After 25 years, it’s fair to ask whether the Roadless Rule is effectively protecting forests and nearby communities in this era of megafires.
The stakes have changed considerably in the past quarter century. More than 44 million homes are now located in the Wildland Urban Interface, where forests and communities intersect. The WUI encompasses about one-third of all housing nationwide.
As more people and communities live next to fire-prone forests, federal policy needs to give land managers the tools and access they need to reduce wildfire risks before they start.
The Roadless Rule generally prohibits construction and reconstruction of roads across millions of acres of national forests, with an exception for imminent threat of fire or other catastrophic event. Those restrictions prevent Forest Service professionals from implementing thinning, fuels reduction and other management projects that may be needed to proactively address unhealthy and overstocked forest conditions and wildfire risk.
Rescinding the Roadless Rule would not mandate new logging or roadbuilding. However, it would allow the Forest Service to consider, on a case-by-case basis, whether access and management are appropriate based on conditions on the ground. Individual projects would still have to comply with existing forest plans.
That is important context for The Seattle Times’ recent editorial opposing rescission of the Roadless Rule. (“Keep Roadless Rule that protects U.S. forests from humans,” Aug. 24). The Northwest Forest Plan has governed federal forests across Western Washington, Oregon and Northern California since 1994.
Nearly 80% of federal forests within the Northwest Forest Plan area are already restricted from forest management through Wilderness designations, Late Successional Reserves and Riparian Reserves. The Roadless Rule was layered over that framework seven years later.
Rescinding it would leave those land allocations in place while giving Forest Service professionals greater flexibility to treat forests where the Northwest Forest Plan allows management.
That flexibility matters when so much of our public lands are at risk of severe disturbance. Washington provides a good example of the scale of the challenge. The Washington Department of Natural Resources has identified at least 2.7 million acres of unhealthy forest in Central and Eastern Washington that need treatment. Forest policy should give land managers more ability to access and address unhealthy conditions before wildfire determines what these landscapes look like for the next century.
Supporters of the Roadless Rule often point to research suggesting that wildfire ignitions occur more frequently near roads. Yet Forest Service roads needed for management or emergency response do not have to remain open to unrestricted public travel. Gates and seasonal closures can reduce human access while preserving routes that firefighters and forest managers may need.
Road access, even primitive access, can be critical when a wildfire starts. Roads allow firefighters to reach fires and move equipment safely while providing tactical locations for suppression operations. They also provide access for fuels treatments before a fire occurs.
That’s why the same research cited by The Times showing higher ignition rates near roads also recognizes that roads provide access for firefighters and can support effective fire suppression.
The Forest Service reports that more than 40% of the Inventoried Roadless Areas affected by its proposal have high or very high wildfire hazard potential. Only 5% have received hazardous fuels treatments since 2014.
Healthy forests require active management, and effective management requires access. Forest conditions looked very different 25 years ago, and it makes sense to question whether a nationwide rule written in 2001 still serves our forests and the growing number of communities nearby. It’s time to rescind the Roadless Rule and give Forest Service professionals greater flexibility to respond to rapidly changing conditions on the ground while continuing to work within existing forest plans.
