Wildfires

The National Forest Service will receive $490 million to prevent catastrophic wildfires across 11 fire prone landscapes. In Idaho, 1.5 million acres will be targeted in the Nez Perce-Clearwater Lower Salmon area.

With the largest wildfire in state history, it’s no surprise New Mexico claimed the second spot with almost 900,000 acres burned. Idaho ranked fifth with about 440,000 acres.

A new study reveals that publicly traded companies in the West rarely disclose risks posed by wildfires in their federal filings.

Wildfires are growing larger and more destructive across the West due to climate change. Yet more people than ever are moving to fire-prone spaces near forests and grasslands. Some of the fastest housing growth in these areas is happening in the Mountain West.

The location and proximity of homes destroyed in the Marshall Fire highlight the importance of fire mitigation efforts while building – and the possible long-term saving in planning for fire.

Researchers found that those wildfires increase the “occurrences of heavy precipitation rates by 38%” in our region, according to their work in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A recent webinar discussed the costs of fire mitigation, home insurance, the need for better communication with homeowners living in the WUI, and how towns can put this information into practice.

The Center for American Progress published a pair of reports this month highlighting funding challenges for rural areas in the context of climate resilience, offering recommendations for how decision-makers can better design federal programs to be more inclusive of rural communities as disasters like wildfires and floods become more frequent.

A new study shows wildfires are burning more high-elevation areas, and that’s impacting the snowpack across the West.

The team of forest service specialists evaluate burned areas for risk of further damage. So far, they've found a lot of positive news in the burn scar of the Ross Fork fire.