A study published June 11 in Science by Stanford researchers Iván Higuera-Mendieta and Marshall Burke and covered last week by The Washington Post confirms what fire ecologists and Indigenous communities have advocated for generations: low-severity, controlled burning is one of the single most effective strategies to prevent extreme wildfires and improve long-term air quality.
Analyzing two decades of satellite-derived wildfire severity and smoke particulate matter across California, the study demonstrates that in conifer forests (which cover nearly 60% of California’s forestlands), low-severity burning reduces the probability of any subsequent wildfire by nearly 53% in the first year. Controlled burns also lower the probability of a future very-high-severity wildfire in conifer forests by roughly 92%. This protective buffer lasts for over a decade and extends roughly three miles beyond the burned perimeter, creating a spatial “spillover effect” where clearing fuel on one property protects neighboring communities.
The study also explored the link between low-severity burns and air pollution. The researchers found that prescribed burning of 500,000 acres annually in California would long-term toxic smoke exposure by 10% over a decade. Burning does put more smoke in the air up front, but the long-term reduction outweighs that initial cost within about four years.
Despite growing scientific evidence of the value of prescribed burning, the U.S. Forest Service’s restructuring under the Trump administration has led to large staffing and funding cuts and, subsequently, made it more challenging to implement low-severity burning practices. The Forest Service has set an annual goal of reducing dangerous fuels on 3.6 million acres, with around 1.5 million acres of treatment coming from prescribed burning. The agency treated 2.1 million acres for hazardous fuels in 2024, but that acreage dropped by about 1 million acres in 2025, to 1.1 million. The Forest Service says it has treated nearly 2 million acres so far this year.
On a state level, California Gov. Gavin Newsom set a goal in 2022 of expanding prescribed burning to 400,000 acres a year by 2025, up from an average of about 30,000 acres. Only 63,551 acres were treated from 2024 to 2025. Over the same period, California’s direct investment in forest management fell from $1.1 billion in 2022 to $620 million for 2026.
At the same time that the capacity to burn is shrinking, the federal government seems to be moving away from supporting low-severity burning altogether.
Last year, Rep. Tom McClintock introduced the Put Out the Fire Act, H.R. 178, requiring federal firefighting agencies to extinguish blazes within 24 hours of detection. It cleared the House Natural Resources Committee in July 2025. This April, Agriculture Secretary Brooke L. Rollins said, “This fire season we are prepared to continue our full suppression strategy to suppress fire starts quickly to protect our forests and rural communities,” while also stating that the agency intends to expand hazardous fuels treatment through both mechanical means and prescribed fire “where conditions allow.”
While proponents framed this as an essential suppression strategy to protect vulnerable forests and rural areas, critics warn that such mandates ignore the ecological reality of the “fire paradox.” By mandating rapid suppression, the policy risks creating larger, more dangerous fuel loads for the future.
Photo: A firefighter conducts a prescribed burn. (Emma Renly)
