Wildfires are currently ravaging over two million acres across Washington and Oregon, with a blaze in the Spokane area alone destroying over 900 homes and businesses. According to Rep. John Lee, decades of poor forest management have left 400 million acres of fuel primed to burn, turning what would have been manageable fires into runaway disasters.
Poor Forest Management
History has shown that aggressive fire suppression in the Pacific Northwest, from the mid-1950s through the mid-1980s, kept large blazes rare. However, the numbers now tell a different story. Every one of the ten largest U.S. wildfire seasons on record has happened since 2004, with an area the size of five Yellowstone National Parks being burned annually.
Michael Medler, a professor of environmental studies at Western Washington University, emphasizes that the fuel load is staggering, with 400 million acres in need of thinning. The Forest Service is currently thinning about half a million acres a year, which is not enough to make a significant impact.
Solutions
Medler’s prescription for addressing the issue includes clearing quarter-mile buffer zones around high-risk communities, hiring more fire managers and mitigation specialists, and using prescribed burns to reduce fuel loads. Timber harvesting also belongs in the conversation, as selective cutting can remove fuel, create fire breaks, and support rural jobs.
Original reporting: Clark County Today (Vancouver WA) — read the source article.
