One can wonder if the rebuttal of logging and prescribed fire by myself and other conservationists as a flawed strategy to protect communities is gaining traction. I cannot often report on favorable bi-partisan legislation regarding wildfire issues. However, a recently introduced bill by Congressional Huffman (D) and Jay Obernolte (R) of California puts the government on the right track. Huffman’s legislation would promote defensible space and home hardening to reduce community vulnerability to wildfires.
Logging the forest as advocated by the Fix Our Forests Act seldom preclude wildfires under extreme climate conditions. Photo George Wuerthner
The Community Protection and Wildfire Resilience Act promotes science-based methods to mitigate wildfire damage and funding to implement these policies.
This legislation contrasts with the Fix Our Forests Act, which promotes more logging in the backcountry. Instead, the Community Protection and Wildfire Resilience Act recognizes the false and simplistic notion that logging the forest provides security to communities and homes.
The Community Protection and Wildfire Resilience Act recognizes that large wildfires are inevitable. Protecting homes is the most cost-effective and least ecologically damaging strategy for dealing with climate-induced wildfires.
Huffman suggests: “The government should treat these natural disasters the same way as any other, providing resources and empowering communities to build resiliency”
While I wouldn’t call high severity fires a “disaster,” the end result promoting home hardening is welcome.
Home hardening might include installation of metal roofs, and removal of flammable materials like the needles on this roof. Photo George Wuerthner
As Representative Jay Obernolte noted: “the Community Protection and Wildfire Resilience Act empowers them to take a proactive and coordinated approach to wildfire protection.”
The Community Protection and Wildfire Resilience Act, builds on provisions from the Wildfire Defense Act, which Vice President Kamala Harris supported when she was a Senator. The Wildfire Defense Act included the Community Wildfire Defense Grant program, that helps communities, tribes, non-profit organizations, state forestry agencies, and Alaska Native corporations to plan for and mitigate wildfire risks.
The new legislation provides home hardening grants through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and adds home hardening as an allowable project under the USFS program.
One of the lessons of recent research is that high winds usually drive high-severity blazes. Although the heat from these fires is extreme, exposure to embers and heat is short-lived as the fire moves rapidly onward. However, house fires put out much more heat and embers once ignited than forest fires. Thus, community-wide preparation for wildfires is necessary. If you harden your home, and your neighbor’s does not, your home is still vulnerable to ignition.
Another strategic value of community hardening is that many wildfires travel extremely fast, if driven by high winds. The Camp Fire, which overwhelmed Paradise, California, was moving as fast as one football field per second. It is nearly impossible to stop such blazes; thus, hardening the homes and community is a far better way to protect human habitation.
Fast fires were responsible for 88 percent of the home destruction caused by wildfires between 2001 and 2020, even though they represented only 2.7 percent of blazes on record.
The bipartisan Community Protection and Wildfire Resilience Act will invest $1 billion annually.
This is worth supporting as it offers an alternative perspective from trying to control and suppress wildfires to how live with wildfire.
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