In response to the Los Angeles wildfires, US lawmakers brought the Fix Our Forests Act (FOFA) to Congress in January 2025.
The bill supposedly aims to reduce the instance and impact of wildfires like those seen in California throughout January. However, closer inspection reveals that it will not only be ineffective but could potentially exacerbate the issue of wildfires.
By thinning forests, the land management practices recommended by the bill could increase the fuel for forest fires and the likelihood of the sun sparking a fire. Slashing deforestation protections could also exacerbate climate change and the extreme weather events that trigger devastating wildfires.
Wildfires in California have sparked bipartisan political action
On 16 January 2025, two Republican congressmen reintroduced a Biden-era bill to the House of Representatives, claiming it would combat the frequency and severity of wildfires across the US. The Fix Our Forests Act intends to achieve this goal by “expediting environmental analyses, reducing frivolous lawsuits, and [increasing] the pace and scale of forest restoration projects.” Essentially, it will reduce barriers to forest thinning. This is a form of mechanical forest treatment where fuel sources like low branches or densely packed trees are removed to stop fires from spreading.
The LA wildfires, which lasted from 7 January to 31 January 2025, briefly united the US. The fires resulted in at least 29 fatalities, hundreds of people being made homeless, 200,000 people being evacuated, and over 57,000 acres of land being burned. The factors that led to the fire included severe drought, high wind, and poor urban planning. The devastation wrought by the fires has brought reforming forest management to the top of the political agenda.
The Fix Our Forests Act could facilitate massive forest loss
Despite the virtuous stated goals of the bill, many critics of the FOFA claim it is merely a logging bill in disguise. The bill will seriously undermine and defang the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), and the National Historical Protection Act (NHPA)—not to mention the judicial system itself.
Massive swathes of forested land will be exempt from these acts’ jurisdiction, many land management projects involving forest thinning will only be subject to environmental review after the project has been completed, and the objection period for these land management projects will be cut from six years to 120 days.
Essentially, the bill will remove legal and public oversight from forest-clearing. But this could have the inadvertent effect of increasing wildfire risk.
Forest thinning will not prevent wildfires—it might exacerbate them
The Fix Our Forest Act’s efforts to prevent fires centres on the practice of forest thinning. This supposedly creates fuel breaks in the landscape, preventing the fire from travelling. However, this approach ignores the fact that extreme weather events, not fuel availability, are the primary catalyst for forest fires like those seen in LA.
In fact, forest thinning can increase the likelihood of wildfires. Many forest thinning projects are performed poorly, with combustible material left on the forest floor after being felled. But even when the projects go entirely to plan, increasing the sun exposure of the forest floor can increase the likelihood of a spark occurring. More sunlight can also promote the rapid growth of flammable vegetation close to the forest floor.
The FOFA’s potential to accelerate climate change also adds another layer of risk. Trees remove carbon directly from the air and then store it for decades in their roots and trunks. This process is called carbon sequestration.
Therefore, deforestation not only releases carbon that has historically been stored in trees but also prevents those trees from being able to sequester more carbon in the future. By undermining guardrails that prevent deforestation, the FOFA could drive climate change, increasing the frequency of extreme weather events that lead to forest fires.
