By Charlotte Curlin | US Environmental Policy Student
In Southern California, wildfires raged uncontrollably for the first few months of 2025. Entire neighborhoods were wiped out, and dozens of lives were taken; those who kept their lives lost most everything else. President Donald Trump has attempted to address California’s wildfire problem by issuing an order to increase logging across the United States. While I agree with the initiative he is showing to improve fire management, logging is neither a productive nor climate-friendly solution. Instead, the US should focus on prescribed burning to promote healthier forest ecosystems.
The Science Behind Wildfires
To explain how wildfires occur, it is key to look at California’s weather patterns. California’s warm, dry climate with limited rainfall is heavily susceptible to rapidly-spreading wildfires because the forest’s vegetation has been starved of the water it needs to defend itself. El Niño and La Niña, the natural cycles that cause shifts in ocean temperatures and rainfall, impact the areas of the US at highest wildfire risk depending on the season. During El Niño, North American coasts become warmer which shifts the jet stream southward, causing dry heat in the Pacific Northwest and in Canada; this leads to greater likelihood of wildfires in states like Colorado. During La Niña, the southwestern US experiences extreme droughts and strong winds; this is typically when major wildfires occur in California.[1] California’s 2025 wildfires were sparked by a perfect storm: a record dry year that led to intense drought conditions, La Niña forecasts already predicting dry weather from January to April, and the Santa Ana winds whipping through the state’s mountains and valleys at speeds of up to 100 miles per hour.[2] While wildfires are part of California’s natural ecosystem, I argue that they must be managed properly so they do not destroy so many lives. Once the first forest fire caught in 2025, it spread like never before.
President Trump’s Problematic Wildfire Management
To manage these wildfires, President Trump has prescribed logging as the optimal solution. While climate change has contributed to dry conditions and exacerbated wildfire intensities, Trump does not promote climate change regulations that would reduce drought conditions – in fact, his pattern of climate denialism and continued partnership with oil and gas CEOs points to the fact that he is not likely to consider the climate’s long-term health in his decision making.[3] In executive order 14225, “Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production,” Trump asserts that increased timber production has dual benefits: it shifts timber production away from foreign reliance and onto America’s soil, and it limits the excess of trees that he sees as worsening forest fires.[4]
Trump’s plan for wildfire management relies on the belief that “heavy-handed Federal policies” have caused an inability to conduct “forest management and wildfire risk reduction projects”.[5] He claims that since the US currently preserves much of its federally owned forests, these forests are mismanaged and therefore catch fire more frequently and more intensely. His executive order follows the logic of his belief that less trees in US forests would make it more difficult for a rampant fire to spread. This plan has gained support from many, including the American Forest Resource Council, an organization which acknowledges that forests are currently mismanaged and views this as a viable solution for reducing overgrowth while boosting American production.[6]
Logging, a key component of deforestation, worsens forest fires. As forests are weakened from excessive tree-cutting, so are their natural mechanisms to prevent wildfires.[7] Deforestation has occurred throughout American history to clear land for more homes, farms, and businesses, and the resultant wood is used for countless consumer products. Consumers still rely on wood and President Trump wants US production to remain within US borders, as he makes clear through his aforementioned executive order. Humans have continuously prioritized the economy’s advancement over the preservation of our natural land, but the argument that logging can help forest management is false for many reasons.
Firstly, logging reduces the natural habitats many endangered species rely upon to keep their populations intact. As a result of logging, forests become more sparse, lose their shaded canopies, become unviable species habitats, become exposed to the sun and drought conditions, and dry up; this dryness makes them more vulnerable to wildfires. Additionally, an emptier tree canopy allows wind to flow more freely, making it easier for fires to spread. The debris remaining on the forest floor after deforestation, especially when dried up from increased sunlight, is also perfect fuel for wildfires.[8] Lastly, trees release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere when they are cut down; this increase in fossil fuel levels worsens air quality and causes higher temperatures (which creates forest fire conditions).[9]
The Optimal Wildfire Management Solution
President Trump’s statement that fire management tactics must improve is correct, but the tactic must not involve cutting down more trees for logging because it is ineffective. The current prominent fire management tactic is fire suppression, which benefits humans until their entire neighborhood is destroyed in a fire that becomes uncontrollable because it was suppressed for too long. Fire suppression allows forests to become overgrown and fails to eliminate invasive species that light aflame easily. Proper fire management should rely on prescribed fire burning, which allows a low-impact fire to spread across the forest floor to maintain the ecosystem by eliminating excess brush. This revitalizes the natural landscape of a forest that is designed to burn in a regular pattern, allowing the plant life that thrives in this environment to survive through a prescribed burn.[10] Prescribed fire management makes wildfires far less catastrophic by limiting their fuel. Instead of eliminating trees wholly from the forest landscape through logging, the excess brush that forms uncontrollable wildfires should be eliminated through prescribed burning. States like California face natural cycles of wildfire conditions, but US wildfire management policy can be influential in making wildfire seasons better or worse. The people of our nation can wait no longer before the government makes significant changes towards better managing wildfires; the government should not, however, should not move forward with Trump’s plan for logging as a fire prevention tactic. On a wildfire-specific level, the US must improve fire management by limiting suppression and encouraging prescribed burning. On a more comprehensive level, the US must enact improved climate change mitigation policies that would he
[1] Wang, S. (2014, August 27). How might El Niño affect wildfires in California? NOAA Climate.Gov.
[2] Drought Status Update for California-Nevada. (2025, January 16). NOAA Drought.Gov.
[3] Study Finds Climate Change to Blame For Record-Breaking California Wildfires. (2023, August 8). NOAA
Drought.Gov.
Mulvey, K. (2025, January 8). Climate Science Deniers and Fossil Fuel Greenwashing: Danger in Trump’s Second
Term. Union of Concerned Scientists: the Equation.
[4] Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production. (2025, March 1). The White House.
[5] Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production. (2025, March 1). The White House.
[6] AFRC Responds to President Trump’s Executive Orders on U.S. Timber and Lumber Production. (2025, March 3).
American Forest Resource Council.
[7] Schick, T & Burns, J. Despite what the logging industry says, cutting down trees isn’t stopping catastrophic
wildfires. (2020, October 31). Oregon Public Broadcasting.
[8] Weise, E. et al. (2025, March 8). Trump’s plan to cut down more trees faces a host of problems. USA Today.
[9] Raman, S. (2023, April 4). Here’s how deforestation is raising the risk of wildfires in Borneo. World Economic
Forum.
[10] Ask an Expert: Why is Prescribed Fire Important? (2021, November 22). NC State University College of Natural Resources.
Great blog post! The devastation brought from wildfire is a very important issue to address both in the U.S. and internationally. Although intuitively one would assume that less trees would decrease wildfires, it was interesting to learn all the ways that logging can actually increase wildfire risk by creating more conditions for fires. I wonder what the future value of increasing logging as suggested from President Trump’s executive order is, considering the increased wildfire risks you described from deforestation. Although the immediate economic value may be significant, the infrastructure, natural resource, wildlife and human health loss from increasing logging would significantly outweigh the monetary benefit. Additionally, prescribed burns offer a great alternative to the logging suggestions especially considering the use of prescribed burn by indigenous groups in the past for forest preservation. There are examples of prescribed burns currently like in the Duke Forest. This makes me wonder whether Trump considers these long-used practices when recommending solutions to wildfires or if his policies are mainly focused on economic gain.