I envision a future where our collective understanding of fires and forest ecology is improved. The media tends to portray forest fires in a negative light through the dispersal of fear-inducing images: cars trying to escape a forest burning all around them; people covering their mouths to avoid inhaling plumes of smoke; and communities evacuating their towns to avoid being killed. While these impacts of fires are very much real, the portrayal of purely negative information about fires is exacerbating the problem. I value a world where hope trumps fear since fear usually leads ineffective actions.
Fire management today largely uses the suppression of fires as a way to deal with fires, but this doesn't work. By putting off our need to deal with the problem through "fighting" fires, we are increasing the chances for even more devastating and less controllable fires to ravage the ecosystems and communities we love.
To break the cycle of fire suppression and increased potential for worse fires, we need to be more accepting of the fact that fires are a necessary process for forests to thrive. Two action items are needed: (1) we need to educate others about the importance of fires; and (2) we need to governments to allocate more resources to forest management that includes controlled burns and the collection of excess deadfall.
I think the fire suppression points you brought up are very crucial but I wonder if it would be enough to help the issue with the continues worsening of climate change. I think climate change needs to be reduced to truly break the cycle.
Hi Sarah, I agree with your 2 action items: to educate others about the importance of fires as well as allocating resources to forest management such as more controlled burns and collection of excess deadfall.
I think you description of negative imagery putting a bad name on forest fires is so true! It reminds me of how shark week and shark-based horror movies put a bad name on shark conservation. Changing to narrative surrounding forest fires would definitely be a meaningful place to start!
Hi Sarah, I agree with everything you've said above. The media plays a huge role in the way the world perceives the role of wildfires in our ecosystems. I actually didn't learn about the normal and healthy role of wildfires in forest ecosystems until my third year of university, in an ecology class that most non-biology or non-environmental science students wouldn't even get to enroll in. This supports the point you are making about how there is a big lack of education around wildfires, especially in BC where they are so frequent.
Hi Sarah thank you for sharing! I agree and the government, parks departments and the fire department should be involved in the action items your mentions including education to eliminate fear and support the idea of controlled preventative fires as well as work on forest management tactics which also includes more conscientious planting that builds self-sustaining forests and ecosystems (no more monocultures that are planted close together but rather polycultures that live in harmony including heat-resistant and heat-sensitive plants together). Thanks again for the great post!
Sarah, thank you so much for speaking about how the media misrepresents fires! Each and every one of us interacts with media in some way, and it has a massive influence on our thinking. Changing the way that fires are portrayed is super important and can help educate the public about the truth!
Great post! It is very interesting how we, as a society, are scared enough of fire to not embrace the use of controlled burns as a management technique and yet this action is what would save us from more fires in the long run. There definitely needs to be a shift in optics.
Educating people about the importance of forest fires and having the government contribute more to forest management is definitely a great and effective way to lower the chances of devastating fires occurring.