Wildfire Crisis Strategy

The USDA Forest Service responded to the increasing severity and size of wildfires in the west by launching the Wildfire Crisis Strategy (WCS) in January 2022. This strategy increases the pace and scale of forest restoration to safeguard communities and resources, guide communities as they prepare for wildfires, and support postfire recovery and restoration.

The Forest Service is working closely with Tribes and partners to identify and prioritize key landscape projects while working with partners to build the needed workforce capacity and public support for treatments. One of the landscapes specifically identified in the WCS includes the Four Forest Restoration Initiative (4FRI). This initiative spans 2.4-milion acres on the Coconino, Apache-Sitgreaves, Kaibab and Tonto national forests, and is a 20-year project to reduce catastrophic wildfire risk in northern Arizona’s ponderosa pine forest.

Many of the fire-adapted forests on the Coconino National Forest are overgrown and unhealthy. These forests require frequent, low intensity fire to reduce hazardous fuels, such as dry pine needles and dead and down trees, that would otherwise increase catastrophic wildfires.

The Coconino National Forest is committed to restoring these forests to resilient conditions through treatments, such as a combination of prescribed fire and mechanical thinning to protect old growth, improve watershed health, and reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire.

• Protecting Communities and Improving Forest Resilience

  

  The Wildfire Crisis Strategy and How the Coconino National Forest is Involved?

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Additional Resources:

• Confronting the Wildfire Crisis
• Wildfire Crisis Strategy Fact Sheet
• National Prescribed Fire Resource Mobilization Strategy
• 4FRI Landscape Report Card
• Forest Service Chief's Letter of Intent 2023