Unmanaged forest are costly "big polluters"

Millions of people across America and Canada are choking from wildfire smoke. Unfortunately, it has become an annual occurrence.

Currently, thick smoke from hundreds of active Canadian wildfires has triggered widespread air quality alerts across at least 20 northern states.

Wildfires are a natural part of forests – of which Canada (and U.S.) have vast swathes. Those massive infernos have worsened in recent years. For example, in Canada in 2023 fires razed 37 million acres– an area larger than England – while the 2025 blazes burned 20.5 million acres.

According to Smithsonian Magazine in 2022 “wildfires and other issues have devastated U.S. woodlands in recent years, and Forest Service arborists can’t keep up with replanting lost trees. There is a backlog of 6,400 sq. miles of barren ground—a land mass the size of Hawaii.

Replanting is expensive and unaffordable. The Arbor Day Foundation joined in reforesting effort. Since 1990, Arbor Day volunteers planted 35 million trees in the American West and committed to planting 44 million more.

Federal agencies spent an all-time high of $2.9 billion combating wildfires last year, which is more than 12 times what was spent on suppression efforts in 1985.

Mammoth forest fires have been around for centuries.

For example, in a single week in September 1902, the Yacolt Burn engulfed more than a half million acres and killed 56 people in the Columbia River Gorge and around Mt. St. Helens. The choking smoke was so thick that ships on the Columbia River were forced to navigate by compass and the street lights in Seattle, 160 miles to the north, glowed at noon.

This year’s wildfires could be even more damaging. They are triggered by a mild winter and low snow pack and could release millions of added tons of carbon dioxide into our atmosphere.

Measuring the wildfires’ impact on air quality is not new.

For example, in 2015 The Vancouver Sun published a Sierra Club analysis showing that, over the last two decades, British Columbia forests have turned from a big absorber of CO2 into a big emitter of CO2.

Between 2003 and 2012, BC’s Forest fires emitted 256 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. In the earlier decade, healthy trees actually absorbed 441 million tons of CO2 from the air.

The main forest killing culprit is the tiny pine beetle. Trillions of these beetles suffocate healthy growing trees making them fire fuel. Even though the infestation peaked a decade ago, it has turned millions of acres of once lush green forest into cluttered burn piles.

Huge swaths of central B.C. and parts of Alberta have been hit so badly that dead and dying forests cover nearly 100,000 square miles. So, have Rocky Mountain woods in the U.S.

Removing those dead and diseased trees and replanting is the best way to keep a healthy growing forest that stores carbon and emits oxygen. In addition, clearing dead trees and debris from the forest floor reduces the risk of massive wildfires that pump millions of tons of CO2 into the air.

In 2002, President George W. Bush proposed a healthy forests initiative to clean up the forests and reduce fire hazards; however, the “environmental lobby” roundly criticized the program “as just a way to increase logging in public forests.” Their opposition tubed the proposal.

Nowhere is the contrast between managed forests and barren forest land clearer than around Mount St. Helens.

After the 1980 volcanic eruption, Weyerhaeuser salvaged 68,000 acres of its damaged trees inside the blast zone and replanted 19 million trees. In the adjacent 110,000 acre Mount St. Helens Volcanic Monument area, a federal forest, the decision was made to just let nature take its course.

The unmanaged land is still largely barren. By contrast, Weyerhaeuser’s managed forest is thriving, and millions of its trees are absorbing carbon, helping reduce greenhouse gases. Those trees also yield wood products, provide thousands of jobs, and millions in tax revenue.

— Don C. Brunell is a business analyst, writer and columnist. He can be contacted at theBrunells@msn.com.