Prescribed fire is an important management tool for restoring fire-adapted ecosystems and mitigating the risk of high-severity wildfire in the North American Mediterranean climate zone (NAMCZ), much of which was historically characterized by frequent low- to moderate-severity fire. For over a century, policies that excluded fire, curtailed Indigenous cultural burning, and prioritized timber harvesting have, in combination with anthropogenic climate warming, driven large-scale, high-severity fires that are wreaking ecological and socioeconomic havoc. Despite its recognized need, the use of prescribed fire at appropriate scale has been slow to occur. We describe some of the principal obstacles to increasing the application of prescribed fire in the NAMCZ and suggest four strategies for policy makers and high-level managers to overcome them: (1) redoubling federal and state agency commitment and rewarding assertive leadership, (2) increasing funding for prevention-focused management (as opposed to suppression), (3) building capacity through cooperation, and (4) expanding monitoring to inform burn strategies and adaptive management.

中文翻译：

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克服北美地中海气候区规定火灾的障碍

规定火灾是恢复适应火灾的生态系统和减轻北美地中海气候区（NAMCZ）发生高强度野火风险的重要管理工具，其中大部分地区历史上经常发生低至中度火灾。一个多世纪以来，排除火灾、限制原住民文化焚烧和优先木材采伐的政策，加上人为气候变暖，引发了大规模、严重程度的火灾，给生态和社会经济造成了严重破坏。尽管人们认识到有必要，但适当规模的规定火力的使用却进展缓慢。我们描述了在 NAMCZ 中增加规定火力应用的一些主要障碍，并为政策制定者和高层管理人员提出了克服这些障碍的四种策略：（1）加倍联邦和州机构的承诺并奖励果断的领导力，（2）增加对以预防为重点的管理（而不是抑制）的资金，（3）通过合作建设能力，以及（4）扩大监测范围，为烧伤战略和适应性管理提供信息。