Tackling the West's Wildfire Challenge
Colorado’s Front Range harbors some of the most stunning scenery in the United States, including Rocky Mountain National Park, Pike’s Peak, and a dozen wilderness areas. The region’s natural appeal has lured so many people that today there are hundreds of thousands of homes lacing the foothills. Several spectacular fires in recent years have sent a clear message: A human and ecological disaster is waiting to happen.
The Wilderness Society helped bring together an unprecedented range of experts, decision makers, and opinion leaders, many of them traditionally at odds over the contentious issues involving management of fire-dependent landscapes. In May, after two years of work, the Front Range Fuels Treatment Partnership Roundtable produced a report that generated headlines across the state. “It maps out a vision for sustainable forest and fire management across the eight million acres of the Front Range and provides a road map for how to achieve that vision,” explains Tom Fry, who heads our Wildfire Program and led our efforts with the Roundtable.
“Fire is a natural part of the ecosystems here,” notes Dr. Gregory Aplet, a Wilderness Society ecologist who helped lead the Roundtable’s ecology work group. “Unfortunately, decades of putting out virtually every wildfire has created some unnaturally dense forests, and the recent years of drought have made the area even more vulnerable to a catastrophic fire. If we can return these forests to a more natural condition, they will function better, and people living nearby will be safer.”
But safeguarding thousands of homes and restoring millions of acres of forest is a gargantuan—and thus expensive—undertaking. With government funding tight, creative thinking is vital. “Small-scale bio-energy production looks like one of the best options,” says Dr. Pete Morton, an economist in our Denver office.
Besides taking a hard look at the science and economics, the Roundtable is working intensively with the communities nestled amidst the forests. Educating residents on the best ways to reduce the risk of home destruction and then helping them follow through is critically important. “Regrettably,” says Fry, “the administration and Congress haven’t provided consistent funding for this work.
“Right now we are focused on Colorado’s Front Range.” he notes. “But we believe that what we have learned here and the plan we have hammered out can become a national model. Southern California is another region facing enormous threats, and that might be the next place to try this collaborative approach.”
