The article you mentioned is titled "CU Study: 97% Of Wildfires In 24-Year Span Started By Humans" .
97%! is astonishing. What is even more surprising is the paragraph that says, Quote
"?Our fire problem is not going away anytime soon,? said co-author Jennifer Balch, director of Earth Lab, a Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences Fellow. ?This provides greater justification that prescribed burns, where safe, can mitigate the risk and threat of future wildfires.?"
If I read that right, she is advocating for more fires to be started by humans in the form of prescribed burns, where safe.
We'll see how that works out. I can't even count how many "Prescribed burns" have gotten away from government agencies and turned into raging wildfires. USFWS, NPS, USFS, and the list goes on. The WMA (Wildlife Management Areas) administered by state agencies have not fared any better. The best we can hope for is responsible forestry management in the future by our government agencies. Their past performance has been questionable at best.
Earth Lab joined forces with CIRES to do their data number crunching. I wonder if they have looked at the data for prescribed burns gone awry.
Do a Google search for "Prescribed burns gone wrong". Holy Cow, what a list. So how does that happen? In the case of one US government agency, a prescribed burn is scheduled weeks in advance. Equipment and personnel are brought into place. Sometimes at great expense owing to the remote locations. When the day arrives, everything is in place and it's "SHOW TIME!"
Wait, wait, wait, the wind is steady at 20 MPH and gusts to 30. Oh never mind, the calendar said we're to do it this day and so it shall be. After all we have gone to great effort and expense to assemble everyone here today.
And so the fire is lit and within an hour, the fight is on. The fire is topped out on the slough grass and is running downwind at 20 miles an hour. Airborn cattail fluff is carrying burning embers ahead of the fireline and the great and all knowledgeable facility manager, the guy pulling down 6 figures a year because he's so well educated, wonders what happened. He calls for the wildfire management teams, but they are three states away and won't be on site for at least a day. Helicopters are mustered, but they won't be on site until tomorrow either. Meanwhile the fire burns through the night. Local fire departments try to save local homes, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.
Blame for the fire? No where to be found. The calendar set a date for a prescribe burn and that is what they did. They just followed orders. Sue the government for your loss? You better get real cozy with the Federal Tort Claims Act. Good luck.
The upshot of all this is, some pencil geek in some office at University of Colorado said more prescribed burns, if safe, would help reduce fire related losses. Reminds me of an old saying about government projects.
You hire an engineer to design it, a draftsman to draw it up, a technician to measure it out with a micrometer and then mark it a piece of chalk. Lastly, you hire an an ape to cut it with an axe. And that's just about how a "safe" prescribed burn goes.
How to get around this boondoggle? Hire people with courage to do the right thing. Give them the freedom and authority take responsibility for their decisions and then back them up. This would require a paradigm shift in the very culture of government service. Highly unlikely to ever happen. But, I'm just a cynical old man. What we have is not perfect, but it's better than many other parts of the world.