Despite the inextricable link between fire and the land, fire management policy has been largely grounded in the belief that all fires should be extinguished. While these fire suppression efforts have been resoundingly successful, they have also had significant unintended and decidedly negative consequences. Interrupting natural fire regimes has thrown ecosystems out of balance, and in many places, has actually increased the risk of unnaturally severe fire through the buildup of highly flammable fuels.

As a result, uncharacteristically severe fire threatens human communities and important natural values and resources. Additionally, “wildfire” has become a significant barrier to conservation-based stewardship of public lands, including the designation of wilderness and protection of old-growth forests.

Our Goal
Accordingly, the goal of the Wildland Fire Program is to return fire to fire-dependant landscapes in a socially acceptable manner. While simple and straightforward, accomplishing this goal will require a comprehensive, coordinated, and sustained interdisciplinary effort over time.

Fortuitously, the need for community protection offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to shift the politics of contentious land use debates. When decision makers, opinion leaders, and the conservation community demand that resources target the community protection zone and the reintroduction of fire where appropriate, long-lasting change becomes possible.

A guiding principle in our efforts to do so, is the premise that “fire” can be used in a positive and proactive way to bring communities of interest together. Finding and building common ground with diverse interests is key to defining success on the ground. Building partnerships based on the link between long-term ecological health of the land and the social and economic well-being of rural communities, The Wilderness Society seeks to bring about long-lasting and enduring change in fire and forest management.

Our Vision
Our vision is of a landscape composed of fire-safe communities and production lands in a network of healthy wildland ecosystems. Where it is safe, we want fire to play its natural role, free of human control. Where natural fire is not safe, fire's beneficial role can be sustained through active management -- either through prescribed burning or by managing the ecosystem to be resilient to uncontrolled wildfire.

To get there, we need a strategy that addresses societal concerns about fire, develops solution-oriented policies, and demonstrates how those solutions can be applied on the ground. In short, we need a strategy built on people, policy, and place.

By finding solutions that meet ecological imperatives and community needs, the shift to stewardship-based management can and will be achieved. More importantly, it stands a better chance of enduring the inevitable swings of the political pendulum over time.

Our Work

• Seek the necessary policy changes at the state and federal levels to ensure that federal funding promotes forest restoration, facilitates community protection planning and implementation, and promotes community economic well being; reform agency incentives that act as barriers to restoration, community protection and economic well-being.
  
  
• Ensure that decision-makers and stakeholders have the tools necessary to make informed decisions promoting ecologically sustainable, socially acceptable, and fiscally responsible landscape-scale fire management decisions on the ground.
  
  
• Capitalize on annual media attention to the fire issue and work with new partnerships to educate the public about the ecological importance of wildland fire and critical need to secure a comprehensive approach to wildland fire management.