As we move into 2010 with the optimism that the Obama administration has brought to many Americans, fire management on public lands is in flux. While the land agencies made considerable progress in redefining fire management despite the regressive administration of Bush, we now will see if climate change will squeeze progress or if we will be able to continue to apply more fire to the land to correct ecological deficiencies created by fire exclusion over more than a century.
Obama has ordered federal agencies to review their activities with reducing their carbon footprint in mind. While this is a very good thing, it could have a negative impact on prescribed fire and fire use.
Fire has always existed on many landscapes, like most of the western public lands. We humans have excluded it when possible for the last century but the buildup of fuels and the distortion of ecology that results is a pent up fire waiting to happen. Releasing this bottled energy is the goal of prescribed fire and fire use programs.
Fires make smoke and carbon dioxide. This is normal background pollution, natural as the sky and sea. It is folly to think we can prevent its release into the atmosphere by suppressing fire again. We must accept this background level of CO2 and let progressive fire programs continue.
There are ways fire organizations can limit their CO2 emissions. More efficient vehicles, use of natural gas powered vehicles, care to drive minimally and retrofitting of buildings for energy efficiency are key moves. Also food in firecamps should exclude beef and pork, two foods that have a very high carbon footprint.
Little of this is considered in Inferno by Committee, my new book. But it may be in my next one. Keep posted on my ranting at www.tomribe.com.
