Climate Change

Incendiary Rhetoric: Climate Change,Wildfire, and Ecological Fire Management is a guide intended to help forest and climate activists talk to broad audiences about wildfire in the era of climate change, in ways that are grounded in the best available fire and climate science and progressive fire management policy.

Agencies, organizations, and institutions in the wildland fire community will have to engage in an explicit pro-fire “pyroganda” campaign to help counter its historic anti-fire propaganda and inspire necessary changes in consciousness and behavior in the public and fire management workforce. As part and parcel of this effort, FUSEE proposes renaming wildland firefighters as fire rangers.

Wildre has been an integral part of western forests for thousands of years, but in recent decades conicts between people and re have increased dramatically. Climate change is bringing hotter, drier conditions to western forests, which is increasing re activity, and scientists predict that this trend will continue as the planet heats up. This guide is intended to help climate and forest activists understand the unique dynamics between forests, wildre, and climate so we can collectively chart a new path towards community resilience to the impacts of climate change. By modernizing our wildre policies, we can protect homes and communities while restoring the important role that re plays in the forest ecosystems of the American West.

Storymap depicting the threats the Jordan Cove Energy Project in Oregon would pose to communities and firefighters.