Fuels Management

The BLM’s fuels management program conducts a wide variety of active management vegetation treatments using mechanical, biological, and chemical tools, and prescribed fire. The program includes creating fuel breaks to provide safe access for firefighters, reducing fuel loads by removing pinon-juniper and invasive species, reducing fire risk near communities, targeted grazing, and herbicide plus seeding to break the fire-cheatgrass cycle. 

Fuels treatments are planned and implemented in collaboration with other BLM programs, and with federal, state, local, and non-governmental collaborators. The BLM accomplishes much of its fuels management work with partners and contractors, providing an economic boost to local communities. Fuels management projects consider the full scope of work – planning, implementation, and monitoring – needed to achieve a coordinated landscape approach to reducing wildfire risk and restoring wildfire resiliency. 

A wildfire risk assessment was developed for use in a five-year Fuels program allocation plan. The assessment was created to assess wildfire risk at the national level and identify areas where wildfire poses threats to values and resources across all BLM-managed public lands.

This Esri StoryMap provides a summary of the methodology, data layer inputs, and data processing techniques used in the BLM Wildfire Risk Assessment. It is intended to be used as a communication tool internally within the BLM and externally with the public.