A new documentary challenges conventional wisdom and says we don’t have to be helpless victims in the face of increasing wildfires
Blaze of gory: An important film shines new light on an old problem. Photo: Trip Jennings/Balance Media
By Bré Orcasitas. February 6, 2023. Toward the beginning of Elemental, Jack Cohen, a retired U.S. Forest Service fire research scientist, sums up one of the primary points of the documentary.
“Research that has gone on for the last thirty-plus years shows us that we have opportunities to prevent the big community fire disasters,” he says. “But if we continue our current approach, wildland-urban fire disasters will be inevitable.”
Taking that as a cue, Portland filmmaker Trip Jennings and his Balance Media confronts the greatest immediate threat to the forests of the American West, and implores us to rethink everything we believe we know about wildland fire.
“I am deeply committed to changing the national conversation around wildfire,” Jennings has stated.
Elemental offers a devastating critique of how our relationship with fire and our methods for controlling and suppressing it have drifted far out of alignment with the reality of a changing climate.
For just one example, as the film shows, the millions of dollars and untold labor hours spent on attempting to minimize fire threat by employing fuels reduction—that is, selectively removing trees and other vegetation that can act as fuel for fires—have been almost completely ineffectual due to their limited scale.
In theory, thinning forests sounds like a good idea. But more than 30 years into what Elemental calls this “experiment” with forest management and fire control, less than 1% of the area thinned ever encounters wildfire; meaning it almost never has the chance to prove it works.
Fighting fire with politics
Though Elemental is more concerned with fire risk to rural communities and minimizing structure loss than it is with devastation to forests, what emerges is an authoritative message that aims to reset the entire conversation around wildfire.
Focusing on recent calamities in California, Colorado and Oregon—including the 2020 Holiday Farm Fire that burned along Oregon’s Mackenzie River—Elemental makes the point that we should concern ourselves less with where we think fire belongs, and instead focus on understanding that Mother Nature doesn’t need an invitation. She’ll show up in force wherever she pleases.
Fire conversation starter: Director Trip Jennings. Photo: Sara Quinn/Balance Media
This compels us to think about fire in a different way.
Wildfire is indeed a natural element, no matter how aggressively we attempt to control it.
More important, it plays a crucial role in a healthy ecosystem.
Fire professionals nationwide are in agreement that 100-plus years of suppressing wildfires, and permitting heavy logging, have led to unhealthy forests.
Flora and fauna have been left to suffer the consequences of U.S. government directives handed down (mostly by the USFS) in the 1920s and 1930s, which reversed centuries of successful fire abatement strategies.
North America’s indigenous communities had it right in working with fire rather than against it.
And while most authorities recognize traditional methods of fire management as better long-term solutions for forest health, getting back to these methods—prescribed fires foremost among them—will be an uphill battle.
The political backlash associated with the rare circumstance of prescribed fires burning out of control is so severe that the same old attempts to stop all fire all the time on all landscapes continue to be employed. These decisions feel increasingly detached from the urgency (and reality) of the issue.
Adhering to the status quo will leave future generations with an evermore dire situation to navigate.
Side out: One of the most impactful scenes in Elemental demonstrates how different building materials react to simulated wildfire. Photo: Sara Quinn/Balance Media
Elemental argues that we can protect homes and communities, even as wildfires become more intense.
The question it leaves us with is, do we have the collective will to make the necessary changes?
Screenings in Portland, White Salmon, Boise
An official selection at more than 25 film festivals and winner of the 2022 Golden Gate International Film Festival Jury Award in the documentary category, Elemental will premiere nationwide on April 7.
Advance screenings include four showings around the Columbia River Basin:
Feb. 9: San Diego: Wildfire Resistant Homes Conference
Feb. 16: Portland: Portland Garden Club
Feb. 16: White Salmon, Wash.: Underwood Conservation District
Feb. 16: Portland: Lewis & Clark College
March 13: San Diego: Casualty Actuarial Society Conference
April 20: Boise: Society of Environmental Journalists
May 9: Boston: Casualty Actuarial Society Conference
Updated screening and streaming information is available at elementalfilm.com.
Good overview Bre. I will definitely see the film to try to understand their viewpoints. We do need to learn how to better manage fires.
Jurgen Hess, wildfire photographer
Saw the film–the best part is home bldg materials recommendations. Way too much air time and drama on Paradise Fire. Needed more on what to do, such as using zoning to prevent houses from being built in high fire risk areas.
With 100 years of putting out all fires we need to get fuel loads down to use more prescribed fire. The film could have done more w this.