"Elemental"

Launching a deeper conversation about wildfire in the time of climate change. 

We want to thank everyone that came out to see the film Elemental. This is an important film about reimagining our relationship with wildfire that is being shown all over the West.

KS Wild co-sponsored the local premier of Elemental alongside partners because we need more meaningful conversations about wildfire in our communities. We have received many inquiries about our position on the topics presented in the film, which is more than welcome and we want to address these here. Even if you did not see the film, we hope you will find the following information useful as our communities continue to grapple with the challenges we will all face from climate-enhanced wildfire in the years ahead.

Home Hardening:

Elemental elevates a very important aspect of living in a fire prone landscape - we must do better to make our homes less prone to burning in a wildfire. There are simple steps we can take to harden homes and help prevent communities from burning to the ground in wildland and urban fires. Some steps are expensive, but many are affordable. Knowing we can take action is the very first step. Now we need policymakers to lean into this very difficult, but essential task of making communities less prone to burning in wildfire. 

 

Thinning and fuel reduction:

Thinning is a broad term that could include logging 300 year old fire adapted trees, or thinning could be logging trees in a 30 year old tree plantation making it more resilient to wildfire. There are countless types of thinning and fuel reduction projects; some help restore landscapes and some are harmful. KS Wild evaluates each project on its own merits, but here are some common elements to project that are either ecologically beneficial or aim to protect communities in the event of a wildfire: 

Reducing limbs, ladder fuels, and small dimension trees help reduce fuel loads and can reduce overall fire severity in forests.

  • Focus near communities, not in the remote backcountry 

  • Prioritize roadsides and ridge tops-these features are natural fire breaks

  • Large, older, and fire adapted trees are protected

  • Maintain shade in older, complex forests

  • Located in tree plantations

  • Involves authentic, collaborative community engagement

KS Wild not only endorses these types of projects, we support and advocate for climate resiliency funding that would advance even more of these types of projects. We are involved in collaborative efforts throughout the Klamath-Siskiyou to advance community protection and ecological restoration projects. 

 

A clear cut near London Peak.

Is thinning the same as clearcutting?

No. Industrial logging generally involves clearcutting, as that is the most efficient way to extract timber. As was shown in Elemental, industrial logging can increase fire severity as the dense tree crops planted after logging become fire prone tree plantations.

Even some thinning can be quite destructive, if it involves cutting large, mature trees. For example, the Bureau of Land Management (alongside the US Forest Service, BLM manages public forests) is currently cutting large trees all up and down the I-5 corridor in southern Oregon, and this is proven to increase rather than decrease wildfire severity.  

However, thinning that is targeting smaller trees and leaving behind larger, more fire resistant trees can be very helpful with one important caveat. Thinning must be followed up with prescribed fire, which is the ONLY way to ensure that a forest grove is in the best position when the inevitable wildfire comes to a forest. 

As presented in Elemental, thinning and prescribed fire might not always stop wildfire, especially climate-driven wildfires we are seeing today, but it can give firefighters a safe place to engage with wildfire. Thinning and prescribed fire can also help the forest in other ways, such as reducing the amount of big, old trees that die in a fire. Likewise, restoration treatments can increase the likelihood of the forest withstanding climate change pressures from heat and drought stress. 

 

A key takeaway: We need to continue having these important conversations.

Wildfire is not going away, but we can take steps to prepare. It will take all of us to better protect our communities from climate enhanced wildfires. Elemental reminded us that Indigenous people all over the world, and right in the Klamath-Siskiyou region, have tended landscapes with intentional fire for millennia. If we all engage in respectful dialog and action, we can reimagine our relationship with fire and with the landscape that surrounds us. 

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