Wildfires that burn hotter, spread faster and occur more frequently than they might naturally may be the unintended legacy of decades of misguided forest management practices, says a Duke University fire ecologist.

Large wildfires now blazing in California, Arizona and New Mexico are the latest evidence that the plan to "fireproof" the West's forests has backfired, says Norman L. Christensen Jr., professor of ecology and founding dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke.

"Fire suppression, logging and grazing on fire-prone public land were intended to reduce the risk of fires, but many Western forests are now more flammable," Christensen says, adding that the federal government must reprioritize how and where its wildfire management dollars are spent.

Although it is still early in the 2004 wildfire season, six large fires are burning already in the Southwest and Southern California, and national fire managers at the Bureau of Land Management are predicting above-normal wildfire activity for much of the West.

Christensen has written widely about fire ecology for more than 30 years. In 2003, he testified before Congress on the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, which removed administrative barriers to cutting timber on fire-prone public lands, ostensibly to reduce fuel loads.

Current wildfire management practices, he says, fail to take into account local conditions like weather and topography, and don't give top priority to the most hazardous fuel source in most Western forests -- ground fuel such as dry grasses, pine needles and low shrubs.

"Ignited ground fuels can create enough heat to scorch a tree up to a height of 150 feet," Christensen says. "Reducing them should be the first priority of any wildfire management plan. Yet the practice of suppressing wildfires has allowed debris to accumulate to dangerous levels on the forest floor."

Indiscriminate logging aggravates the problem by thinning a fire-prone forest's canopy and littering its floor with slash and other combustible debris.

"Loss of canopy increases wind speed and air temperatures and decreases humidity in the forest," Christensen notes. "As a result, ground fuel fires that break out can spread faster and farther than they would normally."

With drought and urban sprawl exacerbating the problem, authorities should focus their resources on wildfire management in the forest-urban interface, not in remote areas where fires pose no threat to humans, he adds. "A management plan that takes into account local differences and targets the most hazardous fuels can't bring back the lives, homes and communities already lost. It might, however, make a difference in the future."