Thinning the dense stands of trees across forestlands is a central piece of the plan to protect against West Coast deadly firestorms.
“It’s been a little bit harder just because of shorter winters,” said David Needham, a U.S. Forest Service ranger who led the Colorado burn operation in late February when the thermometer hovered around zero degrees Fahrenheit . Surrounding hillsides showed barren scars from past wildfires, including a 2002 blaze that destroyed 133 homes and at the time was the largest in state history.
Across the Rockies, piles of slash and trees cleared to reduce fire hazards span some 100,000 acres , waiting to be burned once the right amount of snow is on the ground. Sometimes there’s too much, making the piles inaccessible. Other times there’s not enough snow and prescribed burns get canceled so they don't get out of hand like a previous one that led to fatalities.
“One thing we know about climate change is it is increasing the variability and the extremes we are experiencing," said Robinson. “Out West, once the season shifts, you get very dry, very quickly and it stays dry for months. So you have a real tight window there.” When pile burns turn into wildfires, Keating said it's usually because snow around when the burn started disappears. The next wind storm can kick up embers and ignite landscape that days earlier seemed fireproof.
“If we don’t burn the piles, ... that can get kicked down the road another year or two," said Keating. “And every year, we keep building this backlog of piles because we can’t get to them all.”Despite such hurdles, burns are crucial to the Biden administration's 10-year planto reduce wildfire hazards across almost 80,000 square miles of public, private and tribal lands. The recently passed infrastructure bill includes $500 million for controlled burns over five years.
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