The Roadless Rule doesn't stop firefighting – here's proof from the field

Many Montanans have heard claims that the Roadless Rule makes it harder to fight wildfires. 

I spent four decades managing our national forests – including the Custer-Gallatin and Helena-Lewis and Clark – and my experience tells me that claim just isn’t true.

The Roadless Rule, enacted in 2001, protects 6.4 million acres of Montana's wildest places from new road building and industrial logging. 

But it explicitly allows wildfire suppression, non-commercial and small diameter thinning, prescribed fire, habitat restoration and emergency actions. The rule was designed to be flexible – not to tie firefighters' or forest managers’ hands. I’ve seen what that looks like in action.

During the 2018 fire season, I approved a hot saw fire break through roadless areas south of Flesher Pass, between Helena and Lincoln, during an ongoing wildfire. 

Once our fire behavior analysis determined we needed this to protect homes, I made two quick phone calls to conservation organizations to give them a heads up. I notified the regional forester, who approved it immediately.

There was no delay in fire response.

On the Helena-Lewis and Clark, the 2018 Ten Mile South Helena Project protected drinking water for the City of Helena. 

Dr. Mark Finney, the world's leading fire behavior analyst, recommended treating at least 20% of the area to affect fire behavior. Despite litigation, we treated 21%—exceeding the baseline recommendation, including treatments in inventoried roadless areas.

As a District Ranger on the Gallatin National Forest, I managed an inventoried roadless area in the Deer Creek Mountains that had been roaded and logged in the mid-1980s. 

After the 2006 Derby Fire, we did extra analysis to conduct roadside harvests removing burned hazard trees. Yes, it required an additional look because these areas retained roadless designation, but the work got done.

These examples demonstrate that the Roadless Rule doesn't prevent fire management – it encourages managers to think carefully before impacting wildlands. 

If fuel treatments or suppression activities are warranted, the rule doesn't make implementing them meaningfully more difficult. 

In my experience, the Roadless Rule doesn’t pose an insurmountable barrier to good land management; it simply requires baseline analysis and thought before impacting the landscape. 

That’s as it should be, because roadless areas are important backcountry wildlands with significant ecological, recreational and wildlife habitat value.

We should also consider the wildfire benefits of not building unneeded roads. Research from the Forest Service shows human-caused fires are three times more likely to start adjacent to roads than in roadless lands. Nationally, 90% of wildfires start within half a mile of roads, and wildfires are four times more likely to start in roaded areas. 

Building more roads into the backcountry when we don’t need them will increase wildfire risk, not decrease it.

Finally, trust the people who actually know these lands – your local district rangers, forest supervisors and Forest Service field staff. This repeal initiative comes from political appointees in Washington, D.C., not from the folks who manage these lands every day.

Based on 25 years of experience of dealing with the Roadless Rule as a National Forest manager, I can say the exceptions in the original rule have generally worked. 

Naturally, some additional clarity after 25 years of on-the-ground implementation would be reasonable. 

Repeal, however, is a short-sighted plan that would cause more problems that it would fix. The Roadless Rule doesn't need to be thrown out – it needs to be kept, with practical adjustments where experience shows they're needed. 

That's stewardship. That's what Montanans asked for. And that's what our outdoor heritage deserves.

– Bill Avey is the former Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest supervisor and former acting director of the Forest Service’s Fire and Aviation Management program in 2021. He served as the Forest Service Agency Administrator on multiple large and complex fires, earning the National Wildfire Coordination Group National Line Officer Team Award for Fire Leadership in 2006.