Skip to content

Saturday, Oct. 3, 2020

Has the US Forest Service changed its firefighting tactics over time?

Esther Tsvayg, Gigafact
yes

U.S. Forest Service firefighting tactics have evolved over the last century, from complete suppression to a more balanced approach.

For decades, the agency emphasized complete suppression. In 1935, the service instituted the “10 AM Policy," which stipulated that all human-caused fires were to be contained and suppressed by 10 a.m. the morning after they were reported. As scientists and policymakers learned more about how wildfires benefit ecosystems, tactics changed. In 1971, the service implemented the 10-Acre Policy, which allowed fires to burn as long as they were contained within ten acres.

In 1978, the Forest Service moved toward a philosophy of fire management rather than complete suppression. Today, this "let-burn" approach is balanced against concerns about air quality, exurban sprawl, and animal habitats.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

About fact briefs

Fact briefs are bite-sized, well-sourced explanations that offer clear "yes" or "no" answers to questions, confusions, and unsupported claims circulating online. They rely on publicly available data and documents, often from the original source. Fact briefs are written and published by Gigafact contributor publications.

See all fact briefs

Between 2020 and 2022, under close editorial supervision, Gigafact contracted a group of freelance writers and editors to test the concepts for fact briefs and provide inputs to our software development process. We call this effort Gigafact Foundry. Over the course of these two years, Gigafact Foundry writers published over 1500 fact briefs in response to claims they found online. Their important work forms the basis of Gigafact formats and editorial guidelines, and is available to the public on Gigafact.org. Readers should be aware that while there is still a lot of relevant information to be found, not all fact briefs produced by Gigafact Foundry reflect Gigafact's current methods and standards for fact briefs. If you come across any that you feel are out of date and need to be looked at with fresh eyes, don't hesitate to contact us at support@gigafact.org.

Learn More

Latest Fact Briefs

Be a Friend of facts

Help us fund more great fact briefs like this one.