The Denver Gazette reports that the deaths of four firefighters on the Snyder Fire have reopened a very old and very uncomfortable argument about how America fights wildfires. On July 22, U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz told Congress the agency is pursuing “full suppression,” meaning fires should be attacked and contained while they are still small rather than sometimes being allowed to burn for ecological benefit.
Two days later, Nathan Matthews died from injuries suffered in the Snyder Fire, which had already killed fellow Rifle Helitack crew members Emily Barker, Nick Hutcherson and Sydney Watson. The crew had been sent into remote terrain during an initial attack operation. Winds were running 30 to more than 50 mph, fuel moisture was low, temperatures were near 100 degrees, and when conditions deteriorated, smoke prevented a helicopter from landing to extract them. The fire eventually burned over the crew’s position.
That does not prove “full suppression” killed anyone. The Gazette article does not establish that, and anybody pretending otherwise is getting way out over his skis. But four dead firefighters make one question impossible to dodge: when Washington declares that every fire gets aggressively suppressed, who decides when attacking that fire is worth putting human beings in front of it?
The Bullet Point Brief
- Washington says “full suppression” is the strategy. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins directed agencies to accelerate initial attack and suppress fires early before they grow. Sounds terrific on a memo. Fire, unfortunately, has not agreed to comply with the memo.
- The Snyder Fire shows how quickly “small” becomes something else entirely. Three fires started June 27 and eventually merged. High winds, dry fuels and near-100-degree temperatures turned the situation ugly fast. By the time extraction was requested, smoke made landing impossible and the crew was eventually overrun.
- The old suppression doctrine has baggage. The Forest Service once operated under its famous “10 a.m. Policy,” built around extinguishing new fires rapidly. Decades of aggressive suppression also helped leave some forests packed with dead wood and dense growth. Turns out removing every small fire from the landscape can create bigger problems later. Nature has an irritating habit of keeping receipts.
- The alternative is not “just let it burn.” Large fires threaten communities, hammer air quality, damage watersheds and can leave landscapes vulnerable to flooding and landslides. Colorado families living downwind or waiting on evacuation orders are unlikely to find much comfort in an ecological lecture while loading the horse trailer.
- And none of this works without enough experienced firefighters. The article describes federal staffing and resource shortages severe enough that managers have been warned not every fire will receive every requested resource. A doctrine promising aggressive suppression everywhere starts looking mighty ambitious when the government cannot reliably supply the people needed to execute it.
My Bottom Line
“Full suppression” cannot become another federal slogan that sounds decisive at a congressional hearing and gets substantially fuzzier when somebody asks what it means on a mountainside with 50 mph winds. If the policy is to hit every fire hard and early, then the people making that policy owe firefighters something considerably more useful than bureaucratic confidence. They owe them clear standards for when an attack proceeds, when conditions require backing off, who owns that decision, and whether anyone in Washington gets to second-guess a crew for refusing a bad bet.
The public bears some responsibility for this contradiction too. We want every puff of smoke smashed immediately. We also want healthy forests, fewer catastrophic fires, clean air, no prescribed-burning mishaps, no evacuation orders and firefighters kept perfectly safe. Splendid. While we are at it, perhaps the Forest Service can arrange rain every Tuesday. Wildfire policy is a series of tradeoffs, and pretending otherwise is how slogans replace judgment.
Colorado gets to live with the consequences. We get the smoke. We get the evacuation notices. We get forests loaded with fuel after decades of suppression. And, far too often, we send highly trained men and women into vicious terrain when weather, vegetation and fire behavior have already stopped caring about whatever policy was drafted in Washington.
Nobody should use these deaths as cheap ammunition for declaring that suppression is always wrong or that letting fires burn is always wise. The article does not support either conclusion. But four firefighters are dead, and “we pursue full suppression” is not an adequate answer. Tell us who makes the call. Tell us what safety standards govern it. Tell us when ecological benefit matters and when immediate containment wins. And most importantly, tell the firefighters carrying 120 pounds of gear into remote country that their lives rank higher than somebody’s determination to make a federal talking point come true.
Source: Denver Gazette
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