Future risk of wildfire and smoke in the South

(Press-News.org) Wildfire risks will continue to evolve as both society and forests change across the southeastern United States, according to a new report.

The report is one part of the Southern Forest Outlook, a project undertaken by the USDA Forest Service in partnership with the Southern Group of State Foresters to help forest managers and the public understand changing forest conditions in the South over the coming decades.

USDA Forest Service researcher Lars Pomara and his team first modeled and mapped current wildfire risks across the South, including risks to people from direct fire exposure and from indirect exposure to unhealthy smoke produced by wildfires. They also mapped risks posed by the most intense wildfires to carbon stored in forests, and to forest watersheds that supply drinking water to local communities.

The team then projected how these risks may change by the middle of this century, under a variety of scenarios representing plausible future societal, climatic and forest conditions. The modeled outcomes showed a lot of variation in risk changes across the region and among different future scenarios. Even the milder scenarios suggested that forests will be more prone to hazardous fire in many sub-regions such as the Southeastern Coastal Plain.

The Southeast continues to experience rapid population growth and development, including in rural and forested areas where neighborhoods may be near fire-prone forests—at the wildland-urban interface. As development interfaces with increasing fuel buildup resulting from fire suppression and changes in the frequency of fire-promoting weather, people are likely to become more exposed to dangerous fires and smoke.

The best tool we have for combatting fire is fire. Fire provides a myriad of benefits for forests, and many ecosystems require fire to function normally. Though high-intensity wildfires pose major risks to people, infrastructure and natural resources, prescribed fires, which are carefully planned and controlled burns carried out by trained professionals, allow us to balance these benefits and risks.

Prescribed fires burn at a low intensity to reduce available fuels and promote healthy forest growth. Reduced fuels and a more open forest translate to reduced likelihood of dangerous, intense wildfire in the future. Even where prescribed fire is impractical, mechanical methods for reducing fuels can help to manage wildfire risk.

“Forest management will be challenged in coming decades to confront the threats posed by wildfire while sustaining the positive roles of fire in southern forests,” says Pomara. “Anyone who is working in the Southeast in conservation or forest management needs to be able to prioritize work and point their resources at the places where they see opportunities to get the most efficient and effective work done, including wildfire risk management.”

To help meet this need, the research team also modeled and mapped the potential risk reductions that could be achieved with prescribed fire or other fuel reduction methods such as mechanical fuel treatments and fire-smart community planning. They found that in many landscapes, a sustained fuel management program might reduce wildfire risk enough to mostly offset expected future increases.

This report can help forest managers and planners determine where resources are best spent to support risk management approaches for a maximum return on investment to reduce risk to communities, watersheds and forest carbon.

Other findings of the report include:

Throughout the Southeast, forest conditions may become more like those in the western and southern parts of the South by mid-century, with a warmer climate where wildfire is more frequent. This could reduce the window of time each year when forest managers can safely implement prescribed fire, at least within traditional burn seasons. The southern Appalachian Mountains, Ozark Mountains, and isolated areas along the coastal plain also consistently showed an increase in risk of smoke emissions affecting populated areas, forest carbon loss, and potential impacts to important watersheds. Projected risks to people and structures were concentrated in areas dominated by wildland-urban interface. Understanding changes in socioeconomic factors that affect vulnerability to wildfire such as wealth, mobility, housing, and household composition will be important for anticipating and managing risks into the future. The Southern Forest Outlook team also worked with the Southern Group of State Foresters to produce a companion story map website that provides public access to map viewers, an overview of the assessment, and links to community risk management resources.

The fire report is the third of five in the Southern Forest Outlook. Reports focused on markets and water were published in 2024, and additional reports on forest change and a synthesis of overall findings are forthcoming.

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