Twenty-one Colorado environmental groups have signed a letter asking federal, state, county and some municipal elected officials to “engage with peer-reviewed studies from wildfire scientists” questioning millions of acres of so-called “wildfire fuel reduction” logging proposed for the state.
The 21 organizations — ranging from climate (350 Colorado) to wildlands protection (WildEarth Guardians) to wildlife (seven Audubon Society chapters) to watersheds (Colorado Headwaters) — point to a large and growing body of scientific studies, including from the University of Colorado, that challenge “the reasoning for and effectiveness of” this logging when it comes to protecting communities. These findings are “almost entirely ignored” by policymakers such as U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and Rep. Joe Neguse and agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service, Colorado State Forest Service, and County Parks and Open Space.
For example, a 2021 study in Ecological Applications concluded that tree removal “can lead to increased surface wind speed and fuel heating, which allows for increased rates of fire spread.” Even light “thinning” followed by prescribed fire (as opposed to fire alone) “may increase the risk of fire by increasing sunlight exposure to the forest floor, drying vegetation, promoting understory growth, and increasing wind speeds,” the study found.
In fact, the entire industry/agency narrative of overgrown forests coupled with unusual high-severity wildfire has been contested by multiple studies finding that Western forests prior to fire suppression did grow densely and did routinely experience high-severity wildfire.
For instance, a 2023 study in the journal Fire found that “abundant independent sources … agreed that historical dry forests [including in Colorado] were highly variable in tree density and included a substantial area of dense forests.” While a 2014 study in the Library of Science journal PLoS One determined that, across 54 sampled sites in Front Range forests, “81% showed mixed- and high-severity fire effects … prior to fire suppression,” while above 6,000 feet “fire severities prior to any fire exclusion effects was sufficient to kill high percentages of mature trees.”
Indeed, what we’re learning is that the largest wildfires (the vast majority of them human-caused) aren’t the result of density of “fuels” (aka trees) but high temperatures, drought and wind. And, as documented in the letter, the only proven way to protect communities is through “home hardening measures such as installing non-flammable roofs, screening vents, and maintaining defensible space … with 100 feet around structures as an outside limit.”
Yet nearly every national forest, state wildlife area, county open space and mountain park in Colorado has either undergone or is slated to undergo this logging, which can include road building, clear-cutting and the removal of mature and old-growth trees.
For example, the Forest Service is targeting 3.5 million acres of the Front Range in the Arapaho, Roosevelt, Pike and San Isabel national forests, while Jefferson County Open Space claims it’s “feasible” to log up to 25,000 acres across 32 public parks.
Our letter also notes a controversial emergency action, under Section 40807 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, which allows the Forest Service to rush logging projects and bypass certain legal reviews and challenges from environmental advocates. The newest of these is the 116,000-acre “Lower North South Vegetation Management” in the Pike National Forest, 18,500 acres of which falls inside protected Colorado Roadless Areas.
Finally, the letter points out how protecting Colorado’s forests from logging is one of the state’s “simplest, cheapest, and most effective carbon sequestration and storage strategies to slow climate change.” Meanwhile, our government officials and agencies are dragging us in the opposite direction by chopping down our best climate buffers.
And let’s not forget that all this logging is being financed by us taxpayers.
During an economic crisis where many struggle with skyrocketing food and housing costs, members of Colorado’s Congressional delegation have proposed bills that would spend up to $60 billion more across the West on this carbon-spewing, biodiversity-destroying logging that not only won’t protect communities from wildfires but can increase the danger.
Josh Schlossberg lives in Boulder and is the Colorado organizer for the national Eco-Integrity Alliance.
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