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Abstract
Past fire exclusion policies and fire suppression actions have led to a historic "fire deficit" on public wildlands. These sociocultural actions have led to unprecedented environmental changes that have created conditions conducive to more frequent large-scale wildfires. Politicians, the newsmedia, and agency officials portray large wildland fires as catastrophes and unnatural disasters, but these fires could actually provide fire managers unique opportunities to recover fire-dependent species and restore fire-adapted ecosystems that have been adversely affected by the fire deficit. This paper will describe a vision of utilizing wildland fires in a way that holistically synthesizes the principles and practices of prescribed burning, suppression firing operations, and wildland fire use as part of a land stewardship philosophy to be called Ecological Fire Management #EFM#. Under EFM, preplanned ecosystem restoration goals will guide management actions - including suppression actions - on every large wildfire. However, suppression will be redefined from its current frame of "aggressively fighting" to limit large fire size, to one of "actively managing" to mitigate uncharacteristic fire severity. Fire use will be a major tool in EFM, actively applied to steer, slow down, or speed up rather than simply stop fire spread. With increased fire use for ecological restoration goals, future wildfires may become large by managerial design.
Parent Publication
Citation
Ingalsbee, Timothy. 2015. Ecological fire use for ecological fire management: Managing large wildfires by design. In: Keane, Robert E.; Jolly, Matt; Parsons, Russell; Riley, Karin. Proceedings of the large wildland fires conference; May 19-23, 2014; Missoula, MT. Proc. RMRS-P-73. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. p. 120-127.
