One year ago, almost to the day, we launched “Confronting the Wildfire Crisis: A Strategy for Protecting Communities and Improving Resilience in America’s Forests.” I issued a call to action for all of us to focus on what we could accomplish with increased resources. The Forest Service and many other partners are conducting treatments that improve forest and watershed conditions and enhance fire resilience across the United States. I’m proud to see your work and dedication manifesting as we focus our work in the right places and at the right scale to create safer communities and healthier forests. 

Surrounded by partners and colleagues on the Tonto National Forest, we moved boldly into year two implementation of the Wildfire Crisis Strategy as we announced expanded efforts to reduce wildfire risk across the western United States, made possible through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act. This announcement brings more than $490 million to 11 landscapes across the western United States, directly benefiting at-risk communities and critical infrastructure in Arizona, California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Washington.

These additional investments support our efforts to address critical infrastructure, community protection and forest resilience, as well as complement the 10 initial landscapes we announced in 2022. In just our initial two years under the Wildfire Crisis Strategy we are investing $945 million on a combined 21 landscapes covering upward of 45 million acres across 134 of the 250 high-risk firesheds in the western United States. This will mitigate risk to approximately 200 communities.

Secretary Vilsack has also authorized our agency to use a new emergency authority in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in the 21 landscape areas, as well as the 250 high-risk firesheds in the western United States and specific post-fire recovery areas. Combined with strategic implementation of existing authorities, this will enable us to move more quickly to apply targeted treatment to the high-risk firesheds identified in our Wildfire Crisis Strategy.

We spent last year building our agency capacity and accomplished treatments on 3.2 million acres, including work in 68 of the 250 high-risk firesheds. This work was accomplished despite numerous barriers, including capacity, lack of markets for small-diameter wood and high post-fire workloads from previous seasons.

Now is our greatest opportunity to intervene and address this emergency. Doing this work in the right place, at the right time and at the right scale, combined with the use of emergency authorities, will accelerate our planning, consultation, contracting, hiring and project work to reduce wildfire risk and improve forest health and resiliency. Collaboration with tribes, communities and partners will remain a priority, and we will continue to use the best available science when carrying out this important work.

We must work together, work quickly and work carefully to address this crisis. Together, we can change the trajectory of catastrophic wildfire across the West. This is our time to innovate and work together with tribes, communities and partners to bring about essential change.

I could not be prouder of the work you have already been doing to keep communities safe from wildfire threats. There could not be a more exciting time to be in this moment with all of you and to serve as your Chief.

Additional resources

• Wildfire crisis landscape investments
• Biden-Harris Administration launches new efforts to address the wildfire crisis (Jan. 19, 2023)
• Wildfire crisis fact sheet
• Event Flickr album
• Confronting the wildfire crisis

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