The wildfires lately, have been wild. 😳
A recent paper took a look at wildfire ignitions and found that proximity to roads was a good indicator for the size and severity of fires, with a vast majority of wildfires starting within 50 meters from a road. While these are often small fires, the frequency of occurrences can be too much to manage during a busy fire season and it’s these small fires can lead to the big catastrophic ones that make global headlines and destroy communities.
Why does this matter?
Well, the Trump administration is trying to use wildfires to stoke fear and justify radical logging policies with no backing in science, that would build roads into the last big tracts of our forests in order to open the door for private industry to log and drill, claiming that more roads means more access for fire fighting and prevention. The forest services own studies refute that, showing that roads makes very little to no difference at all in their ability to access forests for fire prevention treatment. On the contrary, roads can actually lead to increased fire risk simply because 9 out of 10 wildfires are caused by people. More roads mean more cigarettes thrown out car windows, more hot catalytic converters igniting dry grass, and more chances for rogue campfires to go awry – inviting more frequent wildfire ignitions at a time when federal fire-fighting capacity has been radically reduced thanks to budget cuts overseen by the same administration.
Building more roads into these forests could significantly increase the number of fires being started, added to the very real and common impacts of anthropogenic climate change. Instead of stoking wildfire fear misinformation and creating more problems, it’s time we listen to what the best research by the brightest minds on earth tells us about this terrifying reality we face. ** Take a moment to tell them** to keep the roadless rule in place, and start directing funding and resources to places that would actually make a difference!
#wildfire #roadlessrule #action #roadless #fire