Wildfire Fear and the Business of Logging

Tomorrow, the House Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing titled The State of Our Nation’s Federal Forests. The title alone sets the tone: as if our forests are in crisis, waiting for Congress and industry to swoop in with chainsaws and prescriptions.

This isn’t the fault of a single administration or party. For decades, political and industry interests have used wildfire fear to push mechanical thinning and other logging under the guise of “forest health.” These policies betray both ecological integrity and public interest. We can only hope Democrats stop endorsing the ‘all the tools in the toolbox’ rhetoric, which reinforces business-as-usual forest management during these political theater performances.

Reality Check: Committee Memo Versus Science

1. Myth: “Forests have become dangerous tinderboxes.”
   Fact: Wildfire severity is driven by weather: heat, wind, and drought. Dense stands are natural in many ecosystems. In fire-adapted forests, even high-severity fire is part of the ecological cycle. These ecosystems are built to burn, regenerate, and thrive. Describing them as inherently hazardous ignores this reality.
2. Myth: “Policies will improve forest health and reduce fire severity.”
   Fact: If policymakers truly cared about fire severity, they would not be pushing active management. Mechanical thinning does not reliably reduce fire intensity and often increases severity. It kills more trees than wildfire and beetle outbreaks combined. Attempts to engineer severity out of fire-adapted systems reflect hubris. These ecosystems evolved with high- and low-intensity fire and recover naturally, even under shifting climate conditions. Logging and thinning also release more carbon than natural disturbances. This is not about forest integrity or resilience. It is extraction cloaked in the fear of fire.
3. Myth: “The Fix Our Forests Act will restore forest health and protect communities.”
   Fact: “Restoration” here is a euphemism for extraction. If protecting communities were the goal, investments would start from the community out through home hardening and defensible space. FEMA’s 2018 report shows every $1 spent there saves $3-4 in recovery costs. Forests are already fire-adapted; it is our human-built communities that are not. Logging does nothing to change that.
4. Myth: “Executive orders represent decisive wildfire leadership.”
   Fact: True leadership would prioritize strategies that protect people and save money. Instead, these orders push chainsaws and feller bunchers, focused on timber rather than safety.
5. Myth: “The forest products industry justifies this economically.”
   Fact: Outdoor recreation generates $1.2 trillion annually and supports 5 million jobs nationwide. In contrast, the U.S. forest products sector–including logging and wood products–generates $288 billion and employs roughly 950,000. A national-scale firewise economy focused on home hardening, defensible space, community infrastructure, and smoke mitigation centers could employ millions of local, long-term workers. It would generate far more economic value per tax dollar, protect communities, and allow forests to retain carbon, biodiversity, and natural resilience. Meanwhile, logging achieves none of these benefits and actively undermines them. Nearly 40 percent of Americans live within the wildland-urban interface, and mismanaged interventions in forests only make our fire-prone planet more flammable.

Active forest management is not about resilience. It is a longstanding effort to disguise extraction as ecological necessity. Fire-adapted landscapes manage themselves. Our priority must be protecting communities, not propping up extraction. Communities deserve policies rooted in science and economic sense, not fear and profit.

Call your Representative today and urge them to support the Community Protection and Wildfire Resilience Act (H.R. 582). If policymakers are genuinely concerned about wildfire, they must stop funneling resources into heavy-handed forest treatments and instead invest in protecting human communities.

© Jennifer Mamola