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Wildfire Crisis Strategy
The Forest Service's goal in launching the Wildfire Crisis Strategy was to safeguard communities and the resources they depend on by increasing fuels treatments over time, promoting community readiness, and supporting postfire recovery and restoration.
Overview
The Forest Service launched a 10-year strategy to address the wildfire crisis in the places where it poses the most immediate threats to communities. The strategy, called “Confronting the Wildfire Crisis: A Strategy for Protecting Communities and Improving Resilience in America’s Forests,” combines a historic investment of congressional funding with years of scientific research and planning into a national effort that will dramatically increase the scale of forest health treatments over the next decade. 10 landscapes were selected to receive $131 million in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) investment to begin implementation of the Wildfire Crisis Strategy in 2022. In early 2023, the Colville National Forest was selected among 11 landscapes to receive additional funding. The first year, fiscal year 2023, the Forest will receive $2.1 million.
The Forest Service's goal in launching the Wildfire Crisis Strategy was to safeguard communities and the resources they depend on by increasing fuels treatments over time, promoting community readiness, and supporting postfire recovery and restoration.
Success Stories
Cross-boundary Prescribed Fire
(5/5/2023)
The Washington Department of Natural Resources and the USDA Forest Service worked together in the Aeneas Valley over the past two weeks to complete multiple cross-boundary prescribed fire objectives.
The Northeast Region WA DNR and the Colville National Forest started working together last year to plan a cross-boundary prescribed fire. Under a new agreement, which allows USFS to conduct burn activities on WA DNR lands, the two agencies accomplished the first joint cross-boundary prescribed fire activities between the two agencies in the state.
“The utilization of the new agreement between the USFS and WA DNR is not only a great benefit to local land managers for our cross-boundary treatments within the wildland urban interface, it is a tremendous step forward for cooperative land management throughout the state. We could not be more excited to expand the already great relationship we have here locally with the Colville National Forest and its staff.” -Pat Ryan, Northeast Region Manager
While these burns move the forest towards a healthy ecological state, there were also goals to reduce fuel in the area for wildfires to consume, should they move through the area. These maintenance burns also allow for periodic upkeep along some of the Tonasket Ranger District's Potential Control Lines (PCLs). These designated areas give emergency managers clear, strategic options for further analysis if a wildfire were to occur in the area.
The Washington Department of Natural Resources, the USDA Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and local Fire Districts all worked together on this project over the course of the last week of April and the first week of May. However, the planning for such a complex prescribed fire has been months of work.
