1164974 - Wildfire Risk Management: A Climate Friendly Alternative to Prescribed Burn

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) estimates that wildfires in 2020 generated more than 100 million metric tons of carbon dioxide and approximately 1.4 million tons of particulate matter. This has a significant impact on both the climate and on human health, and thus it is crucial to mitigate wildfire emissions so that they do not impede the progress being made by other climate strategies. Current state mitigation strategies include prescribed burn and other non-fire management strategies such as mastication, clear-cuts, harvests, and forest thinning. Prescribed burns utilize a deliberate, controlled burn of woody biomass in order to create fuel breaks, which are meant to reduce the risk of uncontrollable spread for any future wildfires in the area. While some researchers have estimated that this strategy is effective at reducing wildfire severity since it reduces tree mortality by over 30%, prescribed burn is also associated with high levels of greenhouse gas emissions, including those from short lived climate pollutants such as black carbon and methane. This analysis proposes a more climate-friendly alternative approach to prescribed burns, where the woody biomass is converted to renewable fuels for use in the transportation sector instead of being burned in place. This approach would not only reduce the risk of wildfires but could also provide up to 90% reduction in GHG emissions as compared to prescribed burns, thereby reducing the climate impacts of both wildfires and prescribed burns.