Report

On January 7 and 8, 2025, a series of wind-driven wildfires occurred in Los Angeles County in Southern California. Two of these fires ignited in dense woody chaparral shrubland and immediately burned into adjacent populated areas–the Palisades Fire on the coastal slopes of the Santa Monica Mountains and the Eaton fire in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains.

Wildfire activity has increased in the US and is projected to accelerate under future climate change. However, our understanding of the impacts of climate change on wildfire smoke and health remains highly uncertain. We quantify the past and future mortality burden in the US due to wildfire smoke fine particulate matter (PM2.5).

All wildfires in the United States are managed, but the strategies used to manage them vary by region and season. “Managed wildfire” is a response strategy to naturally ignited wildfires; it does not prioritize full suppression and allows the fire to fulfill its natural role on the landscape, meeting objectives such as firefighter safety, resource benefit, and community protection.

State, federal, tribal, and local government and non-profit partners in Washington have identified that prescribed fire – fire set by trained practitioners, under specific fuel, weather, and topographic conditions to simulate natural processes – is a necessary tool to improve the health of Washington’s forest lands and natural habitats for plants and animals, as well as a tool to reduce the ris

The National Association of State Foresters (NASF) and the Coalition of Prescribed Fire Councils (CPFC) worked collaboratively to produce the 2020 National Prescribed Fire Use Report. Since 2011, the two organizations have partnered to prepare triennial reports (in 2012, 2015, and 2018) on prescribed fire activity, state-level programs, and barriers to prescribed fire implementation.

The USGS Wildland Fire Science Strategic Plan (hereafter, Strategic Plan) was developed by USGS fire scientists and executive leadership, and was informed by discussions with external stakeholders.

This report focuses on a critical aspect of working towardscommunity fire adaptation: analyzing effective land use policy and regulatory solutions in thewildland-urban interface (WUI). The WUI is any area where the built and natural environmentscreate a set of conditions that allow for the ignition and continued spread of wildfire.

In 2019, Colorado State University entered into achallenge cost-share agreement with USFS Stateand Private Forestry to conduct independent researchon the implementation and developmentof Shared Stewardship efforts.

With exposure to wildland fire smoke projectedto further increase (Barbero et al. 2015) there is aclear need for efforts to better mitigate or adapt tosmoke impacts in high-risk areas. Such efforts relyon an understanding of how people perceive, planfor, and respond to smoke.

Wildfires were a frequent source of disturbance in forests of the Western United States prior to Euro-American settlement. Following a series of catastrophic wildfires in the Northern Rockies in 1910, the U.S. Forest Service adopted a broad wildfire suppression policy that has resulted in forests thick with small trees.