Smokey Bear is Partially Right

Graphic: Ad Council, National Association of State Foresters, and US Forest Service.

Smokey Bear tells us “only you can prevent wildfires.” That has been Smokey’s simple message since 1944, but nevertheless he has been long associated with the policy of immediately suppressing all wildfires. This policy was called the 10 AM policy, and it meant that all wildfires should be suppressed by 10 AM of the morning after the wildfire was ignited. The 10 AM policy resulted in over-suppression of wildfires and disrupted the beneficial role of wildfire in forest ecosystems, so the policy was rightly discontinued in 1978. The fire suppression policy is sometimes known as the “Smokey Bear Effect.” In actuality, Smokey did not make any comments about fire suppression.

Smokey is correct that a greater focus on preventing unwanted human-caused wildfire ignitions will help to mitigate our wildfire management dilemma. Western forests are being heavily cut and burned for a primary purpose of moderating wildfire behavior, with substantial adverse impacts to both forests and communities. It would be much more direct and cost-effective to put greater emphasis on avoiding unwanted human-caused wildfire ignitions in the first place. This can be done while still allowing lightning strike fires to fulfill their natural and beneficial role on our forest landscapes, when safe to do so. This can be supplemented by judicious implementation of prescribed burns, only during the safest burn windows.

However, Smokey needs to clarify at whom he is pointing a rather accusatory paw. Who all needs to prevent wildfires? Does he just mean the public, or does he also include the Forest Service? The Forest Service and other land management agencies are responsible for a significant amount of wildfire ignitions and acres burned on our forest landscapes, and at times their actions have exacerbated wildfires. We need to consider all the sources of wildfire ignitions and hone our prevention strategies accordingly.

The primary ignition source of wildfire in the US is human-caused ignitions. According to a 2023 report by the Congressional Research Service, nationally 89% of wildfires from 2018 to 2022 were human-caused. According to a research paper by Balch et al., human-related ignitions have increased, resulting in larger and hotter wildfires, and the length of the wildfire season has more than tripled. University of Colorado Professor Virginia Iglesias wrote in a recent article that wildfires ignited by human activities pose a greater risk to people and cause more severe ecosystem effects than lightning-started fires. She states:

Lightning-started fires often coincide with storms that carry rain or higher humidity, which slows fires’ spread. Human-started fires, however, typically ignite under more extreme conditions – hotter temperatures, lower humidity and stronger winds. This leads to greater flame heights, faster spread in the critical early days before crews can respond, and more severe ecosystem effects, such as killing more trees and degrading the soil.

Human-ignited fires often occur in or near populated areas, where flammable structures and vegetation create even more hazardous conditions. As urban development expands into wildlands, the probability of human-started fires and the property potentially exposed to fire increase, creating a feedback loop of escalating wildfire risk.

The three primary elements that cause wildfire to ignite and spread – known as the wildfire triangle – are an ignition source. dry fuel, and hot, dry and windy weather. While all three elements are necessary, a wildfire cannot occur without an ignition. So considering ignitions of undesired human-caused wildfires, and finding ways to avoid such ignitions, is paramount for wildfire management.

Because it is now widely agreed upon to allow a certain amount of wildfire to burn on our landscapes instead of immediately suppressing all fires, the Forest Service’s focus in recent decades has been to aggressively log, “thin” and apply prescribed fire to forest landscapes in order to allow wildfires to burn more safely. This change of focus caused Smokey and his original campaign slogan, “Remember, only you can prevent forest fires,” to become obsolete, as the Forest Service itself was sometimes essentially setting forest fires during implementation of prescribed burns. As a result, the slogan was changed in 2001, to “Only you can prevent wildfires.” “Wildfires” means fires other than agency intentionally-set fires that remain within the intended containment perimeters.

The primary strategy has shifted from reducing wildfire ignitions to reducing fuels (trees and other vegetation). Since the number of forest wildfire ignitions and of acres burned at high severity have been overall steadily increasing, the fuels reduction strategy appears to not be very effective.

Additionally, the aggressive “cut and burn” strategy has caused an enormous amount of ecosystem damage in our forests, and in a few cases it has resulted in escaped prescribed fire burning entire communities, such as occurred during the Hermits Peak and Calf Canyon Fires. Implementing much lighter and more targeted cutting and burning treatments, focusing more on genuine restoration projects that support the retention of moisture in forest ecosystems, and refocusing on reducing unwanted human-caused wildfire ignitions, may be the best route for moderating the amount and severity of fire burning in our forests. It may also be the best way to protect our communities and infrastructure. This strategy should be combined with fire hardening homes and reducing fuels in the 100 feet surrounding structures.

Forest management strategies need to be considered differently in different ecosystem types. In wetter forests, wildfire is still in a historical deficit, including high severity fire. However in some drier forests, such as the Santa Fe National Forest, there has been too much wildfire, including too much high severity fire. And post-fire conifer regeneration in this dry forest appears to be either delayed or not occurring at all in some locations. The Santa Fe National Forest could be considered the “canary in the coalmine” of climate effects on forests, and we need to learn from what is occurring in this area and quickly develop climate-appropriate conservation strategies.

The New Mexico State Forester Laura McCarthy recently authored an op-ed, “Let’s bring back a proven campaign to prevent wildfires.” In it, she calls for a New Mexico wildfire prevention campaign built on New Mexico’s Smokey Bear program and modeled after Utah’s successful FireSense Program. She states that “the [FireSense] campaign reduced human-caused wildfires by 75% within three years.” Such campaigns can be an important conservation strategy, as avoiding human-caused ignitions has fewer adverse impacts on ecosystems and communities than heavily treating millions of acres of forest to moderate the effects of such ignitions.

However, State Forester McCarthy’s op-ed and the research papers and articles referenced above do not mention that much more comprehensive measures need to be taken to prevent wildfires ignited by the US Forest Service and by other land management agencies prescribed burns escapes. In the Santa Fe National Forest during the past 25 years, the majority of acres burned by wildfire were ignited by Forest Service and National Park Service escaped prescribed burns.

Out of a total of over 784,000 acres burned by wildfire in the Santa Fe National Forest during this time period, almost 435,000 acres were burned due to escaped prescribed fire ignited by these two federal land management agencies, as opposed to just over 253,000 acres ignited by all other human-caused ignitions. Less than 97,000 acres were burned due to natural ignitions (lightning strikes). Also, the largest wildfire that burned due to a lightning strike ignition was just over 17,000 acres — a relatively small area compared with the enormous areas burned by escaped prescribed fire. None of the lightning strike fires caused significant damage to either communities or infrastructure. If the large agency-ignited wildfires had not occurred, wildfires in the Santa Fe National Forest would have occurred well within a natural range.

The Forest Service claims that nationally less than 1% of their prescribed burns escape, which amounts to about seven wildfires per year. However escaped prescribed burns often result in very large and hot wildfires, and are often ignited near communities and infrastructure. So the impacts of prescribed fire escapes can be much greater than this Forest Service statistic suggests. Much more valid and meaningful statistics would be the total acres burned due to escaped prescribed burns, and the amount of damage to human resources. It’s also necessary to consider that as the climate becomes warmer and drier, the risk of escaped prescribed burns will inevitably increase, especially in dry forests.

It’s critical to reevaluate the Forest Service and other agencies’ prescribed burn practices in order to reduce wildfires caused by prescribed fire escapes. The Forest Service has made some efforts to do so, but its analysis is limited, its assumptions are sometimes unproven and controversial, and its new policy recommendations are not nearly enough to adequately improve prescribed burn safety.

Logging and “thinning” practices need to be also reconsidered, as such practices can at times exacerbate wildfire risk, wildfire size, and burn severity, instead of reducing them. Aggressively cutting trees and opening up forest canopies often results in drier forests with more flammable fuels and can allow wind to blow more intensely and drive fire up into the tree crowns. This occurred during the 2022 Santa Fe National Forest Calf Canyon Fire which was ignited by a pile burn escape. This fire was largely fueled by windthrow of trees due to aggressive logging and “thinning” having opened up the forest canopy, along with unburned slash piles.

There are a number of other strategies that can be employed by the Forest Service to reduce human-caused fires. These include closing and decommissioning unneeded forest roads (as road density has been linked with increases in human-caused wildfire), increasing forest closures during extremely hot, dry and windy weather, enacting more restrictive regulations concerning campfires, and increasing law enforcement in national forests.

Promoting Smokey Bear to the forefront again in order to educate the public about prevention of human-caused wildfire ignitions is a good strategy – or to implement vigorous alternative fire prevention campaigns. However, Smokey Bear needs to get real and be more honest about what else is necessary to prevent human-caused wildfires. We all need to do what we can, but this must include a major wildfire policy shift by the Forest Service and other land management agencies.

Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire near Highway 518 in Sapello, NM Photo: Inciweb.

 

Sarah Hyden has been working to protect the Santa Fe National Forest for well over a decade. She was a co-founder of the Santa Fe Forest Coalition and was the WildEarth Guardians’ Santa Fe National Forest Advocate. In 2019, she co-founded The Forest Advocate, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to protection of the Santa Fe National Forest and all western forests. The Forest Advocate maintains an active website that publishes forest advocacy news and resources — theforestadvocate.org.