Wildfire Info Center

Click here for the Native Forest Network's NEW 2004 Wildfire Primer to learn about wildfire, home protection, logging and post-fire restoration.

Resources and Reports • Guest Columns • Links to Related Sites

If you are looking for information concerning wildfires, home protection, fuel reduction, fire suppression, post-fire 'salvage' logging and fire ecology in general you've come to the right place. At this site you will find a wealth of information from scientists, the U.S. Forest Service, General Accounting Office, conservation groups and others regarding these critical issues.

As science has demonstrated, fire is a necessary, natural and appropriate part of healthy forest and grassland ecosystems. However, past and current management activities such as industrial logging, fire suppression and grazing have greatly altered the landscape and disrupted natural fire cycles.

So too, as more and more homes are built in and near fire-prone areas, wildfires are increasingly affecting communities and homeowners. Fortunately, fire scientists and researchers know exactly what people can do to effectively protect and adapts homes to wildfire.

For example, Jack Cohen of the US Forest Service's Fire Sciences Lab in Missoula, Montana has conducted extensive research on wildland-urban fires. Cohen's research indicates that "a home's characteristics and the area immediately surrounding a home within 100 to 200 feet principally determine a home's ignition potential during a severe wildland fire." Click here to link to Cohen's recent research and publications.

Unfortunately, the logging industry, some politicians and even some US Forest Service officials are spreading misinformation about wildfire issues in hopes of suspending our nation's environmental laws to increase industrial logging on our national forests.

This approach is wrong for several reasons. First, over the past ten years only 19% of the acreage burned by wildfires were on national forest lands.

Second – and perhaps most importantly – science has demonstrated that industrial logging operations (which cut down large, fire-resistant trees) are not an effective way to reduce fire risk. In fact, the Department of Agriculture and Department of Interior found in a 2000 report to the president that "The removal of large, merchantable trees from forests does not reduce fire risk and may, in fact, increase such risk."

And finally, our nation's environmental laws were established by Congress –at the request of the American people – as a direct response to the US Forest Service's failure to protect our public lands from abuse by the logging industry.

In fact, if you look closely at the politicians who are calling for a suspension of environmental laws on our national forests, you will see that they are the same politicians who are receiving substantial campaign contributions from the logging industry. Click here to learn more.

Of course, the logging industry also has a good friend in Washington, D.C. in the form of Mark Rey – Bush's Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment. In this position, Rey – a logging industry lobbyist for the past 20 years – is overseeing the management of our national forests. Click here if you want to learn more about Mark Rey's background and his pro-industry agenda for America's national forests.

Again, thank you for your interest in learning more about issues related to wildfires. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Matthew Koehler with the Native Forest Network at koehler@wildrockies.org or (406) 542-7343.