Abstract
Sustainable fire management has eluded all industrial societies. Given the growing number and magnitude of wildfire events, prescribed fire is being increasingly promoted as the key to reducing wildfire risk. However, smoke from prescribed fires can adversely affect public health and breach air quality standards. Here we propose that air quality standards can lead to the development and adoption of sustainable fire management approaches that lower the risk of economically and ecologically damaging wildfires while improving air quality and reducing climate-forcing emissions. For example, green fire breaks at the wildland-urban interface (WUI) can resist the spread of wildfires into urban areas. These could be created through mechanical thinning of trees, and then maintained by targeted prescribed fire to create biodiverse and aesthetically pleasing landscapes. The harvested woody debris could be used for pellets and other forms of bioenergy in residential space heating and electricity generation. Collectively, such an approach would reduce the negative health impacts of smoke pollution from wildfires, prescribed fires, and combustion of wood for domestic heating. We illustrate such possibilities by comparing current and potential fire management approaches in the environmentally similar landscapes of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada and the island state of Tasmania in Australia.
Highlights
Unlike other natural hazards, landscape fires can be both started and suppressed by humans [1](see Table 1 for our definitions of terms)
Lessons from Vancouver Island and Tasmania In Tasmania, prescribed fires are the predominant method of fuels management [59], whereas in British Columbia fuels are commonly managed by mechanical thinning and pile burning [27,60]
Drawing on case studies in British Columbia and Tasmania we suggest that regulatory frameworks can drive innovation in fuels management on the temperate wildland–urban interface (WUI) if associated with appropriate incentives to reduce air pollution from wildfire, prescribed fire, and residential wood burning
Summary
Landscape fires can be both started and suppressed by humans [1]. This approach has a number of downsides, including: (1) risk of escaped prescribed fires accidentally destroying the property and infrastructure they were intended to protect This means that each operation carries the heavy transactional costs of negotiating with multiple land tenures, other stakeholders, and insurance providers [5]; (2) blunted effectiveness of prescribed fire during extreme fire weather, because reduced fuel loads do not limit wildfire spread in hot, dry, and windy conditions [6]; (3) shifting of the timing and/or number of days available for prescribed fire under a changing climate [7,8,9]; and (4) management of smoke pollution to minimize its public health impacts [10]. Note that the vegetation maps do not depict intermixes of Garry woodlands in coastal Douglas-fir or differentiate between dry and wet Eucalyptus forest
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