WildEarth Guardians

Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Fire Suppression Costly in Southwest

USFS Spent on average $84 million a year to supress fire over last six years
Contact: WildEarth Guardians

Near complete suppression of fire on National Forests in the Southwest is costly, both ecologically and economically, concludes a new report by WildEarth Guardians. A comprehensive review of fire and fuels management in the Southwest by WildEarth Guardians uncovered a massive price tag for near total fire suppression over a six-year period. The report, entitled Born of Fire, finds the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) spent as much as $145 million and an average of $84 million per year from 2001 to 2006 to suppress nearly all wildfire in Arizona and New Mexico. Despite agency Fire Management Plans calling for the use of wildland fire as a management tool under appropriate conditions, approximately 80% of all fires in AZ and NM are suppressed before they reach even a single acre.

"As we confront the effect of climate change in the Southwest, including more wildfire in combination with home construction in formerly wild forests, the federal government must reconsider its relationship with fire. The Forest Service is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on fire suppression: wasting tax dollars, ignoring science and promoting unhealthy forests." said Bryan Bird, Public Lands Director at WildEarth Guardians. "The Forest Service needs to get serious about fire as a cost efficient and ecologically superior management tool."

In 2007, the National Interagency Fire Center reports that New Mexico and Arizona have had 1,454 fires on USFS lands burning a total of 46,033 acres. There have been 1,072 prescribed fires in New Mexico and Arizona in 2007, burning a total of 54,336 acres. Just 37 fires were allowed to burn as wildland fire use in New Mexico and Arizona in 2007, burning 29,282 acres. These figures are bound to grow under predictions of climate change in the Southwest.

Fire has always played a significant role in regulating forest and grassland ecosystems. According to the Departments of Interior and Agriculture, from 1500 to 1800, an average of 145 million acres burned every year nationwide - about 18 times the recent annual burns. By the 1930s, 50 million acres in the lower 48 were burned annually by wildfire and by the 1970s the number of acres had dropped to 5 million. Fire naturally and cost-effectively reduces fuels, small trees and brush that grow under mature trees, but with housing rapidly encroaching on once natural areas, fire is suppressed more often. According to a recent analysis by Headwaters Economics, New Mexico has 24,899 residences in its wildland urban interface, of which 34 percent are seasonal homes or cabins. New Mexico ranks eighth among western states in the number of homes built in forested areas next to public wildlands, and fifth in the percentage of those homes that are only seasonally occupied.

The National Fire Plan provides government direction for fire management through the mandatory establishment of Fire Management Plans (FMPs) for every burnable acre of vegetation on public lands. FMPs are one of the most important components of fire management activities on the ground and direct how the restoration of fire-adapted ecosystems will be accomplished, provide guidance on reducing the impacts of fire suppression, encourage collaboration between land management agencies, delineate specific performance measures, provide for monitoring and incorporate the "best available science."

"These fire management plans are worthless if the Forest Service isn't going to follow them," said Bird. "Where wildland fire use has been authorized and there is no threat to life or property, the Forest Service must allow fire to do its job. We can't keep spending millions of dollars ignoring the most environmentally and economically-efficient way of restoring the health of our forests."

WildEarth Guardians conducted a comprehensive review of the Forest Service's FMPs in the Southwest as well as records of fuels management and fire suppression costs since 2001. Though the FMPs are a considerable improvement on the haphazard fire management of the past, they are not consistent in their direction for the use of fire as a management tool and the forests have failed to actually use fire on the ground, outside of the Coronado, Kaibab, and Tonto National Forests in Arizona and the Gila National Forest in New Mexico. The Gila received the highest grade of 81%, a B, and the Tonto the lowest of 45%, an F.

The report found that the Southwestern Region spent approximately $214 million from 2003 through 2006 on mechanical fuels treatments, even though prescribed burning is 20 times more cost efficient. During these years the USFS used prescribed fire for nearly 70% of its fuel reduction and split the acres of fuel reduction nearly evenly between Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) and areas outside of the WUI. Eight recommendations are presented in Born of Fire for improving the FMPs as well as increasing the use of fire for fuel management in the region.