Federal Government Accountability Office (GAO), is investigating after U.S. Forest Service controlled burns that escaped caused New Mexico’s largest wildfire.
The GAO is currently examining the Forest Service’s policies on controlled burning and other federal land agencies.
For a 90-day safety inspection, USFS Chief Randy Moore stopped all prescribed fires on its land. The New Mexico fire, which has burned over 340,000 acres, is not yet fully contained.
Many forestry experts and fire ecologists are worried that this “pause” is only increasing wildfire risk. Critics claim it masks the agency’s outdated, dangerously inefficient, and problematic approach to fire mitigation and intentional burns, which has not adapted to climate change or megadrought.
Matthew Hurteau, a biologist who studies the interplay of climate change, wildfire, and forest ecosystems at University of New Mexico, says that many of the planning tools fire managers rely on for planning prescribed burns are built in a climate that is no longer there. He says, “That’s an overall problem.”
Forest ecologists consider controlled burns to be the best tool to reduce the risk of wildfires and help reverse a century-old policy of fire suppression that has led to worsening wildfire conditions.
Hurteau and others are concerned about the failure of the Forest Service aEUR”, and other fire agencies aEUR”, to address climate change, despite growing scientific evidence and their own stated goals to reduce dangerously high levels in western forests.
Hurteau states that there have been “substantial changes in the climatic conditions, especially here in the Southwest but also across most of the Western U.S.” and that new tools are needed to account for these drying trends that persist in a warmer, drier environment.
The Forest Service’s recent internal review of New Mexico’s burn only amplifies those criticisms. It amounts to an astonishing admission by the agency that it failed to consider climate change when it conducted an intentional burn in a period of drought.
This point is emphasized in numerous sections of the report. It also notes that it would have been helpful to have a better understanding of “long-term drought and climate factors” versus “short term weather events”.
Timothy Ingalsbee, fire ecologist, tells NPR’s Here and Now that it “seems amazing.” “Never again can we excuse ourselves for not including climate conditions and data in our fire management activities.” “That’s just the age we live in,” said the ex-Forest Service wildland firefighter, who now heads Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology. “I understand why people are upset. He says it sounds like a dog ate my homework excuse.
Climate change caused by humans is causing ever more extreme weather, drought and dry conditions. This is making it easier for live vegetation to be converted into fuel faster, and making old-fashioned fuel in forests more explosive.
Ingalsbee, along with other experts in the field, believe that the USFS’s inability to implement intentional fire at a rapid pace and on a large scale is dangerously inadequate. He hopes that the agency will use this 90-day burn break to begin to realize its stated goal to shift from prioritizing wildfire suppression.
“It would be huge help if we could shift these resources and funding to prescribed burning, having as many crews possible to manage prescribed fire, that would really help.”
Leaders in politics are also frustrated. U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat recently wrote a letter chastising the U.S. Secretaries of Interior and Agriculture for failing to act fast enough to hire additional firefighters in a staffing crisis and raise pay. He asked them to address basic questions regarding wildfire mitigation strategy, spending, and the record federal funding. Last November’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act provided $8 billion to states to reduce wildfire risk and $600 millions to increase firefighter salaries.
“Your departments received this important support. Wyden wrote that six months later, the new flexibility has been granted, and it is now too late to take action.
Many times, the people fighting wildfires are the same ones who do controlled burns. There are increasing calls for the Forest Service’s involvement in developing a dedicated prescribed fire workforce, including training academies as well as recruiting. Experts have called for the creation of a professional corps to expand prescribed fire aEUR” experts, who can quickly cross political and geographic boundaries in much the same manner wildfires do.
Hurteau, University of New Mexico says that “What we must do as a society” is to make substantial investments in the training and development of a professionalized fire-management workforce. “And you know, this will require some structural changes in our federal land management agency.”
“For the United States Forest Service, to claim they followed their policies & procedures doesn’t take into account the fact that those policies & procedures were flawed,” states Teresa Leger Fernandez (Democratic Representative from New Mexico), who demanded the Government Accountability Office investigation. The historic fire destroyed large swathes of her district.
Fernandez said she was frustrated that the Forest Service kept claiming they followed their burn plan, but not saying that it was flawed. Fernandez also stated that her burn plan is flawed and needs to be rethought. Fernandez says she is frustrated that the Forest Service kept claiming they followed their burn plan. However, she doesn’t say that the Forest Service has reaffirmed its trust in her.
She says the GAO probe will look at policies and procedures, and provide recommendations that lawmakers could implement.
According to its own reports, the Forest Service is aware that fuel levels are at crisis proportions. The blueprint of the agency “Confronting Wildfire Crisis” admits that the scale of work has not met the need and that it will require a paradigm shift in order to protect the nation’s western communities.
Forest Service Chief Randy Moore announced the intention burn pause and stated that it was “imperative for both the Forest Service and its partners to work together in order to increase fuels treatment levels by up to 4 times current West levels, including prescribed burning, as well as using mechanical and other treatments.”
Many in the field are fed up with the agency’s incremental, minor approach to climate change. However, megafires are routinizing the crisis and threatening lives, property, and livestock, as well as altering the Western landscape.
Barbara Satink-Wolfson, a fire expert, says that federal agencies move at the speed of an airplane carrier. “Yes, patience is necessary. We are all patient, but we also know we must make the change as quickly as possible.
According to the federal agency, at least 234,000,000 acres of forest are at high risk for wildfire. However, less than 1% have been treated by controlled burns in the past decade.
Experts worry that the agency’s “pause” on prescribed fires is nothing more than political window dressing. It masks the ongoing gap between reality and rhetoric. Hurteau points out that almost all peer-reviewed research on the topic, as well as plans by the Forest Service to reduce hazardous forest fuels, call for a historic scaling up of prescribed fires.
“The question is: Is the agency prepared to make changes so that personnel, their personnel, can do that effectively and that the resources are available to them to achieve those goals?”
Prescribed fire can be dangerous, as the New Mexico megafire clearly demonstrates. However, prescribed fire escapes are very rare at EUR” less than 1%. The vast majority of these are contained quickly and do not cause extensive damage.
A number of forest experts from the Association for Fire Ecology wrote to Chief Moore to urge him to reverse course and stop allowing intentional burn pauses to be made nationwide. They argued that this will only worsen fire conditions in areas that are not too dry to start with.
Satink-Wolfson is one of the letter signers, and is a fire advisor at the University of California Cooperative Extension (Central Coast). “I believe other places in the nation could have continued. We definitely missed out on opportunities.
Satink-Wolfson adds that the Forest Service coordinates with many federal and state agencies in prescribed burns coordination, so there is a wider national ripple effect. “Projects that work in collaboration with the Forest Service aEUR,” and there are many of them aEUR,” those projects will also be delayed.
NPR repeatedly refused to interview USFS Chief Moore. E. Wade Muehlhof (spokesman for USFS Chief Moore) also declined an interview request. He wrote in an email that the burn pause of the agency will be used to evaluate and improve safety protocols. Muehlof said, “The devastation caused in Las Dispenses by New Mexico’s prescribed fire is tragic.”
