Editor’s note: The USDA Forest Service has been working to reduce wildfire risk in high-priority landscapes through the Wildfire Crisis Strategy. A recent wildfire in Northern California shows how urgent this work is—and how effective it can be.

It’s not just how we respond to wildfires that determines their outcome—it’s also how we plan for them.

Fuel treatments, such as cutting small trees out of heavily-forested areas to reduce vegetation density, can play a huge role in quick and effective fire suppression — just ask the firefighters who responded to the recent Gold Complex, multiple wildfires started by four lightning strikes on the Plumas National Forest the afternoon of July 22.

“I would confidently say that the treatments on the National Forest System lands out there are what made it possible for us to keep both the Smith and the Mill fires out of communities,” said Plumas National Forest Fuels Officer Ryan Bauer.

Keeping Fire Out of the Community

Bauer served as Incident Commander for the three Mill Fires within the Gold Complex during the first 20 hours of initial attack.

Existing fuel treatments near the Smith Fire, as well as the Mabie Project on the Plumas National Forest, the Stevens Project on Graeagle Land and Water property, and roadside fuel reduction treatments on the Tahoe National Forest were all instrumental in containment of the Smith and Mill fires in the Gold Complex.

“We would have had fire in those communities instead of being able to pick it up with the few resources that we had,” Bauer commented.

While several communities near the fires were evacuated, including Whitehawk, Clio, Mabie, Gold Mountain, Iron Horse, Delleker and parts of Portola, no homes were damaged by the fire.

Bauer said that existing fuel treatments near the ignition points were especially critical in the initial attack stage of the Mill Fire, as they provided a strategic place where firefighters could safely start constructing a fireline. These treated areas served as anchor points, allowing for quick response and prevented fire spread into the community of Whitehawk or affecting private, historic ranches near Clio, such as White Sulphur Springs Ranch.

“Without that treatment, we probably wouldn't have been able to put a fireline all the way around the Mill Fire as rapidly as we did,” said Beckwourth Ranger District Fire Management Officer Don Fregulia.

The Smith and Mill Fires grew rapidly for the first two days after being reported due to dry fuels, winds and terrain, but did not gain significant size after July 23. The growth was slowed as a result of the quick response from firefighters aided by the pre-treated forest in that area.

Both Bauer and Fregulia agree that the situation could have been much worse, especially given the prolonged extreme heat wave that preceded the fire, resulting in critically dry fuels and extreme fire potential.

Reducing Wildfire Intensity, Giving Room to Breathe

Areas that have been thinned of excess vegetation—whether by hand or machine—then followed with prescribed fire often show a significant reduction in fire intensity when wildfires eventually burn into them.

One notable benefit of reducing intensity is providing a better place for firefighters to engage, as this provides them with a safer place to access and directly attack the fire with the assistance of aerial resources. This was the case on the Gold Complex, with resources being largely successful in creating basic firelines with bulldozers in the first 48 hours of the fire.

“This is all about fire behavior, about the fire’s transition,” said Fregulia, who has been a firefighter for 26 years, 17 of which have been on the Plumas National Forest. “When it was burning on untreated timberland it was burning hot, and then it transitioned into a low intensity surface fire in our project areas, and low intensity surface fires are attackable by dozers and hand crews with water support.”

“If we would have still been sitting without our fireline built when the Red Flag Warning came around, then I believe we could have certainly expected Park Fire-like fire behavior,” he continued.

Fregulia is referencing the nearby Park Fire that started on July 24, just 65 miles due west of the Gold Complex area and burned nearly 350,000 acres in just three days. While the fuel types and conditions were different, the Park Fire demonstrated just how intense fire conditions were in Northern California that week.

“We completed our line around the fire at about 1 p.m. on Wednesday,” Fregulia said. “And I think they had hoisted the Red Flag Warning starting at midnight for Thursday, so it was a narrow, really thin line.”

Studies have shown that forested areas that have been thinned and burned reduce fire severity between 62%-72% relative to untreated areas, while forests that were only thinned were less effective at reducing severity. This demonstrates just how important it is to follow thinning projects with prescribed fire to replicate how fire would have historically sustained lower forest density.

“Those areas were protected because the Forest Service invested in the hand thinning, and we went back and invested in the underburning,” Fregulia added.

Bauer added that the Tahoe National Forest treatments aided firefighters on the east flank of the fire.

“I don't want to leave out the Tahoe National Forest’s role here either,” Bauer said, noting that Pacific Southwest Region Fuels Planner Ruby Burks, worked hard several years ago while working in fuels on the Tahoe National Forest to treat areas where the fires were ultimately stopped.

“There was a lot of skepticism about whether the treatments would be effective,” Bauer remembered. “During the Mill Fire they were essential on that edge of the fire, if not at the head at times. Today, this type of work is common across the Tahoe National Forest, with fuels reduction work occurring along key roads and adjacent to communities.”

The hope is that this success in keeping the fires of the Gold Complex relatively small, with no damage to infrastructure or homes, will provide more momentum for residents and private landowners to support similar fuels work, including prescribed fire, to protect their land and communities against future wildfires.

“There’s momentum in Plumas and Sierra counties,” Bauer said. “Hopefully the energy behind these projects will be renewed with this fire and people will remember that this kind of stuff needs to get done.”

Great Challenges, Great Opportunities

The Plumas is no stranger to wildfires. Over the past 6 years, starting with the Camp Fire and including the North Complex, Beckwourth Complex and Dixie Fires, approximately two-thirds of the forest has been affected by wildfire. The North Complex and Dixie Fires are categorized as two of the top 10 biggest fires in California history, at 318,935 and 963,309 acres respectively.

With this much fire history the Forest Service recognizes that it’s not if but when another wildfire impacts the forest and communities.

“One of the things we've had to recalibrate is our understanding of the “No Action Alternative,’” said Plumas National Forest Supervisor Chris Carlton, referring to the National Environmental Policy Act. “It isn't ‘maybe a fire will come’, it's that a fire will come and we are on extremely borrowed time.”

Reflecting this urgency, the Plumas and Tahoe National Forests have both been identified as having priority landscapes in the national Wildfire Crisis Strategy, which combines increased funding and partnerships to meet the challenge.

“At the end of the day, we rely on the timber industry, we rely on nonprofit partners, tribal partners, and other federal and state partners to the work done on the ground,” Carlton said.

He noted that the Plumas National Forest has partnered with the National Forest Foundation, Feather River Resource Conservation District, Mule Deer Foundation and several other entities to increase the scale of the forest’s work in the area.

Efforts on the Tahoe National Forest have been likewise focused on creating safer communities within what is one of the last, large remaining tracts of unburned forested land in the Sierra Nevada after the recent years of fire. The Tahoe has implemented fuels treatments around communities, along key roads and further afield where firefighters, foresters and partners are aligned in targeting treatments in areas that would create “defensible space” to limit the spread of burning fires.

“Especially with the conditions that we're seeing now, including climate change, our window is getting smaller,” Bauer said. “And there's this great acknowledgement in society that fire can do some of that job for us, and the fire belongs here. But there's also this reality that with climate change, we are seeing more and more extreme fires.”

“I've lived in these mountains my whole life and I want to finish it out here,” he continued. “I know that there are people in the next generation that want to live here. And it could be a totally different place than what I grew up with if we don’t get this work done.”