These tools are often used for timber production, but also for forest restoration, wildfire mitigation, wildlife habitat enhancement and many other purposes. Logging itself doesn't prevent forest fires. Nothing can. But logging is a tool that can be used to reduce the fuels that make fire burn hotter and faster.

Can increasing logging in a forest decrease the number of wildfires?

Logging or thinning could provide jobs and wood for local mills, but scientists say it won't prevent destructive wildfires like the ones the state experienced this year. Logging doesn't eliminate the underbrush, twigs and tree needles that fire feeds on. Removing brush and debris requires fire.

Does clear cutting prevent forest fires?

CLEARCUTTING DISRUPTS NATURAL FOREST RESILIENCE TO FIRE

Fires in unmanaged and selectively logged forests burn some trees and miss others. A burned plantation must be replanted. In an unmanaged or selectively logged forest, new trees are seeded by surviving older trees.