Management

Wildland fires are a force of nature that can be nearly as impossible to prevent, and as difficult to control, as hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods. 

Wildland Fire

Wildland fire can be beneficial or destructive. In the right place at the right time, wildland fire can create many environmental benefits, such as reducing dry grasses, brush, and trees that can fuel large and severe wildfires and improving wildlife habitat. In the wrong place at the wrong time, wildfires can wreak havoc by threatening lives, homes, communities, along with natural and cultural resources. 

The Forest Service has been managing wildland fire on National Forests and Grasslands for more than 100 years. However, the Forest Service doesn’t do it alone. Instead, the agency works closely with other federal, tribal, state, and local partners. And homeowners can do their part with creating defensible space around their property. 

This is more important than ever, because over the last few decades the wildland fire management environment has profoundly changed. Longer fire seasons that attain bigger fires and more acres burned on average each year; more extreme fire behavior; and wildfire suppression operations in the wildland urban interface (WUI) have become the norm.  

To address these challenges, the Forest Service and its other federal, tribal, state, and local partners have developed and are implementing a National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy. that has three key components: resilient landscapes, fire adapted communities, and safe and effective wildfire response.

Prescribed Fire

The use of prescribed fire is a growing program intended to return fire to the ecosystem to restore healthy ecosystems and reduce the potential for catastrophic wildfires. A healthy ecosystem is more resistant to severe fire, disease, and insect infestations.

The Forest Service and other land management agencies use prescribed fire as a tool to maintain or improve the health of the land. Forest managers burn over 10,000 acres each year in order to accomplish specific resource objectives. Two of these objectives are to reduce hazardous fuel buildups and improve range and wildlife habitat. Prescribed fires are carefully planned by using information about precipitation, wind, fuel moisture and other elements to determine the best conditions to burn and meet the objectives. Prescribed fires are usually ignited by hand with drip torches or by helicopter.

Why have a Prescribed Fire?

• Many plant and wildlife species depend on fire’s presence in the ecosystem to create the conditions they need to flourish.
• Without fire, many ecosystems become stagnant and lose their diversity.
• Larger, more intense fires result in more significant impacts to water, soil and air resources than a managed prescribed fire.
• Past fire management policies and unnatural accumulations of dead wood and vegetation have resulted in some fires burning hotter and larger causing safety concerns for firefighters and surrounding communities.
• Fire is an integral part of ecosystems and needs to be carefully restored to fire-adapted ecosystems.
• Hazardous fuel reduction includes prescribed fire, mechanical treatments such as thinning, and chemical applications.
• Our goal is to treat landscapes in order to restore ecosystem health and function.
• A healthy forest is more resistant to severe fire, disease, and insects.
• Research on large catastrophic fires shows that active management in the form of thinning and prescribed burns can lessen the intensity and adverse effects of a wildland fire.