Mitigating increasing wildfire risk through fuel break innovations

A warming climate and expanding wildland urban interface are escalating wildfire risk to human life and property in the boreal forests of western North America. To address this heightened risk, fuel breaks, which reduce fuels and enhance tactical use by firefighters, are increasingly being installed around northern communities. However, the current design and implementation of fuel breaks have social and ecological trade-offs that undermine wider acceptance and adoption. Creative fuel break designs could address these trade-offs by supporting complementary activities with ecological and socio-economic values—termed co-benefits—while maintaining tactical use for wildfire operations. Here, we report results from public listening sessions that recorded desired co-benefits from boreal residents. Through collaboration among scientists, land managers, and local communities, we developed four operationally plausible, innovative fuel break scenarios that provide these co-benefits. Fuel breaks with co-benefits can provide multiple needed services to communities across the region, helping them adapt to a rapidly changing climate.