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The Association for Fire Ecology

The San Diego Declaration on Climate Change and Fire Management

Members of the Association for Fire Ecology adopted The San Diego Declaration on Climate Change and Fire Management at the 3rd International Fire Ecology and Management Congress held in San Diego, California Nov. 13-17, 2006. The document was drafted by the AFE Board, submitted for peer review and group discussion, and individually endorsed by about 200 Congress participants.

The Declaration makes a powerful statement by the fire science community that future land management activities must consider climate change. The Declaration also recommends a wide range of alternatives for planning and management to enhance ecosystem resiliency to wildland fire in a changing global climate.

The Declaration's considerations for management, research, and education include:

  • Incorporating the likelihood of more severe fire weather, lengthened wildfire seasons, and larger-sized fire when planning and allocating budgets, which traditionally are based on historical fire occurrence.

  • Making use of short-term fire weather products; season-to-season and year-to-year climate and fire outlooks that are increasingly available from federal agencies.

  • Continually assessing land management assumptions against changing realities of future climates and local weather events.

  • Developing site-specific scenarios for potential weather events linked to climate change and redesigning fire management strategies for rapid response to these events.

  • Considering climate change and variability when developing long-range wildland fire and land management plans and strategies across all ownerships.

  • Evaluating probable alternate climate scenarios when planning post-fire vegetation management, particularly when reseeding and planting.

  • Preparing for extreme fire events by restoring some ecosystems and reducing uncharacteristic fuel levels through prescribed burning, mechanical treatments, and wildland fire use to meet resource objectives.

  • Incorporating emerging scientific information on the impact of changing temperature and precipitation on plant communities into fuels management project design and implementation at the local level.

  • Expanding wildland fire use at the landscape scale in fire-adapted ecosystems to restore fire regimes and reduce fuel loads.

  • Controlling highly flammable non-native plant species and developing management options to address their increased spread and persistence.

  • Removing and utilizing small diameter forest products (engineered lumber, pulp, paper, and bio-fuels) and chipped fuels (for electrical energy generation) to reduce fire hazards in appropriate vegetation types.

  • Implementing long-term monitoring programs in fire-adapted ecosystems that are expected to undergo the widest range of variability linked to climate change.

  • Expanding interdisciplinary research to forecast potential fire season severity and improving seasonal weather forecasts under future climate change scenarios.

  • Integrating the subject of climate change and its influences on ecosystem disturbances into curricula within natural resource programs at secondary school, university, and continuing education levels.

  • Disseminating information to the general public and government agencies regarding the potential impacts of changing climate on local natural resources, particularly those that interact with fire.

  • Holding conferences or symposia to enhance communication among researchers and managers and engaging the general public in discussion on how land managers can best cope with fire in a changing environment.

  • Forming interdisciplinary teams of researchers that include fire ecologists and climate scientists to identify and pursue emerging areas of climate and fire research.