We cannot avoid the fundamentally dynamic nature of forests. Fire is an unavoidable part of life in western forests and we must stop fighting a losing battle against the inevitable. Most western forests are in some ways dependent upon disturbances such as fire, and past fire suppression has exacerbated rather than solved the problem of fire.  Our goal should not be to prevent all damage from fires, insects, etc. Fire should be allowed to operate within natural bounds, as long as it doesn’t threaten public safety. Communities and property owners in forest settings must take responsibility for becoming fire resilient or fire permeable¹.

We should maintain healthy forest habitat by allowing natural disturbance processes to operate and expect forest carbon stores to ebb and flow, while also allowing forests to grow for long periods (and store lots of carbon) in between these natural disturbances. We must take a long-term and landscape view, so that we optimize carbon storage at any given point in space and time in order to maximize carbon storage over large landscapes and long time frames. 

Fuels could be reduced in forests that are significantly outside the natural range of variability, but this must be done in a strategic and limited way that protects all large fire resilient trees and spatially disconnects large expanses of excessive fuels, while retaining as much biomass as sustainably possible. Current enthusiasm for fuel reduction must be tempered with a realization that removing too much fuel makes forests hotter, dryer, and windier which increases fire hazard and increases decomposition rates, both of which counter carbon storage and other objectives. After fire, the goal should be to retain carbon on site and allow the recovering forest to grow into a mature and old-growth condition. Aggressive replanting as recommended by the timber industry² is unsupported because it establishes a dense fuel-laden condition that is susceptible to drought and is soon ripe for another fire. Natural regeneration of forests leads to more diverse and less dense forests, which is preferable from a climate change perspective because the resulting habitat diversity and spatial discontinuity are more resilient to future hazards.