BLM Proposes 11,000 Miles Of Fuel Breaks To Combat Great Basin Wildfires

The Bureau of Land Management announced a proposal Friday that would fund up to 11,000 miles of strategic fuel breaks in Idaho, Oregon, Washington, California, Nevada and Utah in an effort to better control wildfires. According to the BLM, the concept behind fuel breaks or “firebreaks” is to create gaps in vegetation in key locations to slow the process of a wildfire. When a wildfire burns into a fuel break, the flame length decreases and its progress slows, making it safer and easier for firefighters to control. The proposed plan would help control wildfires within a 223 million-acre area in the Great Basin states. All of the proposed fuel breaks would be implemented along existing roads or rights of way on BLM lands in order to minimize the disturbance and habitat fragmentation for wildlife. According to the agency, it has assessed more than 1,200 fuel breaks and other types of fuel treatments that intersect with wildfires — since 2002, 78% of them were effective in helping to control wildfires, and 84% of them were effective in helping change fire behavior. The whole goal of the project is to conserve sagebrush communities, according to Jennifer Jones, a spokesperson for BLM. The agency reports over 13.5 million acres of historically sagebrush communities on BLM land burned within the project area between 2009 and 2018. Wildfires that consume sagebrush give an opportunity for invasive annual grasses to increase, making future severe wildfires more likely...MORE