Confronting the Wildfire Crisis

Wildfire Crisis Strategy

In 2022, 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.

National Wildfire Crisis Strategy website

Fighting Future Fires: Investing in wildfire risk reduction through cross-boundary projects

We’ve known for decades that more fuels reduction, thinning, and increasing our use of fire is key to improving forest health in the American West. But the scale and methods of work on the ground have not matched the need. Through the Forest Service’s Wildfire Crisis Strategy – and historic levels of investment provided by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Law – we’re working to change that. 

Implementing the Strategy in the Pacific Northwest

A map of Washington and Oregon, with five wildfire crisis investment landscapes highlighted

The Pacific Northwest region is home to five of 21 investment landscapes, areas designated to prioritize resources as part of the Forest Service’s 10-year Wildfire Crisis Strategy.

These are areas that have been identified as among the highest-need in terms of risk to communities, infrastructure, and critical natural resources; that have a history of collaboration and working with the Forest Service to conduct large, landscape-scale projects; and where local partners had sufficient capacity to take on additional investments with our agency to help us with that work.

These investments represent just a "down payment" on the work needed across all western forests. They target key landscapes, providing an opportunity to focus on areas at risk, kick-start fuels reduction work in those areas, and to develop, test, and refine how we do this work - at a landscape scale - before expanding those efforts to other forests. 

More information:

Wildfire Crisis Strategy investment landscapes in Washington and Oregon:

How we're investing across the Pacific Northwest

We’re working to reduce the burden on all national forests in the region for planning & implementing fuels reduction work by:

  • digitizing information needed to plan and implement projects;
  • developing a regional prioritization framework that will help us assess needs & target treatments within key landscapes where work will do the most good & the most quickly to reduce risk in communities;
  • working with scientists at the Pacific Northwest Research Station, Rocky Mountain Research Station, state universities, and elsewhere to ensure we're using the best available science to guide our decisionmaking;
  • partnering with local Tribes to develop projects reflecting our shared interest in stewardship of natural resources on National Forest System lands, and coordinating on projects that protect adjacent tribal lands;
  • collaborating with state partners, other federal agencies, and local officials, we're working together on projects and developing strategies to coordinate work on national forests with needs on neighboring federal, state and private lands - efforts that will be more effective because needs are assessed and addressed at a larger scale, across jurisdictional boundaries; and
  • leveraging support from national keystone agreements and partners, to increase the acres treated for fuels reduction and with prescribed and managed natural fire beyond our five Wildfire Crisis investment landscapes, directing resources to other priority projects that reduce wildfire risk across Washington and Oregon.

News from the Field

About the Regional Wildfire Crisis Team

The regional Wildfire Crisis Team is working to identify and address systemic barriers to increasing the pace and scale of fuels reduction work in the Pacific Northwest Region, improve effectiveness and optimize the use of resources through strategic planning, collaboration, and science integration, and to provide regional support to local efforts that reduce risk to communities and infrastructure.

Board members listen to a Forest Service presenter in a forested area

Community involvement is an important part of our strategy to reduce wildfire risk. Catastrophic wildfires put public safety and public resources at risk. Forests provide access to recreation, habitat for wildlife, protect drinking water, produce forest products. Forests contain roads that connect communities, utility infrastructure that powers them, and create jobs that power the economy. The wildfire crisis isn't just a Forest Service issue or one it can solve alone; this issue hits home for all of us, and we'll need to work together to resolve it.

Above, Rachel Wirt, U.S. Forest Service, community member Norm Johnson (Liberty Fuels, retired), and others take part in a July, 2023 board member retreat for Sustainable Northwest on the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest in Washington. Sustainable Northwest is an important Forest Service partner in the Pacific Northwest Region, assisting in providing resources and support to collaboratives across Washington and Oregon. The field trip visited areas where The Washington Department of Natural Resources and Forest Service will collaborate over the next decade on the Central Washington Initiative -a joint effort to complete 350,000 acres of landscape restoration and wildfire risk reduction on the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest. USDA Forest Service photo by Kari Grover-Wier (public domain).

More photos: Wildfire Crisis Strategy - Region 6 | Flickr (direct link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/forestservicenw/albums/72177720310893970/)

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