Plenty of terrible political news out there, today, but if you want to hear two people who thought the other person was full of sh!t on Facebook have a conversation in real life, check out our latest interview.
Frank Carroll came onto the Lookout Livestream and discussed the evolution of wildfire policy since 2009, emphasizing the shift towards using fire as a land management tool. He highlighted the impact of the ‘2009 Chevron Deference Memo’, which allowed agencies to write their own policies without legal constraints.
Among other things, Carroll criticizes the overuse of drones to light strategic firing operations during wildfire operations, and the lack of prescribed fire due to bureaucratic hurdles. He advocates for local conversations and legislative changes to support fire management, including compensation for property damage caused by letting fires burn. Zeke Lunder emphasized the need for empowering operational leaders to make ecologically-informed fire management decisions, and for a radical re-imagination of the scale at which prescribed fire and thinning is needed.
Zeke and Frank discuss the challenges and evolutions in fire management, emphasizing the need for transparency and accurate public communication. Frank says that the rapid fire-lighting capabilities of Hotshots has lead to unanticipated consequences like fires spreading to private lands. The conversation critiques the Forest Service’s currently-popular term “full suppression” to described all firefighting operations, even if they are indirect tactics that add thousands of acres to a fire, and advocates for clearer descriptions of fire operations and chosen management strategies. Frank praises the Coconino and Gila National Forests for their open communication and suggest that a strike team of old-school PIOs could improve public engagement and understanding across different regions.