A new set of papers reviews the established science on wildfires and forest management. In the three papers, the authors—which include several ecologists from the ERI and NAU’s School of Forestry—summarized more than 1,000 published papers covering more than a century of research and observations across a vast range of western North American forests.

These ambitious articles were inspired by the reality that wildfires and drought are now changing western North American forests at a magnitude and scale that jeopardizes ecological and social values. There is an urgent need to change current forest and wildfire management to better apply ecologically and scientifically credible approaches at a pace and scale that matches the scope of the problem.

These papers review the strength of the science on the benefits of adapting fire-excluded forests to a rapidly warming climate. The authors address 10 common questions, including whether management is needed after a wildfire, or whether fuel treatments (thinning, prescribed burning) work under extreme fire weather. They also discuss the need to integrate western fire science with traditional ecological knowledge and Indigenous fire uses that managed western landscapes for thousands of years.

Although climate change brings with it many uncertainties, the evidence supporting intentional forest adaptation is strong and broad based. The authors clearly demonstrate that lingering uncertainties about the future should no longer paralyze actions that can be taken today to adapt forests and communities to a warming climate and more fire.