WildEarth Guardians

Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Born of Fire: The National Fire Plan in the Southwest

Fire Suppression in the Southwest is costly. This new report by WildEarth Guardians shows that the U.S. Forest Service spent an average of $84 million per year to suppress wildland fire over the last six years
Contact: WildEarth Guardians

Born of Fire shows that near complete suppression of healthy wildland fire on National Forests in the Southwest is costly, both ecologically and economically. Despite the U.S. Forest Service's Fire Management Plans calling for the use of wildland fire as a management tool under appropriate conditions, approximately 80% of all fires in Arizona and New Mexico are suppressed before they reach even a single acre. Though the Fire Management Plans 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.

Read the report (PDF)