One of the problems with how America deals with wildfires is thinking there is one primary strategy that can end the nation’s wildfire crisis. Whether that’s detecting and putting out every fire fast, increasing logging and forest thinning, or allowing fires to burn under safe conditions, the default choice today is to pour more money and effort into the star approach of the moment.

But effective wildfire strategy in the face of worsening fire seasons demands a system of actions – interconnected pieces that reinforce one another.

Right now, those pieces mostly are not connected. Research groups, governments and organizations tend to separate into distinct camps, each promoting its own specific strategy. The result is a system that can’t keep up with the rising fire risk.

Our team of researchers, along with fire ecologist Jim Menakis, who recently retired from the U.S. Forest Service, has been looking at wildfires from social, ecological and risk-science perspectives to help forest and fire managers and communities in fire-prone areas turn research into practices that can reduce fire-related risks.

We have seen the pitfalls of current fire management approaches and also examples of what actually works.

Wildfire strategy tends to break into three distinct camps today, each focusing heavily on one approach over the others.

One camp wants to double down on suppressing every ignition quickly and aggressively, contending that it’s the surest way to prevent immediate loss. The direction to put out every fire quickly has........

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