How We Fight Wildfires

A century ago, US policy was to extinguish all wildfires as soon as possible.  It took decades to realize that this was interfering with the nature’s ecosystem, where wildfires can have beneficial effects.  Indeed, some species of plants are dependent on fires. Now, the focus has shifted from suppressing fires to managing fires.

This means minimizing property damage, along with injuries and deaths to the public and firefighters, while permitting naturally-caused fires to burn – which are only 10% of wildfires.  Among other benefits, this reduces the fuel that could cause future fires to burn out of control.  90% of wildfires are caused by humans, so an important part of policy now is educating people on how to avoid starting wildfires.

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Learn more about FIELD’s firefighting training and efforts