Transcriber: Claire McMahon Reviewer: David DeRuwe
Wildfires.
The very word makes us anxious.
We imagine homes burning down,
smoke-filled skies, and scared and hurt animals.
In 2020 alone, wildfires burned over 10 million acres,
destroying communities and burning our iconic places
like Rocky Mountain National Park and old-growth giant sequoias.
It's why we think all fires are bad.
But as we sift through the post-fire rubble, a different truth becomes clear.
More fire is the answer to our fire problem.
I'm a former wildland firefighter,
and it might sound strange that I think we need more fire.
I fought wildfires in almost every western US state
from very small fires started by people
and of lightning that burned maybe a single tree
to very large fires.
Perhaps you’ve seen structure firefighters in action,
blasting homes with hundreds of gallons of water.
What we do is really different. We cut down trees. We dig trenches.
We try to stop the fire from advancing by cutting off its fuel supply,
and I’ve breathed in more smoke than probably any lungs should,
and I have seen the destruction that very large fires can cause.
But I’ve also seen the good that the right kind of fire can do,
and that made me question why we put so much effort into putting them out.
I still fight fires occasionally,
but now I study how ecosystems recover after fires
as a fire ecologist at Colorado State University.
The data is clear, we are not going into a time of less fire globally.
Climate and fire scientists will tell you that more fire is coming.
That’s why we need to learn how to use and live with fire, not just put it out.
In many ecosystems around the world, fire is an essential ingredient,
but not any fire will do.
Fire is a driving force, a process,
one that can bring so much good to an ecosystem,
if it burns the right way.
For example, good fire can help our water supply.
70% of the drinking water in the US comes from our mountain forests,
but in the western US, many of our forests haven’t seen fire in 100 to 150 years.
Our forests are dense and overgrown,
and all these trees are taking up more water than usual.
That causes water shortages for plants, animals, and people,
but this doesn’t happen when we use fire to maintain our forests.
Then fire opens everything up.
Fewer trees mean more water to go around, and that means more happy trees.
Plus, these open forests are less likely to experience
that next high severity, large catastrophic fire
that can result in landslides, flooding, and water quality problems.
These less severe fires are also necessary for the plants and fungi that need fire.
Black morels and other delicious mushrooms only emerge from the soil after a fire.
As the smoke clears, you can see them sprouting among the blackened stumps.
Even with all the science we do know,
we don’t know why fire turns on some fungi,
but we do know that without fire,
many remain dormant, quietly growing underground.
Fireweed and other wildflowers
splash colors and smells across the forest floor just months after a fire,
but then just like the mushrooms,
they peter out when there hasn’t been a fire for a while.
Certain trees actually need a fire too.
Species like lodgepole pine await the heat of a fire
to open up their resin-sealed cones and drop seeds
on the fresh newly burned soil.
As you walk through an area burned just last year,
you might see these tiny baby trees just starting to emerge.
They have a fire tracking app.
Fire is both an end and a new beginning.
Many animals have learned to live in these burnable landscapes too.
Fire hawks of Australia actually pick up burning sticks during a fire
and deposit them in new areas to rustle up their prey.
The black-backed woodpecker is perfectly camouflaged against the blackened trees
as it snacks on its insect lunch.
Deer and elk often skirt active fires,
returning to those newly burned landscapes to profit from those resprouting plants.
So how do you reconcile a world where fire is essential for our natural areas,
but can destroy us if we're not careful?
In the past hundred years, we are the first generations of North America,
unlike the original land stewards of our lands,
to suppress rather than live with fire.
After the 1910 big burn that ripped through Idaho, Montana, and Washington,
killing 87 people and burning over three million acres,
fire became public enemy number one.
We learned to suppress fire at all cost.
These fire suppression policies shaped our landscapes for the past century,
and this mindset of fire suppression is still with us today.
These fire suppression policies did work for a while,
in part because of a cooler climate during the middle of the 20th century.
These fires, or the lack of them, was having a compounding effect.
Without fires, our landscapes were becoming more dense,
our forests were growing every year,
and those fuels were accumulating with every passing year.
Today, we suppress 98% of all fires that start.
That means it’s only the 2% that are burning
the majority of our landscapes on the hottest, driest, and windiest days.
It’s that 2% that makes headlines
and defines our current relationship with fire.
But we can become fire stewards instead of fire suppressors.
When we change our perception of fire being bad to fire as a survival tool,
we open up the possibility
that plants, animals, and people can all benefit from fire.
For insight, Indigenous communities have used fire
for hundreds of uses, over 10,000 years.
Some communities use fire to promote game habitat for hunting,
others used it to promote the growth of edible plants or building materials,
and some use them for ceremonial purposes.
They live safely and amicably with fire.
A study from Washington state found that if we had allowed
lightning-started fires of the last 100 years to burn,
the more recent and catastrophic fires they’ve had
would not have been so hot and large,
meaning there would be more living trees there today.
It's time for us to become fire stewards instead of just fire suppressors.
We can learn to use these fires again.
We’re already putting out 98%of them.
If instead, we allowed those fires that are burning
under moderate wind, moisture, and weather conditions to burn,
we might get the benefit of fire without all the destruction.
In New Mexico, Gila Wilderness managers
have been allowing lightning-started fires to burn their natural course.
By reducing their fuels and burning the understory
under the watchful eye of fire managers,
over the past four decades,
they’ve already changed the size and severity
of many of the more recent fires.
As a firefighter, using fire is a really cool experience.
We can set boundaries, and we can be more strategic and less reactive.
And in this way, we help fires burn in the understory,
and we keep trees alive.
This means more big, beautiful, and happy trees out there on the landscape.
This is hard work, and I'm not talking about a small effort,
but with science and strategy,
we can keep people, places, and animals safe,
while still allowing fires to burn.
To become fire stewards, fire managers must be allowed to use fires
rather than just suppress them.
They must be allowed to use them when the conditions are right,
and practice more prescribed fire to treat our landscapes.
Today, our fire suppression
or our use of fire is limited by our fire suppression mindset,
by our policy and community resistance to allow fires to burn,
and by our lack of resources to act adequately
and adequately shepherd these fires.
Smoky days are ahead,
but we can space them out and make them not as intense
as when they burn hot and large near our homes.
We need a workforce of fire stewards, not just fire suppressors.
Wildfire fighters are often stationed in areas of active fire.
Those areas, we need firefighters,
but that means that other parts of the US
that may be in prime condition for a prescribed fire
now lack the resources and people to make it happen.
We must accept that fire is an essential ingredient
in the landscapes that we love,
and we can ask our communities and land managers what we can do
and that we support fire in our ecosystems.
It’s time that we encourage and promote our fire and forest managers
in their need to think about fire as a tool,
rather than a problem to be attacked.
Fire is an end and a beginning.
It is either a problem or a solution.
A no-wildfire alternative is not in our future,
but a good-wildfire alternative is.
What will we choose?
Will we continue to let these large, hot, out-of-control fires burn our communities
as we struggle to fight them,
or will we learn from the original land stewards of our lands
and from the plants and animals that are benefiting and adapting?
Are we ready to invite fire back into our lives and ecosystems?
Thank you.
(Applause)