Recent scientific research points out the possibility of dangerous future wildland fire activity in the Western United States.
A paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences discusses how fire suppression and grazing has kept the number of wildland fires in the West at a historic low over the past century, fuel buildup and changing temperatures may lead to a drastic increase in wildfires because of a fire deficit.
“The last two centuries have seen dramatic changes in wildfire across the American West, with a peak in wildfires in the 1800s giving way to much less burning over the past 100 years,” said lead author Jennifer R. Marlon, now a National Science Foundation Earth Science Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “The decline was mostly caused by the influx of explorers and settlers and by their subsequent suppression of wildfires, both intentionally and accidentally.”
Wildfires have been debated for years as either a destructive force of nature that should be eradicated or natural disturbance that keep ecosystems healthy. For nearly 100 years, national policy, as administered by the U.S. Forest Service, had been to respond rapidly to suppress all wildfires, but in recent years, local forest managers have been given more latitude to evaluate which fires to suppress, while ensuring public safety.
Read more about the paper’s findings in a summary by the University of Oregon HERE. A direct link to the paper’s abstract and more info is HERE.
