Protecting Homes, Not Policing Forests

Fire renews forests; politics destroys communities

Wildfire policy in the United States keeps making the same mistake: treating forests as the problem and communities as collateral damage. That mistake was on full display at the latest House Natural Resources Committee hearing on the Fix Our Forests Act (FOFA), framed as a response to the Los Angeles wildfires—even though those fires didn’t burn through forests.

Attendance was thin. Democrats barely showed—three members to seven Republicans—which was unfortunate because Dr. David Calkin, one of the nation’s most credible wildfire scientists, laid out why current policy keeps failing. Congress agreed wildfire is a real threat, communities are suffering, and federal response is inadequate. Where it went wrong—again—was in what lawmakers chose to do: log, thin, promote logging for forest biomass energy production, and carve out regulatory loopholes, while sidelining measures that actually reduce community risk.

Calkin Got the Problem Right

Dr. Calkin, fresh off a 23-year career as a senior wildfire scientist with the U.S. Forest Service, reframed the problem clearly: wildfire is not one issue, but two. First, the destruction of communities. Second, what policymakers often describe as the condition of landscapes—typically measured against the recent past. The two are related, but not the same, and they require different solutions.

Nearly every major community wildfire disaster of the past decade follows the same pattern: human-caused ignition, extreme fire weather, proximity to homes, and suppression capacity overwhelmed almost immediately. In this context, forest management does not save communities, nor is it even relevant to saving communities. Forests are wild ecosystems, not infrastructure projects—unmanageable in real time, much like Congress without term limits.

Calkin’s proposal represents a genuine paradigm shift: wildfire policy should move homeward-out, not forest-in. After decades of over-investing in suppression and backcountry logging under the guise of fire management, public resources should prioritize community-centered risk reduction—starting with the 40 percent of U.S. structures located in the wildland-urban interface.

Chasing Trees, Missing Houses

Despite this clarity, committee members returned to their comfort zone: thinning, logging, biomass energy, and regulatory shortcuts.

Rep. Tom McClintock claimed, without any evidence, environmental laws have caused the loss of “a quarter of our national forest” to “catastrophic” fire, arguing forests must either be mechanically “cleaned up” or “nature will burn it out.” That framing is misleading. Fires—even high-severity and stand-replacing events—are natural processes that maintain ecosystem function, carbon storage and sequestration, biodiversity, and forest regeneration. The real wildfire disasters occur when communities are impacted, and the real driver of community wildfire disasters is exposure: ember-driven, structure-to-structure ignition, a reality that the FOFA logging bill largely ignores.

Even when members acknowledged Calkin’s testimony, discussion drifted back to logging for dirty biomass energy production as a supposed solution. Calkin clarified that while he is not opposed to all forms of “fuels management”, it is not a silver bullet. Most of the material posing wildfire risk is non-merchantable, while federal logging projects focus on removing mature, fire-resistant trees. The real driver of home destruction is ember-driven, structure-to-structure ignition, which backcountry logging or biomass programs don’t prevent. FOFA’s efficiency claims collapse when measured against the risk that actually threatens people and property (FEMA: Natural Hazard Mitigation Saves Interim Report).

Fire Is Not Ecological Failure

Post-disturbance landscapes are not ecological voids; they are periods of intense renewal, supporting a rich abundance of native plants, insects, birds, and mammals that rely on complex early seral forest habitat. Fire reorganizes ecosystems—it does not erase them. Treating forests as failed systems in need of industrial correction reflects a political narrative, not ecological reality. The unknown in fire-adapted landscapes is not a problem to solve—it is a reality to respect. Nature regulates itself far more effectively than human hubris ever could.

The Pattern Is the Point

FOFA’s repeated hearings aren’t momentum—they’re insecurity. A bill that already passed the House over a year ago shouldn’t need to be endlessly re-sold, re-justified, and invoked after community wildfire disasters.

Insurance, timber, and biomass interests are actively lobbying on FOFA—and some were literally in the room. Meanwhile, community-first wildfire legislation that aligns with Calkin’s testimony—home hardening, defensible space, evacuation planning, emergency communications—languishes without hearings or floor time (H.R. 582, S. 3609, H.R. 948). That imbalance is not accidental; it reflects priorities, and industry campaign contributions to members of Congress.

The insurance industry looms especially large. One witness represented the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, which spent $5.6 million lobbying in 2024. Community resilience and safety, it seems, rank below stabilizing backcountry timber supply and insurance balance sheets.

The Truth Congress Keeps Skirting

The problem wasn’t scientific disagreement—it was structural bias. Agencies and lawmakers consistently highlight research that justifies aggressive logging, expanded suppression, or biomass extraction for dirty energy, while sidelining decades of work showing the ecological value of intact and post-disturbance forests. Science isn’t failing; the system it operates in is. Funding structures, agency mandates, and political pressure determine which findings are amplified and which disappear.

Calkin’s simple but radical point was this: making fire “go away” is impossible, but protecting communities from fire is achievable, if we focus there. Fire policy must be insulated from political cycles, and public lands require mixed-severity fire to function. FOFA fails not only because it focuses on so-called fire or fuels management; it also fails because it centers the backcountry wildlands while communities burn. Congress heard that truth clearly—and still lawmakers tried to “fix the forests” instead of preparing communities and centering the saving of lives and homes.

Take Action: The Senate is weighing two fundamentally different approaches to wildfire policy. Oppose S. 1462, the Fix Our Forests Act, which doubles down on backcountry logging and regulatory shortcuts while failing to address the primary drivers of community wildfire loss. Support S. 3609, the Community Protection and Wildfire Resilience Act, which prioritizes home hardening, defensible space, emergency planning, and community-level risk reduction—where the evidence shows lives and homes are actually saved.

Call your U.S. Senators at (202) 224-3121 and tell them: no on S. 1462, yes on S. 3609.