Fire

The Southern Region’s joint fuels reduction program efforts directly or indirectly protect more than 58,000 communities and 89 million acres in areas where communities are intermingled with forest lands, also known as wildland urban interface.

Since 1990, the wildland urban interface in the South has grown by more than 24.7 million acres, making it one of the fastest growing regions in the nation. Today, more people than ever are living with heightened wildfire risk because their homes intermingle with forests and nature, where wildfire risk is higher. Many forests in the South are within a mile of residential areas and more than 90 million acres are classified as wildland-urban interface.

The goal of fire management in the Southern Region is to safely, efficiently and cost- effectively respond to wildland fires by:

• Encouraging and supporting establishment of fire-adapted residential communities
• Proactively working to restore and maintain unique Southern landscapes using prescribed fire and other management tools