The Enormous Flaw in Wildfire Data
Tanques Fire, i.e. Tanques Intentional Burn Photo: U.S. Forest Service.
Both Congress and the U.S. Forest Service have told us that our forests and communities are experiencing a “wildfire crisis” – that an increasing amount of wildfire is burning on our landscapes, and fire severity is increasing. The primary “solution” they are currently planning and implementing, embodied in the Wildfire Crisis Strategy, is a substantial increase in logging, thinning and burning treatments in our forests, for which Congress has provided billions of dollars of funding, along with the mandate to get it done.
So that begs the question – to what extent are we actually in a wildfire crisis? Certainly the aggressive and environmentally damaging logging and over-burning that is being carried out in some forests, with much more to come, should be based on solid data and science.
The basic premise of the Wildfire Crisis Strategy is that wildfire is greatly increasing on our western landscapes. One would think that this should not be difficult to ascertain, as the Forest Service and other land management agencies maintain records and maps of wildfire perimeters. This data goes into national wildfire databases, such as MTBS (Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity). MTBS is “an interagency program to map the location, extent and associated burn severity of all large fires (including wildfire, wildland fire use and prescribed fire) in the United States across all ownerships from 1984 to present,” This program is largely run by the USGS and the US Forest Service, and datasets include state and federal fire history records.
However, Forest Service wildfire perimeter data is vastly compromised in that a large proportion of acres burned within the officially designated wildfire perimeters are actually ignited by the US Forest Service themselves, most often by aerial ignitions via drones and helicopters. In many cases, the majority of a fire that is called a “wildfire” on national forest lands is actually Forest Service intentional burning. This strategy for managing fire has increased to the point that numerous fires are substantially expanded by intentional burning.
Currently, the Tanques Fire in the Santa Fe National Forest, originally ignited by a lightning strike, is being expanded through aerial and ground firing operations under command of the Forest Service. According to a Forest Service news release, the fire was first reported on July 18, and by July 25, the fire had grown to only 13 acres.
Around that point the Forest Service made the decision to expand the fire up to 7,000 acres with firing operations, utilizing both aerial and hand ignitions. That means the Forest Service intended to expand it up to 538X its size. The fire may have continued to slowly expand naturally, but relatively high vegetation moisture from recent rains made it unlikely that the fire would spread much on its own. It’s hard to say exactly which part of the potential 7,000 acre “wildfire” will be due to intentional burning, and which will be “natural” wildfire, but it is clear the vast majority of the acres burned will be due to USFS ignitions. Nonetheless, the Forest Service is calling the Tanques Fire a wildfire.
Recently, the Forest Service and The Nature Conservancy (an organization closely aligned with the Forest Service), along with a university professor, authored the “Tamm review: A meta-analysis of thinning, prescribed fire, and wildfire effects on subsequent wildfire severity in conifer dominated forests of the Western US.” This review is a consideration of the efficacy of forest “thinning” and prescribed fire in moderating the incidence and severity of wildfire. It begins with citing a research article to support their contention that “In the western United States, area burned [by wildfire] has doubled in recent decades (Iglesias et al., 2022).”
Map of Tanques Fire 7,000 Acre Focal Area and Planning Area U.S. Forest Service.
This research article, “U.S. fires became larger, more frequent, and more widespread in the 2000s,” is based on data from over 28,000 fires in the MTBS dataset. Since this dataset is derived largely from Forest Service wildfire data, it includes the large proportion of fire intentionally set by the Forest Service during wildfire management operations. The agency does not differentiate in their published wildfire data between fire ignited during wildfire management operations and fire that burned due to the original wildfire ignition. The study concludes that there have been more fires and larger fires in the west since 1999 – yet we have no way of knowing to what extent this is true, given that the Forest Service is igniting more and more fire under the umbrella of wildfire management, and calling it all wildfire.
The first publicized example of such wildfire expansion was the 2002 Biscuit Fire. Timothy Ingalsbee, PhD of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology estimated that a large proportion of the Biscuit Fire was ignited by Forest Service firing operations. Inglasbee stated in a 2006 report largely focused on the Biscuit Fire: “…burnout operations can sometimes take place several miles away from the edge of a wildfire, or alternately, miles away from the fire containment line.” Wildfire expansions have increased since 2002, and wildfire starts, such as lightning strike ignitions, are often simply the “match that lit the fire” leading to numerous firing operation ignitions to implement intentional burns that they call wildfires.
The Tamm Review “found overwhelming evidence that mechanical thinning with prescribed burning, mechanical thinning with pile burning, and prescribed burning only, are effective at reducing subsequent wildfire severity.” Those conclusions are controversial and do not consider research from independent scientists. But a more fundamental issue with the Review is that the purpose and need for such aggressive forest treatments are at least partially predicated on flawed data that indicates wildfire has doubled on our landscapes in recent decades. It may be increasing given the warming and drying climate and the abundance of fuels, but who knows to what extent, since the wildfire data is so skewed by the inclusion of the Forest Service intentional burns. This data issue also affects considerations of trends in fire severity, and this should be investigated.
A significant proportion of wildfire research depends on wildfire perimeter data, including the Iglesias et al. research referenced as support for the premise of the Tamm Review. It is clear we have little knowledge of how much fire that was not ignited by the Forest Service has burned on our landscape in recent decades. It’s a major flaw in “wildfire” data. No forest management actions should be contemplated or initiated based on such data.
That Congress and the Forest Service are going forward with a strategy for addressing the “WIldfire Crisis,” without having determined with reasonable data and responsible science to what extent the crisis exists, is unacceptable – especially considering that the remedy often involves severely damaging impacts to our forests and communities. There needs to be clear parameters developed for how to support appropriate amounts of fire on our landscapes, and any resulting plan should be analyzed with an environmental impact statement.
There is understandable concern about wildfires increasingly impacting wildland/urban interface communities, and this issue requires serious consideration and action. However, evidence clearly shows that burning of homes and communities by wildfire is not significantly impacted by logging, thinning and intentional burning treatments out in the forest, that only the 100 feet surrounding homes and other structures is relevant to structure ignitions. The best response to the home ignition problem is home hardening and treating the landscape immediately surrounding homes and other values. This takes a coordinated effort between governmental bodies, land management agencies and the public. Such coordination would more likely occur with increased transparency on the part of the Forest Service and affiliated scientists, which could build trust with the public. The accurate collection and categorization of wildfire data, which underlies research concerning wildfire, is a fundamental basis for transparency and trust – and good science.
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