As Trump readies wildfire retaliation, there’s no silver bullet for forest management

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John Bailey, an associate forestry professor at Oregon State University, says thinning and prescribed burns are fundamentally about fuel management, which means reducing ladder and surface fuels so fires are less likely to climb into the crowns of trees, where they often burn catastrophically.

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“Thinning and prescribed burning helps us with some particularly problematic components of that fuel equation,” he said.

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He says the U.S. has known of this need for decades but has been slow to do it at the needed pace and scale, largely because of budgets, a lack of commercial markets for small-diameter wood (clearing them brings no profit), local and state smoke rules, liability concerns, and not having enough trained professionals.

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So, instead of doing what’s needed, he said, “the fuels have just continued to accumulate.”

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Daniels said both countries need to move away from the postwar mindset of fire suppression and commercial-timber forestry where possible, and toward management that reflects today’s hotter, drier conditions.

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“In Canada, temperatures have increased by more than one degree Celsius, and in the north, where those fires are having huge consequences, many of those areas have warmed more than two degrees Celsius,” she said.

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Those areas have also experienced multi-year droughts, while forests grew denser after Indigenous burning practices were banned and suppression became the dominant policy, Daniels noted.

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Even doing everything right won’t stop fires, she explained.

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“Doing those improvements isn’t going to stop wildfires,” she said. “We are going to be living with more and more fire on our landscape.”

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Bonnie also noted that the old ways won’t be enough.

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“Even if Canada was doing everything right with climate change, there are things that are going to burn hotter and more aggressively than they used to,” he said.

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Jonathan Boucher, researcher at the Canadian Forest Service, agrees that thinning trees, adding fuel breaks, conducting prescribed burning, and setting up defensible spaces near communities can help, but they cannot stop every fire.

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“I don’t think the problem is forest management. I think the problem is climate.”

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Bonnie also made it clear that Trump’s comments were not just wrong, but counterproductive.

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The U.S. has underinvested in fire prevention and restoration, Bonnie said, and Trump has made the problem worse by cutting Forest Service capacity and resources.

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Meanwhile, climate change is making forests drier faster, worsening fires, and forcing new management approaches.

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“If you’re going to complain about your neighbors, then maybe you shouldn’t be part of the problem that’s causing climate change and making this problem worse,” he said.

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“Our agencies work together. We’re going to throw smoke your way. You’re going to throw smoke our way. Let’s work together to make sure we can restore our forests in a way that we can contain this problem going forward.”

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National Post

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