand animals have evolved to live with
nine years.
vent wildfires at the NFPA Conference &
Taken at face value, the spike is alarm- and even thrive side by side with
Expo in June. "If we were to let
wildfire. Some tree species, for
ing. But under the right conditions,
a fire burn, it may destroy someNFPA.ORG/
DISPATCHES
example, rely on the heat from
more acreage torched by wildfires is
one's grazing crop or someone's
wildfires to release their seeds
what experts say we need.
timber that they rely on for their
WATCH
David Shew
for reproduction. Birds such as
"In an urban setting, every fire put
livelihood. We don't have the
of CAL FIRE
the black-backed woodpecker
out is a problem solved. But in many
luxury of allowing the fire to just
discuss the
scavenge burned tree trunks for
wildlands, every fire put out is a probcontinue to burn, even knowing
challenges
insect larvae in the wake of fires. his department there might be some ecological
lem put off," Stephen Pyne, a wildfire
faces in trying
Without wildfire, the integrity of
researcher and historian, told NFPA
benefit to it down the road."
to shift from
wildfire
ecosystems weakens.
Journal in a recent interview. Pyne has
At the same time, Shew
suppression
For decades, though, dating
authored dozens of books on the history
applauded
the federal governto wildfire
back to the early 1900s, the fire
and management of wildfire and is recment's initiatives promoting
management.
service in America aimed to
ognized as a leading expert on the topic.
more natural burning, and said
stamp out wildfires as quickly as they
"If you leave an area unburned, fuel
CAL FIRE does on occasion run into a
started. In doing so, it unknowingly
begins stockpiling. It changes the struclandowner who will ask them to let their
primed the environment for larger, more
ture of wildlands to where fires that
land burn in the event of a wildfire.
catastrophic ones, which continue to
do occur burn more rigorously and at
According to the National Interwreak havoc today. "We built up fuel
higher intensity and severity. They're no
agency Fire Center, as of June 20, 27,578
loads," Robert Bonnie, who supervised
longer constrained by the old ecological
reported fires had burned more than 2.5
the U.S. Forest Service and the Natural
checks and balances."
million acres nationwide so far in 2017.

LET IT BURN

22 | NFPA JOURNAL * J U L Y /A U G U S T 2 0 1 7

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NFPA Journal - July/August 2017
