Rangeland fire protection associations : an alternative model for wildfire response

20 pagesWildfires are increasingly common and growing in size across rangelands in the U.S. West. Although fire is a natural component of sagebrush steppe ecosystems, it can also threaten values such as sage-grouse habitat, forage for grazing, and residential and commercial structures; it can also encourage invasive plant establishment. Wildfire suppression responsibilities have historically been divided by ownership among resident ranchers, some rural fire districts, and government agencies. But wildfire, and interest in managing it, crosses ownership boundaries. Since the 1990s, numerous Rangeland Fire Protection Associations (RFPAs) have emerged in Oregon and Idaho to improve fire management by organizing and authorizing rancher participation in fire suppression alongside federal agency firefighters (typically, the Bureau of Land Management hereafter “BLM”). RFPAs are all-volunteer crews of ranchers with training and legal authority to respond to fires on private and state lands in remote landscapes where there had been no existing state or local fire protection, and can become authorized to respond on federal lands as well. There has been growing policy interest in the RFPA model, yet limited research on how RFPAs function, their capacities, and potential implications for encouraging fire-adapted communities. Our study analyzed the establishment, functioning, successes, and challenges of the RFPA model through four case studies of individual RFPAs and their respective state programs in Oregon and Idaho during 2015–16.This research was funded by a grant from the Joint Fire Science Program (agreement #14-2-01-29)