All Lands Approaches to Fire Management in the Pacific West: A Typology

Since 2009, the US Department of Agriculture Forest Service has promoted an “all lands approach” to forest restoration, particularly relevant in the context of managing wildfire. To characterize its implementation, we undertook an inventory of what we refer to as fire-focused all lands management (ALM) projects, defined as projects in which fuels reduction treatments are planned or implemented across more than one landownership to reduce wildfire risk or increase forest resilience to wildfire. We focused on regions of Washington, Oregon, and California dominated by dry, fire-prone forests and documented 41 projects. From this sample we developed a typology with five project categories. We found that ALM takes many forms and occurs in diverse contexts, federal lands and land managers are frequently involved in them, and all projects foster relationship and capacity building for future ALM. Our typology provides a framework for better understanding of all lands approaches and suggests areas for further investigation.