With the potential for worsening fire conditions, discussion is escalating over how to best reduce effects on urban communities. A widely supported strategy is the creation of defensible space immediately surrounding homes and other structures.
The impacts of escalating wildfire in many regions — the lives and homes lost, the expense of suppression and the damage to ecosystem services — necessitate a more sustainable coexistence with wildfire. Climate change and continued development on fire-prone landscapes will only compound current problems.
The effects of wildland fire on communities have become more intense, frequent, and far-reaching. Increased development in the wildland urban interface means higher wildfire risk and more suppression needs, costing billions every year. A comprehensive approach to preparedness and mitigation is an effective way to address increasing suppression costs and reduce risk to communities.
Recentfire seasons in the western United States are some of the most damaging andcostly on record. Wildfires in the wildland-urban interface on the ColoradoFront Range, resulting in thousands of homes burned and civilian fatalities,although devastating, are not without historical reference.
Recent years have seen growing interest within the United States fire management community in exploring alternatives to the standard approach of evacuating entire populations that are threatened by a wildfire.
There is currently insufficient information in the United States about residents’ planned evacuation actions during wildfire events, including any intent to remain at or near home during fire events. This is incompatible with growing evidence that select populations at risk from wildfire are considering alternatives to evacuation.
The recent increase in wildfire activity across the rangeland–xeric forest continuum in the western United States has landscape-scale consequences in terms of runoff and erosion.
Mastication is an increasingly common fuels treatment that redistributes “ladder” fuels to the forest floor to reduce vertical fuel continuity, crown fire potential, and fireline intensity, but fuel models do not exist for predicting fire behavior in these fuel types.
Fuel reduction treatments are implemented in the forest surrounding the wildland–urban interface (WUI) to provide defensible space and safe opportunity for the protection of homes during a wildfire.
Fire has historically played a fundamental ecological role in many of America’s wildland areas.