Lifting restrictions on road construction in national forests could lead to more wildfires, according to a newly published study.
The research led by a senior scientist at The Wilderness Society — which opposes the Trump administration’s proposal to reopen forests to new roads and logging — reinforces earlier studies finding that fire ignitions are more numerous near forest roads, including for fires started by lightning.
The new research, published in the Jan. 29 edition of Fire Ecology, examined a broader area than previous work, covering the contiguous U.S. and considering both fire incidence and size. Areas within 50 meters of a forest road, or about 164 feet, are as much as four times more likely than roadless areas to see fire ignitions, the study said, since many fires are human-caused.
The paper also cited the work of numerous earlier studies with similar conclusions.
