Cases

Fire Management in the Southwest

In Brief:

Fire has a natural and vital place in the ecosystem of our forests. Fire helps regulate ecosystems by maintaining and enhancing habitat for numerous wildlife species, reducing fuel loads, and lessening the chances of a catastrophic fire. 

More than a century of aggressive fire suppression in the Southwest has contributed to unhealthy forests, typified by a lack of diversity and dense conditions susceptible to huge, stand-replacing fires. The result has been numerous fire seasons where large-scale Western wildfires have cost firefighters' lives and resulted in the loss of private property and millions of taxpayer dollars. 

In the 1990s, in response to several significant fire seasons, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Interior developed a national fire plan and approved federal fire policies that recognize the value of allowing some backcountry fires to burn. The national fire plan and policies direct federal agencies to use fire suppression to protect lives and property while, to the extent possible, allowing wildland fire to function in its natural ecological role to regulate fuels and restore healthy ecosystems. 

To comply with these policies, each national forest must develop a Fire Management Plan (FMP). The FMPs are intended to set the parameters for each forest's fire management activities, including fire suppression, prescribed burning, fuels reduction, post-fire rehabilitation, and wildland fire use, where fires are allowed to burn to achieve ecological objectives. 

The fire management plans of four  national forests -- the Apache-Sitgreaves, Carson, Lincoln, and Tonto -- continue the old policies of fire suppression in most locations, mechanical thinning (including logging) to reduce fuel loads instead of prescribed burns.

Earthjustice is seeking to compel the Forest Service to open its fire management plans to scientific review and consultation with federal wildlife agencies.

Updated: December 11, 2007

Case #1192