Wildfires: A short history

In the United States, we’ve had about 110 years of fire suppression. That suppression has resulted in fewer fires, but the fires that occur are bigger and hotter, and cause more short-term and long-term damage to structures, vegetation, and the ability of the land to recover and re-vegetate. Fire suppression has led to forests which are less healthy and are more fire prone. The costs of wildfires country-wide began increasing significantly in 1990 and have continued to increase at about the same rate.

For decades, Smoky Bear has been telling us that we can prevent forest fires. In daily life in the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) “prevent forest fires” means not throwing cigarette butts out of car windows or off decks, taking care when using lawn mowers and chain saws, being aware of Red Flag Warning days, and complying with fire restrictions and bans.

What we can do, as we live in the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI), is to harden our homes, especially to embers spreading from a nearby fire. (Think of a snowstorm but with each flake on fire instead of frozen.) We can also mitigate the property around our homes, with the closest zone (zero to 5 feet from our homes) being non-combustible, the next zone (5 to 30 feet) having the fuel continuity broken up, and the farthest zone (30 to 100 feet) having reduced fuel which keeps the fire on the ground, and not in the trees.

Our responsibility, as people who live in the WUI, is to create a healthy and defensible environment for wildfire to move through, leaving our homes intact. Healthy fires produce healthy forests.

From notes taken at an Evergreen Fire/Rescue presentation on 22 August 2024. Presenter: Jessica Moore, EFR Wildland Project Coordinator.