In recent years California has experienced far more frequent and intense wildfires. Many people blame drought and climate change for the increase in fire, but while those issues contribute to wildfires, they aren’t the driving factor behind it. Forest mismanagement and urban development is the leading cause of wildfires in California. 

Over the last 150 years, forests across California and the Pacific-Northwest have been subject to poor management. Forests across California are overgrown, crowded, and filled with dead brush and debris. This overcrowding is detrimental to forest health, limits forest accessibility, and destroys natural wildlife habitat. This mismanagement is largely due to past Forest Service policies, which placed limits on or even banned the use of prescribed fire and wildfire burns. This strategy of forest management, one without the use of controlled burns, has led to forests being severely overcrowded. One study revealed that over the last century, the amount of trees per acre has increased from 19 trees to nearly 260 trees. 

Almost all of California’s forests are managed by either the US Forest Service or Cal-Fire. Cal-Fire owns and manages over 14 demonstration forests throughout California, the Forest Service is responsible for all national forests, including but not limited to Mendocino, Eldorado, Lassen, Plumas and Tahoe National Forest. Cal-Fire and the Forest Service’s strategy for fire containment over the last 100 years has not included any form of preventative measures. The “Great Fire of 1910” is an event that greatly shaped how the forest service has approached wildfires and forest management. As of 1908 the Forest Service instituted a policy in an effort to extinguish all fires as quickly as possible. This policy was put into question as to whether the Service should even fight the fire of 1910 as it was very expensive to do so or let it burn. After the fire of 1910, the “10am policy” was put in place with the goal of extinguishing all fires by 10 am, the morning after they were reported. This policy, which the forest service has followed for years, has allowed underbrush and small trees to grow and spread, creating denser forests, ones more prone to dangerous wildfires. 

Furthermore, one of the primary reasons wildfires have become more destructive in recent years is not because of fire size or severity but urban expansion. California’s population has steadily increased over the past 10 years, with it only starting to decline in 2021. This population growth has created a need for new housing and infrastructure, as a result smaller cities and towns have in a sense expanded in more urban areas. This is one of the major reasons fires have been more destructive in recent years. 

 There are several proposed solutions for California’s mismanagement issue offered by various organizations. Almost all of these propositions include the use of controlled burns, selective logging, underbrush and timber clearing by hand, and other various methods of land management. Cal-Fire already has a program put in place called the Vegetation Management Program or VPM. The VPM program already utilizes controlled burns and brush clearing through mechanized means, but it still isn’t enough. Cooperation between organizations and people is essential in order to restore and rebuild California’s forests. California is one of the largest and most diverse states in the western US, and one of the biggest problems which has prevented us solving this mismanagement issue has been other organizations and individuals with opposing ideas or beliefs not being able to work together.

With all the issues presented above, what is the solution? To put it simply, different people have different ideas of how this land should be managed. However we all depend on the ecosystems that make up our state and there isn’t one right answer, but the only way to move forward and tackle this massive issue is by working with one another, both on the state and local level.