Wildfire Resiliency in Maine Through Preparedness and Partnerships By Jeffrey Currier Maine Forest Service
Our goal is simple. Our goal is to prevent wildfires from destroying homes and Maine’s forest resources. Period. And additionally, our goal is to respond rapidly, with overwhelming force, to extinguish any wildfire that threatens homes, forest resources or other high value property in the Maine woods. Since 1891, we have been increasingly successful in carrying out our mission and achieving these goals. But it is very important to realize that achieving these goals is not merely the role of one small agency in Maine state government. With Maine’s land area comprising over 22 million acres and nearly 18 million acres of that land being forested, this is no small task. in looking at historical data on occurrence in all areas of the state, one thing we are seeing is the numbers are trending upwards of late. The undeniable influence from climate change, with its extreme weather trends, will
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continue to have an impact on wildfire control in Maine for the foreseeable future. And with costs to suppress fires increasing, it is all the more important to suppress wildfires quickly. However, we can also take pride in our shared success in keeping acres burned to 1 acre or less per wildfire on average. This achievement can be attributed to many things, including increased technology, the use of aircraft, and most importantly, partnerships. The Maine Forest Service is a bureau within the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry, and its forest rangers are appointed under state law to be the state's wildfire control experts, enforcers of natural resource and public safety law and to respond to disasters and emergencies that occur in all areas of the state. But with only 48 field forest rangers allocated to this mission, we would be foolhardy to believe for one minute that we can
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