CQ Researcher just published a report titled “Wildfire Management: Are new strategies needed as fire risks grow?” that takes a wide-angle look at how Canada and the U.S. are (and aren’t) adapting their wildfire strategies as fire seasons grow longer, hotter, and more destructive. The report covers Indigenous cultural burning, cross-border smoke disputes, the case for and against a Canadian FEMA equivalent, and the ongoing fight over whether “active forest management” protects the communities it claims to.
To make that case, the report leans on a body of research and advocacy that includes FSEEE’s writing on the 2003 Healthy Forests Restoration Act (HFRA), where FSEEE explores the limitations and alternatives to the fuels reduction strategies promoted in the Act. The report traces the same fault line running through today’s debate over the Fix Our Forests Act, where ecologists worry that expanded thinning limits will do more ecological harm than fire-safety good, and through comments from advocates like Ralph Bloemers of Green Oregon, who argues that treating forests primarily as fuel ignores everything else they provide, like water, wildlife, and biodiversity. FSEEE’s critique of the HFRA’s incentive structure, which rewards “acres treated” over proven home-hardening measures, gives the report’s broader argument a two-decade paper trail: this isn’t a new disagreement; it’s the same one recurring under new legislation.
Photo: Image of forest thinning project taken by Roman Biernacki
