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As millions of acres burn across the western United States, some wildland fire veterans are fearful that aggressive fire suppression tactics ordered by the Trump administration — coupled with extreme, fast-moving blazes — could put firefighters in danger as conditions escalate this month.

Those extreme weather conditions fueled disaster in Eastern Washington Saturday when a fast-moving wildfire jumped the Spokane River and swept through neighborhoods of Spokane, destroying more than 600 structures and forcing 60,000 residents to evacuate. Incident Commander Tom Clemo called the blaze “probably the largest, most destructive fire in Washington’s history.”

No deaths have yet been reported in Spokane, but Mayor Lisa Brown told local journalists the city is “still assessing the potential for lives to be lost.”

“There is not a fire department in the U.S. that can handle a wind-driven event this size,” said Spokane Assistant Fire Chief Lance Dahl to the Spokane Spokesman-Review.

Leading up to this year’s fire season, federal officials with the U.S. Forest Service and the Interior Department directed their wildfire crews to use a “full suppression” strategy and attack wildfires urgently. Following a hot, dry winter that left much of the West parched, federal land managers said it was imperative to contain fires quickly before they get out of control.

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But following several dangerous incidents, including the deaths of four federal firefighters in Colorado in June, some longtime wildland fire leaders are questioning that strategy. Many see it as a return to the Forest Service’s decades-old “10 a.m.” policy, which sought to suppress all fires by the morning after they were reported.

While many states also adhere to “full suppression” policies that aim to keep blazes contained, federal officials have previously had more discretion to let fires burn under supervision if they’re not threatening communities. More concerning, wildfire veterans say, is the possibility that rhetoric from Trump administration officials is putting pressure on fire crews to use aggressive tactics to meet those suppression goals.

Federal policies that sought to extinguish all fires quickly over much of the past century are now understood by foresters to be a major contributor to the current wildfire crisis. In many places, forests that used to experience fire at regular intervals have grown denser than historical norms, with trees competing for water and thick underbrush covering the forest floor. That gives fuel to the fires and contributes to fast-moving blazes.

“No one in the agencies have said it, but it sure looks like (a return to the 10 a.m. policy) when you read the directions,” said Jane Darnell, a wildfire veteran who spent more than 30 years with the Forest Service before retiring in 2020. “We lived with the 10 a.m. policy for 100 years, and we got here. This full suppression promise to the public is a promise that can’t be kept.”

Many wildfire leaders say they’ve seen........

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