9 History of Wildfires and Wildfire Management

As the preceding chapters highlighted, wildfires have been culprit to an assortment of issues in forests: wildlife displacement, adverse health impacts and poor water and air quality. Having been a phenomenon for a long time, wildfires have repeatedly displayed these outcomes in forested environments. A topic that has constantly been included in the discussion of wildfires is climate change. Due to the rapid changing climate, fire events have increased in severity through history. Though there are many modes of mitigation in place, wildfires have established themselves as a climate concern that has become uncontrollable. In this chapter there will be exploration of fire events through time and the different wildfire management practices that were adopted during those times.

Trends of Increasing Wildfire Incidence 

Studies have shown that since the mid-1980s, the size and intensity of wildfires in pacific northwest forests have significantly increased^[1]. Comparing the 1973–1982 and 2003–2012 time intervals, it was found that the average fire season length had increased by 84 days^[2]. This increase in forest fire activity is attributed to there being higher temperatures in spring and summer seasons, early snowmelt and decreased precipitation^[3]. The rise in temperatures in spring and summer seasons has stimulated more summer drought, dried out vegetation, stimulated greater chances of flammability of live and dead fuels in forests and heightened evaporation from land especially on higher elevations. Data has displayed how the regionally averaged spring and summer temperatures for 1987 to 2003 were 0.87°C higher than those for 1970 to 1986^[4].  In addition there has also been correlations drawn between early spring snow melt timings and increased wildfire frequency. Data surveying the time range of  1970 to 2002 showed how 56% of wildfires and 72% of area burned in wildfires occurred in early snowmelt years, whereas only 11% of wildfires and 4% of area burned occurred in late snowmelt years^[5]. Furthermore the decrease in precipitation during summer seasons has stimulated drought and contributed to increases in annual wildfire area burned. There were declines in summer precipitation from 1979 to 2016 across 31–45% of the forested areas in the western United States all strongly associated with burned area variations^[6]. Climate change has been progressing quite rapidly and these trends regarding changes in temperature, precipitation, and snowmelt are expected to persist in the future. To delve more into these climate change inducing factors that have made wildfires more severe please visit chapter “The Impact of Climate Change on Wildfires“.

The 1900’s to 1930’s

The Great Fire of 1910 which is also known as the Big Blowup or Big Burn was a wildfire event burning about three million acres of land spanning northeast Washington, northern Idaho and western Montana^[7]. The magnitude of this event was due to regional dryness, accumulating slash fuels, and harmful ignitions from human sources which were occurring during this decade. It has been noted as the largest fire in US history and a primal event which had led to major shaping of wildfire management^[8]. The fires helped government authorities rethink their roles in wildfire response and ushered it be best for the Forest Service to immediately extinguish fires upon contact^[9]. A year later, congress provided the Forest Service agency with greater funds in order to prioritize wildfire prevention^[10]. Two decades after the Great Fire, the establishment of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) prompted the implementation of the “no burn” policy^[11]. This policy opposed the practice of light burning which were often performed by ranchers, farmers and timber-men^[12]. The happening of the Tillamook Fire in 1933 further evoked collective opinion that fires be extinguished immediately and led the Forest Service to adopt the “10 am policy” after much pressure^[13]. This 10 am policy strictly enforced to extinguish all fires by 10:00 a.m. the next morning, when the next burning period would start^[14].

The 1960’s to 1980’s

In the 1960’s there grew an abundance of scientific research findings that suggested wildfires played a positive role in forest well-being^[15]. This was a point in time where wildfires were being seen as a natural process and there was great focus on it’s ecological benefits: helping restrengthen vegetation, and reducing the circulation of fuels^[16]. In 1971, the 10 a.m. policy was revised saying that wildfires be contained to 10 acres or less and shortly after was dropped^[17]. As perspectives changed in forest management, coordinately came the “let-it-burn” policy which allowed natural fires to burn in specific forested areas with controlled circumstances^[18]. This policy was applied to the Ouzel Fire 1978 which was triggered by lightning on August 19, 1978, in a low risk zone, and was monitored for more than a month before high winds produced dangerous conditions to a nearby community outside the park’s boundary^[19]. The incident was reviewed and it was concluded that the natural burn plan was not executed properly and that there be better ecological knowledge when its performed^[20]. Ten years after the Ouzel Fire, there were further reconsiderations with the let-it-burn policy and ideology due to the Yellowstone Fires of 1988^[21]. This event consisted of 10 individual fires both human caused and natural which burned about 1.4 million acres of land in the Yellowstone National Park area primarily in Wyoming^[22]. The severity and rapid spread of these fires brought  the let-it-burn practice into question and soon all natural burning was halted in national parks and other environmental regions^[23].

The 1990’s to the 2010s 

More fire events in the 1990’s such as the Colorado South Canyon Fire of 1994 ushered a reevaluation of wildfire policy. A year after the South Canyon Fire, the Federal Wildland Fire Management and Program Review identified wildfires to be a major climate concern and sought on shaping human roles in wildfire response. The review explained that increased land ownership and the construction of homes impacted wildfire responses in urban settings. The report also further elaborated on plausible mitigation efforts and impact factors of wildfire management: working towards fuel reduction, zoning logistics, fire protection agreements and fire response personnel capacity. The recommendations provided by this 1995 review set a foundation for wildfire management principles for the next two decades. ^[24]

The 1994 Northwest Forest Plan (NFP) was also established around this time frame. It was an extensive plan that was in effect for over 25 years handling the management of 17 federal forests. The objective of this plan was to protect biodiversity, conserve nature elements and be adaptable with the times. Though this project greatly emphasized forest issues, it carried some discrepancies such as with not including the present threats of climate change, wildfires and invasive species. This plan became of interest in 2012 when forest managers where undergoing the process of revising northwest forest plans. ^[25]

Looking Onwards

Wild land fire programs and policymakers are focusing on many factors when combating the wildfire issue today: impact on wildlife habitats, invasive species, effects on natural resources and poor air quality^[26]. Currently, air quality seems to be one of the most concerning wildfire-associated issues: For example recent reports have stated that Seattle, Washington has an average of 14.2 unhealthy pollution days a year, greatly exceeding the recommended amount of 3.2 days^[27]. Fires that burn for an extended span of time can cast layers of smoke in areas, resulting in such unhealthy air quality standards. The long periods of wildfire that regions of the pacific northwest experience yearly serve as a reminder of how climate circumstances are worsening. For instance the Seattle, Washington region experienced it’s highest temperature of 108 degrees on June 28, 2021^[28]. Furthermore in 2022, Seattle had the longest strain of days with temperatures spanning over 90 degrees^[29]. These trends are observed to persist in the future, as climate change is allowed to further escalate.

Delving back into forestry, forest ecosystems have become unrecognizable having endured multiple wildfire events. It’s inhabitants have become accustomed to fire occurrence and have learned through repeated exposure have learning how to survive. Since plants and animals have evolved along with fires, fire exclusion practices produce a problem as it could eliminate fire-adapted species, disrupt habitat frameworks and spread fuels. With consideration of all these factors it has been established that wildfires be further monitored in forests from present to future and that the most appropriate shifts in policy be administered for more sustainable outcomes. ^[30]