NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 48

THE VIEW
Wildfire by Michele Steinberg
A Letter to D.C.
ARE YOU THERE, CONGRESS? IT'S ME, MICHELE. I'D LIKE TO TAKE A MINUTE OF
YOUR TIME TO DISCUSS THE NATION'S WILDFIRE CHALLENGE.
Dear 119th Congress,
It's January 3, and you are starting fresh
in your first session. Welcome! A previous
Congress left you with both an opportunity
and a challenge. By commissioning a
set of recommendations-which became
the " On Fire " report from the Wildland
Fire Mitigation and Management Commission-your
predecessors provided you
with an opportunity to solve one of the
nation's most complex emerging threats.
Your challenge is not to appoint a fire
czar, nor to study the problem further.
Your challenge, and your opportunity,
is to act on these recommendations
through the power invested in you as
our elected representatives.
I'm sure that on Day One you have a
lot on your legislative plate, and you may
wonder why you should care about wildfire.
Regardless whether your jurisdiction
is rural or urban, you are still affected
when wildfires impact the built environment.
The air, drinking water, open
space, electrical and gas infrastructure,
roads, bridges, and even the soil under
our feet can be degraded, damaged, or disabled by extreme wildfire
events. Grassland fires have destroyed thousands of miles
of fence lines, killed valuable livestock, and imperiled the livelihoods
of ranchers and farmers. This is in addition to an annual
average of 7,000 structures destroyed, thousands of people rendered
homeless, and scores of tragic deaths of both residents and
the firefighters who try to protect them in unimaginably dangerous
conditions. A wildfire hundreds of miles away can affect your
constituents both physically and financially; all of us pay when
wildfire disasters occur. Whether through billions of dollars in
insured losses or through our taxes for emergency aid, debris
clearing, hazardous waste cleanup, sheltering, rehabilitating
burned lands, and rebuilding communities, everyone is affected
by wildfire's outsized impacts on vulnerable communities.
The recommendations we gave you in the " On Fire " report-all
148 of them-are multifaceted and interconnected, just like the
48 | NFPA JOURNAL * WINTER 2024
A wildfire hundreds
of miles away
can affect your
constituents both
physically and
financially; all of us
pay when wildfire
disasters occur.
complicated problem they address. While
it's tempting to focus on one or two, your
challenge is to look at all of them. The
report's recommendations fall into several
main themes, and one I can't emphasize
enough is that we must shift from being
reactive to proactive. Fire suppression
alone cannot prevent wildfire destruction;
trying to save properties once a wildfire
starts is like trying to save grains of sand on
a beach in a tsunami. The costs of suppression,
cleanup, rehabilitation, and recovery
for every large incident vastly outweigh
the piecemeal and puny investments in
preparedness and mitigation. We can
and must plan for wildfires in ways that
don't leave the fates of our communities
to chance. Mitigation works, and it is time
our federal policies and regulations align
with proven safety solutions.
It is equally important for our government
to invest in resilience. Appropriations
should match the size and scale of the wildfire
disaster problem, giving agencies the
means to implement the key policies that
you put in place. Fortunately, there are
many agencies with multiple programs addressing some aspect of
wildfire risk reduction. By ensuring interagency collaboration and
directing agencies to include the input of state and local governments,
organizations and communities can save money and time
by eliminating duplication of effort and enhancing cross-boundary
work for more effective implementation.
Earlier lawmakers began the work of shaping these recommendations
into policy, and it is up to you to bring it to a
fruitful conclusion. It is my sincere hope that I can soon congratulate
you on a job well done in changing future wildfire
outcomes for communities throughout the nation.
Yours in wildfire safety,
Michele
MICHELE STEINBERG is director of Wildfire at NFPA.
FROM NFPA'S
WILDFIRE DIVISION
MICHAEL HOEWELER
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NFPA Journal - Winter 2024
