fire management

Brian Fennessy has nearly 50 years of fire experience, which began in the late 1970s on elite federal hotshot crews and other wildfire teams.

A group of mostly Western U.S. Senators is demanding answers on why the U.S. Forest Service has fallen behind on efforts to reduce hazardous wildfire fuels. The 12 senators – all Democrats – are from Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico and other wildfire-impacted states.

When conditions allow for it to be done safely, research strongly suggests that land managers should let some fires burn to reduce the risk of catastrophic blazes. But making that decision can be complicated. A new study highlights ways to incentivize that often difficult call.

Wyoming’s Appropriations Committee held a hearing on wildfire management that focused on improving rapid response and supporting local fire crews. Experts also raised concerns about cheatgrass’s role in increasing wildfire risk. Officials emphasized the importance of adequate state resources and partnerships with federal and local agencies.

The declaration allows the state to access more federal firefighting resources and directs the Office of Homeland Security to participate in firefighting responses. There is an immediate evacuation alongside the Fremont and Host Springs county lines as a result of the Red Canyon Fire.

For millennia, Indigenous peoples have intentionally set fires to care for the land. Colonization and fire exclusion largely put an end to those practices, though the tradition endured. Now, California tribes have opened the door to a new era of cultural burning - a potential model for the rest of the West.

The Forest Service's new chief recently published a letter that called for wildfires to be suppressed "as swiftly as possible." That may sound prudent to many, but it raised eyebrows among some who study fire policy. They worried that it may signal a return to aggressive suppression that has been linked to growing wildfire severity.

President Trump has signed an executive order on wildfire policy, which seeks to speed responses to wildfires and address what it calls “reckless mismanagement.”

Tom Schultz, the head of the U.S. Forest Service, is calling for wildfires to be extinguished “as swiftly as possible this season.” But aggressive suppression policies are widely believed to be one of the key culprits in the current wildfire crisis.

Wildland fire has a diversity problem: in 2022, the Government Accountability Office reported that the federal firefighting force was 84 percent men and 72 percent white. This inequitable situation has been identified as one of the key barriers to recruiting and retaining a workforce capable of confronting the wildfire crisis.