The Forest Service and timber industry are using fear of fire to log in the backcountry. Logging and thinning in the back country is ineffective and diverts resources away from actual home protection, which must be focused immediately adjacent to individual structures in order to protect them. Creating defensible space within 100-200 feet of individual homes can more effectively protect homes from fires, even when they are more intense.
Logging in the backcountry will not make communities safer.
Working near communities, home hardening, and emergency preparedness are far more effective strategies for keeping homes and communities safe (Calkin et al. 2023; Cohen 2000; Gibbons et al. 2012; Syphard et al. 2014).
The primary threat to homes is from grassfires, not forest fires.
Most homes that burned in the US in recent years were destroyed by grass and shrub fire, not by forest fires (Radeloff et al. 2023). This highlights the realities of climate-driven wildfire and lack of efficacy in logging to control fire behavior. Reporting from CNN about the study notes:“Over the last three decades, the number of US homes destroyed by wildfire has more than doubled as fires burn bigger and badder, a recent study found. Most of those homes were burned not by forest fires, but by fires racing through grass and shrubs.”… “The West is most at risk, the study found, where more than two-thirds of the homes burned over the last 30 years were located. Of those, nearly 80% were burned in grass and shrub fires.”
Most homes are burned by large, fast moving fires.
Fast-moving wildfires comprise less than 3% of all U.S. fire events– but they account for 89% of all structures damaged or destroyed. Fires move fastest in ecosystems that have low wind friction due to sparse or absent tree cover, which is associated with a dominance of grasses. Firefighters quickly become overwhelmed by fast-moving fires (Balch et al. 2024).
Large, fast-moving wildfires are primarily driven by climate.
Large, fast moving fires are primarily driven by drought, heat, and wind– not by “fuels”. In addition, climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of wildfires, as well as the amount of area burned. (Abatzoglou & Koldon 2013; Abatzoglou & Williams 2016; Abatzoglou et al 2021; Balch et al. 2024; Jain et al. 2022; Keeley & Syphard 2019; Keyser & Westerling 2017; Kirchmeyer-Young et al. 2019; Littell et al. 2009; Miller et al. 2012).
The majority of fire ignitions that cross jurisdictional boundaries start on private lands, not public lands.
The Oregon State University Newsroom discussed the Downing et al. 2022 study: “The study area covered almost 141 million acres across 11 states and included 74 national forests”… “Of all ignitions that crossed jurisdictional boundaries, a little more than 60% originated on private property, and 28% ignited on national forests. Most of the fires started due to human activity.”
Most fires are started by human activity.
The Balch et al. 2017 study found that “[h]uman-started wildfires accounted for 84% of all wildfires, tripled the length of the fire season, dominated an area seven times greater than that affected by lighting fires, and were responsible for nearly half of all area burned”. Furthermore, increasing road access– which is an essential part of logging– will further put large swaths of forests at risk for the most common fire ignitions– human-caused fire starts.
Protecting forests from logging does not increase their fire risk.
Protected forests do not burn more severely or with greater frequency compared to logged forests (Bradley et al. 2016; Odion & Hanson 2008). In fact, logging may increase fire intensity and risk (Cruz et al. 2014; Evers et al. 2022; Zald and Dunn 2018). For example, logged forests become more susceptible to solar radiation, winds, and drying– thus becoming more flammable after logging in many situations (Achat et al. 2015; Countryman 1956; Leismeister et al. 2021; Platt et al. 2006; Summary of the Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project Report 1996). Heavy, industrial logging results in homogenous forests can increase fire risk and burn more severely (Zald & Dunn. 2018). In addition, there is a very short window of time that “treatments” are ostensibly effective, usually ~10-15 years (Rhodes and Baker 2008). The authors found that “treated” (logged) areas have a vanishingly small chance of encountering a wildfire during that 10-15 year window of time.
Logging increases carbon emissions compared to unlogged forests, and compared to wildfire.
Forests store vast amounts of carbon, and are a key part of the climate solution if they are left unlogged. Pacific Northwest forests alone hold live tree biomass equivalent or larger than tropical forests (Law and Waring, 2015). Conversely, logging is a major source of carbon emissions (Hudiburg et al. 2018, Law et al. 2018), greater by far than CO2 emissions from wildfires (Bartowitz et al. 2022), and represents the majority of emissions from US forests (Harris et al, 2016; Campbell et al. 2011). Logging is the largest source of carbon emissions in Oregon (Law and Harmon 2018). Additionally, intensive biomass logging– which is becoming increasingly widespread in the US with industry plans for expansion– could constitute an important source of carbon transfer from forests to the atmosphere (Achat et al. 2015). Increasing emissions intensifies climate change, and further exacerbates wildfires and the negative effects of climate change to ecosystems.
Citations
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