Preventing Wildfires with Innovative Forest Management and Grid Technologies
In the United States, seasonal wildfires, which peak in late summer and early fall, are causing more damage and costing more money to manage than ever before. Since 1990, the annual area burned by wildfires has increased nearly 60 percent. This dramatic rise in fire size is most evident in the last decade, with three of the five largest wildfire seasons in the past 60 years occurring since 2015. Addressing this threat to our communities and critical infrastructure requires a technology-driven approach that prioritizes prevention and active management.
The good news is that the technologies we need to reduce global energy emissions and keep America competitive are also essential to addressing wildfires, including innovations in advanced forestry practices and grid modernization. These are reflected in a number of bipartisan policies, like the Fix Our Forests Act, that have been introduced in the 119th Congress to support innovation and technology that reduce wildfire risk while also creating jobs and building stronger rural economies. Additionally, the current administration is meeting the opportunities to tackle these challenges head-on. In June 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14308, “Empowering Commonsense Wildfire Prevention and Response,” to coordinate the government’s response to destructive wildfires and promote novel technologies and best practices. The EO prioritizes strengthening wildfire mitigation in a number of ways, including:
- Directing the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Department of the Interior (DOI) to promote and facilitate innovative uses of woody biomass and forest products to reduce fuel loads in areas at risk of wildfires; and
- Directing the DOI, USDA, the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to consider initiating rulemaking proceedings to establish best practices to reduce the risk of wildfire ignition from the bulk power system without increasing costs for electric power users.
Policies to support interagency investments in research to build new forest product markets, actively manage forests, and expand DOE National Laboratory capacities to accelerate technology deployment are essential to addressing wildfire risk and supporting American foresters. By prioritizing American innovation, U.S. forests will become more resilient, create jobs for rural communities and reduce emissions.
Wildfires in the U.S. Are Burning More Land
Source: NASA, using data from the National Interagency Fire Center
Innovation Strengthens the U.S. Forest Product Industry and Incentivizes Wildfire Mitigation Practices
Active forest management is fundamental to maintaining healthy forests because it prevents overcrowding, which can make forests susceptible to wildfire, disease, drought and detrimental pests. This is important because healthy American forests provide essential economic and environmental benefits like timber, bioenergy, wildlife habitat and watershed protection. Active forest management includes:
- Prescribed burns: Intentional, precise and controlled fires to reduce fuel loads in forests.
- Mechanical thinning: Manages the number of trees in a forest to avoid overcrowding and reduces the amount of highly flammable tree species.
American foresters recognize the value of actively managed forests for keeping forests healthy and resilient to wildfire risks. Thus, continued support from the federal government, through agencies like USDA and DOI, can further incentivize active forest management by building new and robust forest product markets. For instance, the U.S. Forest Service houses the Forest Products Laboratory, a vital research facility that advances wood utilization research in collaboration with American industry, research institutions, and government agencies. These new uses of woody biomass include:
- Semi-conductor microchips that use cellulose derived from wood as the support layer, developed with the University of Wisconsin-Madison; and
- Glued laminated timber (glulam), which is a durable building material used for structural support, that often boasts two to three times the strength of steel and concrete.
The U.S. Forest Service also recently invested $80 million in the Wood Innovation Grants program to support research and development of technologies that utilize low-value timber from mechanical thinning, expand wood product manufacturing and promote active forest management to ensure wood as a sustainable building material.
Grid Modernization Technologies Can Reduce Wildfire Risk & Enhance Reliability
Innovative grid technologies offer significant benefits in wildfire mitigation beyond their essential role in meeting electricity demand growth and enhancing grid efficiency. For decades, DOE has played a crucial role in commercializing these technologies through national laboratory testbeds, competitive awards for private-sector innovators, support for public-private demonstration projects and technical assistance for industry. As a result, utilities nationwide are increasingly adopting innovative grid technologies as part of a comprehensive toolkit to reduce power-system ignition risks and minimize service disruptions from wildfires by:
- Enhancing situational awareness with data-driven decision-support. Grid operators can use emerging topology optimization software as a tool to help make decisions when identifying ways to reroute power to mitigate ignition risks and avoid areas with active wildfires. For example, NewGrid’s innovative topology optimization software was a past recipient of the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) SCALEUP program.
- Providing greater control over power flows to mitigate ignition risk and accelerate power restoration. Advanced Power Flow Controllers (APFCs) are power electronic-based devices deployed onto transmission infrastructure to divert power flows. Grid operators can use APFCs to adjust how power flows through the transmission system remotely. This can improve system safety and minimize service disruptions by avoiding line overloads, downed power lines, rerouting power around high-risk fire areas and accelerating power restoration times. For example, Smart Wires APFC technology will be deployed by Avista Utilities and Idaho Power to enhance wildfire resilience through enabling greater control over power distribution through a DOE-funded program.
- Enabling grid hardening with new materials science applications. Advanced conductors use carbon fiber or composite cores, which reduce sag on power lines, decreasing contact with other lines or vegetation. Reconducting power lines in fire-prone areas reduces ignition and increases the capacity of that right-of-way up to double what conventional conductors provide, which provides additional benefits should other power lines fail. For example, Idaho National Laboratory has a custom-designed fire test chamber for assessing how conductors perform under wildfire conditions. This test bed helps derisk and validate technologies so utilities can be confident in their performance.
Source: CTC Global, an advanced conductor that endured a fire in Nevada and was able to be reused
Innovative forest management and grid modernization technologies are a vital part of the comprehensive wildfire toolkit, offering benefits for mitigating wildfire risk and making our critical infrastructure more secure and the American bioproducts industry more competitive.
Federal agencies like USDA, DOE, and FERC have an important role to play in driving innovation in these essential technologies, not just for this season – but for decades to come. Supporting these agencies by expanding test-bed capabilities and access at National Laboratories, providing competitive awards for early-stage innovators and accelerating technology de-risking through public-private partnerships and technical assistance are essential to keeping American foresters and utilities at the forefront of addressing wildfire risk.
