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 help bring regular rainfall back
[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.
Hi Charlotte! This is a great discussion of policy surrounding wildfires, and I certainly agree with the stances you have made here about prescribed burns and rejecting logging as a solution. This is part of why it is so important to have stakeholder input when it comes to policy making because prescribed fires are something that indigenous communities have been doing for a long time and understanding their methods to fire management that has gone back ages would allow for implementation of policy that would curb fire issues and preserve the natural ecosystems. Tribes native to the California region such as the Yurok, Miwok, and many others have used controlled fires as means of land stewardship, but this was actually outlawed even before California became a state , because members of early nation forest services saw this as destructive behavior, ignoring the voices of local tribes trying to explain the cultural and environmental significance of doing so. Now, the act of prescribed burns is more recognized and has been slowly adapted and promoted and indigenous fire practitioners have worked with branches of organizations like the Nature Conservancy to understand and train individuals on the practice. But, as you mentioned with Trump’s new executive order, the wrong approach is being taken and showcases a prioritization of economic gain rather than environmental stewardship and preservation of life. Instead of looking to those who have had very close relationships with the land since before the Americas were colonized, the fresh policy turns to industry as the answer, unfortunately. Thanks for commenting on this issue, and pointing out these flaws in the newest approach – issues such as removal of critical habitat for species like the barred owl and concerns about cutting down so many trees for timber affecting the forests sequestering carbon also shows a lack of environmental consideration.
This post was very informative, and I enjoyed it a lot. I knew that logging wasn’t the right answer to forest management, but hadn’t understood all of the reasons why. I think people sometimes tend to discount the impact of wind, especially because one might think that wind could extinguish a fire. But on the scale of a forest fire, wind only serves to make the blaze spread farther and faster. What seems to best support the prescribed burn method is the buildup of leaf litter on the ground. With any sort of fire suppression, the dry organic matter that piles on the ground makes for perfect kindling to start and spread a fire. Logging, as you noted, would likely only increase the amount of these materials. Climate change is another challenge entirely because President Trump has repeatedly questioned whether it is real. Because of this, it is hard to use the justification that the climate is getting hotter and drier, despite the truth of it. Perhaps a more feasible avenue would be focusing on the impacts of wind and leaf litter, while emphasizing the harm in fire suppression. Another consideration is that people tend to think of prescribed burns as unsafe (“Why would we purposely start a forest fire?”), so it is important to emphasize and ensure that they are controlled and will pose little to no risk to people and their property. Forest management is another environmental issue that has turned overly political, so I hope that we can come together and return to the science of what is best for our ecosystems.
I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed reading your blog post. You did such a great job explaining the complexity behind wildfire management in a way that was both clear and thought-provoking. I always assumed that logging was a helpful solution, but after reading your post, I realized how much harm it can actually cause if it’s not approached carefully. Your explanation about prescribed burning and the role it plays in creating healthier forests really stood out to me. I also appreciated how you tied in Indigenous practices and emphasized the importance of learning from traditional knowledge. It made me think about how often we overlook solutions that have been working for centuries. The way you connected wildfire management to broader climate change issues really helped me see how everything is connected. Overall, your post gave me a much deeper understanding of wildfire policy, and it made me more hopeful that with the right strategies, real progress is possible. Thank you for sharing your insights!