In order to deal with an increasing number of wildfires that were starting along Interstate 84 southeast of Boise, Idaho the Bureau of Land Management worked with local cooperators to establish a fuel modification program along the highway.
Their first action, from 2007 to 2012, was to reduce the existing vegetation by mowing, constructing fuel breaks, and establishing perennial grasses to reduce invasive annuals in the right of way adjacent to the interstate. It is a small sample size but during this period there was little significant change in the annual acres burned, average fire size, or the number of fires.
During the next seven years, from 2013 to 2019, the treatment strategy also included reestablishment of the gravel apron along the edge of the pavement surface to a minimum of 12 feet. The implementation required years of adaptive management and hard work, but the effort is producing results: average fire size for the last seven years has been reduced 95 percent even though traffic flow increased by more than 30 percent.
Images and graphics: BLM
My motto is “Prevention is more effective and less costly than cure.” Here is a good example of that truth.