A Carbon Conscious Plan for Wildfire Mitigation

A century of fire suppression, coupled with global warming and drought, has paved the way for increasingly destructive wildfires across the Western United States. Forest managers have long employed methods such as prescribed burns, thinning, mastication, and piling and burning to reduce the accumulation of fuels—everything from live and dead trees to needles, leaves, and branches. These techniques aim to lower fuel levels, reduce crown density, and protect fire-resistant trees, ultimately fostering healthier, more resilient forests.

Yet, despite these efforts, prescribed burns have not kept pace with the rapid buildup of surface fuels, creating a “fire deficit” that heightens the risk of severe wildfires. Moreover, while controlled burns are essential for fuel management, they can sometimes escape control, degrade air quality, and pose serious health risks—issues that have already contributed to respiratory illnesses and even fatalities in regions like the Pacific Northwest.

Adding to these challenges, human activities such as deforestation and logging—combined with pests, drought, and high-severity wildfires—diminish forests’ natural ability to absorb and store carbon, a critical factor in mitigating climate change. Indigenous peoples have long managed these landscapes through controlled, low-severity burns and sustainable harvesting practices. Building on this legacy, researchers are now exploring the physical harvesting of dead wood without combustion as a dual strategy to reduce wildfire risks and lower carbon emissions.

Scientists from Florida Atlantic University simulated eight forest management treatments in the Sierra Nevada, including thinning, physical removal of surface fuels, and prescribed burning—alone and in combination. Their findings indicate that coupling physical harvesting with thinning significantly reduces wildfire risks and tree mortality while lowering carbon emissions through the production of biochar, a stable carbon-storing product which has a wide array of applications from agriculture, to building materials, to water filtration. This approach could restore resilient forests and generate valuable carbon credits, offering a promising pathway for future wildfire management.