KEY TAKEAWAYS:
> Focusing primarily on forest management and vegetation control is insufficient.
> Community-level solutions are essential.
> A paradigm shift is needed from response-based expectations to proactive risk reduction and creating fire-adapted communities.
With wildfires raging across the United States – 541 active wildfires right now, with Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Kansas among the latest added to the list – the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure called together a Democratic roundtable to discuss the urgent need for solutions to this increasingly frequent threat. As the former U.S. Fire Administrator, I was asked to attend the March 4 discussion as part of a panel of emergency management experts. The following is my opening statement and testimony:
“Wildfire Policy: Matching the Solution to the Problem”
The devastating fires in Los Angeles (LA) demonstrate that we, as a nation, are at best in denial and, at worst, oblivious to the threat of fire in communities across the nation. Truly learning from this tragedy will require spending the limited resources on solutions that will actually address the problem.
The California fires are not novel. We saw the same urban/suburban conflagration in Lahaina, Maui in 2023, and in Colorado in 2021. Small grass fires ignite a structure and that structure broadcasts embers to the next structure until thousands of homes burn to the ground and lives are destroyed.
Today, we are in response mode. In other words, when a fire occurs, we expect that firefighters will respond quickly, have water available, and stop the fire from spreading to the point of disaster. However, this expectation is no longer viable. There are not enough firefighters in the nation for the current state of the fire threat. Firefighters are responding and performing with every ounce of training, skill, knowledge, and ability, and they are fighting unwinnable fights against monster fires that are unstoppable.
The solution is to change the risk environment. These changes require action from individuals and policy makers. The question is, are we as a nation paying attention beyond the moment… beyond the horrid photos of burned-out neighborhoods? Are we fully comprehending that this fire is not a once in a century occurrence? Are we fully comprehending that this same devastation can and will occur again? The only question is when and where. The solutions that reduce the likelihood that an LA fire scenario can occur again are attainable.
To be clear, continuing to spend billions of dollars of federal, state and local tax dollars attempting to treat vegetative fuels and control wildfires in the forested areas is not the solution for protecting communities. Our firefighters know it will not work. The insurance industry knows it will not work. Why? Because the most devastating ignitions start in communities or in the interface, not typically in the deep forested areas. Over the last decade, wind-driven fire caused 88 percent of loss in communities, and, according to the University of Colorado Boulder, the number of structures destroyed by wildfire in the western United States has gone up by a whopping 246 percent.
For decades, Congress and the White House have enabled the U.S. Forest Service to claim the community wildfire risk problem and offer a solution consisting of fuel treatment to reduce fire intensity before fire reaches the community, in the hope of slowing the fire and limiting the impact. Hope is not a strategy. Forest treatment activities do not scale, nor will they ever, to the expansive fire prone area bordering communities.
As a nation, we continue to build communities in the path of fire, many with one road in and out, exacerbating the risk to those who chose to live there. As long as Congress and other state and local policy makers define the problem as “wildland fire” or wildfire in forested area, as a nation, we will continue to lose communities to wildfire.
Even now, the Fix our Forests Act that has passed the House authorizes tree cutting on public lands. This bill, though laudable for what it is, is more of the legacy strategies that are failing us. The bill must be expanded to address the fire risks in communities. If we expect or depend on the U.S. Forest Service, the Department of Interior, to solve the threat of wildfire in communities, we will continue to have destruction because we are bringing the wrong solution to the problem at hand. The solution is an all-hands approach to reducing risks and becoming fire adapted in our communities. Legislation must include funds for local fire departments to enforce building codes that harden homes, and it must establish policy to incentivize individual homeowners to reduce fire risks on their properties.
As a nation, we must recognize that we cannot expect to rid the landscape of fire. Wind-driven, extreme wildfires are inevitable, but they don’t have to be disasters. Congress and state governments can support strategic, durable investments, reduce risks, and increase insurability to prevent disastrous home and community loss. Policing vegetation in the forest alone will not help communities. Understanding how to live with inevitable wildfire is key to the survival of communities across the nation.
Thank you.
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As the administration attempts to navigate the future of wildfire policy, Ranking Member Rick Larson from the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management, called a roundtable to discuss “Burning Issues: Navigating the Future of Wildfire Policy.” Dr. Lori Moore-Merrell, former U.S. Fire Administrator and member of GTSC’s Homeland Security Today Editorial Board was asked to deliver testimony.