The Shifting Winds of Fire Management
California Has Two Fire Problems, and They’re Very Different
The American West is getting hotter and drier, and that has driven a quick succession of ever-more-devastating wildfires. Clearly, we need to examine our approach to fire risk management.
It’s a complicated matter made more so, researchers say, because politicians and the public tend to conflate two rather different issues. “We are mixing up the problem of forest and fuel management with the problem of wildland-urban interface fires,” explained Max Moritz, an adjunct professor at UCSB’s Bren School of Environmental Management and a statewide Cooperative Extension wildfire specialist.
Forest management often focuses on controlling the distribution of fuels, explained geography professor Dar Roberts, who serves as UCSB’s principal investigator of the Southern California Wildfire Hazard Center. For instance, he said, fire agencies create fire breaks and conduct prescribed burns.
