CLIMATE: Scientists Prescribe Controlled Burns To Protect Forests, Curb Emissions
Written by Noelle Straub, E&E reporter
Scientists from the Association for Fire Ecology today called for the increased use of fire in forests, arguing that planned burning is the key to reducing net carbon emissions and preparing forests for the effects of climate change.
Meeting at the Fourth International Fire Ecology and Management Congress in Savannah, Ga., leaders of the group said boosting the use of fire and fuels management would help forests withstand the wildfires and droughts associated with climate change and protect long-term carbon storage in larger trees.
Malcolm North, Forest Service research ecologist at the Pacific Southwest Research Station in Davis, Calif., noted that severe wildfires can produce large amounts of carbon emissions. But prescribed burning that reduces smaller trees and dead branches can help reduce wildfire severity, protecting the carbon accumulated in large trees and allowing forests to take in 30 to 40 percent more carbon than untreated forests, he said.
Some forest managers and climate policymakers say fire suppression should be maximized in order to ensure the greatest short-term carbon storage benefit and potential carbon-related revenue, possibly from a cap-and-trade system of carbon accounting.
But the Association for Fire Ecology argues that some of that current carbon should be removed through fuel thinning treatments in order to increase resistance to severe wildfires and protect remaining carbon stocks over the long term. The maximum amount of above-ground forest carbon is held in larger, fire-resistant trees rather than smaller, fire-vulnerable trees, they say.
Timothy Ingalsbee, executive director of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology, advocated more prescribed fires and allowing wildfires to burn in backcountry forest areas that need more frequent low-intensity fire.
"As appealing as it may sound to protect every stick of carbon on the ground by aggressively fighting all wildfires to protect forests from fire, a better strategy is to protect forests with fire," Ingalsbee said. "Artfully managing rather than aggressively fighting wildfire will help minimize short-term carbon emissions and maximize long-term carbon storage."
Matthew Hurteau, a research fellow at Northern Arizona University, said aggressive fire suppression to store carbon in forests thick with small trees is like "placing your whole retirement fund in high-risk stocks -- the yield is high, but so is the risk." Storing carbon in larger trees and making forests more resistant to severe wildfires is like investing in bonds, he said, where the yield is lower but more secure.
Hurteau pointed to air quality control districts in California as an example of a hurdle to increased burning, saying they clamped down on land managers' use of prescribed fires. "The air quality folks don't recognize we pay a small price in particulate matter ... but it's considerably lower than particulate matter and other emissions from wildfire," he said.