Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and Forest Service Chief Randy Moore recently announced the start of an extensive strategy to mitigate the rising threat of wildfires in the U.S., according to a press release from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The initiative is called "Confronting the Wildfire Crisis: A Strategy for Protecting Communities and Improving Forest Resilience in America," and seeks to combat the nation's wildfire crisis that threatens millions of acres and several communities throughout the country.

“The negative impacts of today’s largest wildfires far outpace the scale of efforts to protect homes, communities and natural resources," Vilsack said in the press release. "Our experts expect the trend will only worsen with the effects of a changing climate, so working together toward common goals across boundaries and jurisdictions is essential to the future of these landscapes and the people who live there.”

The Forest Service will establish agreed goals for landscape-scale operations with the goal of altering the risk trajectory for people, communities and natural resources.

The initiative draws on recent data from what Forest Service scientists classify as high-risk "firesheds," which are huge, heavily forested landscapes with a high probability of ignition that have been mapped to correspond to the size of community vulnerability to wildfire.

Additionally, the initiative recommends that the Forest Service treat approximately 20 million acres of national forests and grasslands, as well as another 30 million acres of federal, state, tribal, private and family lands.

Funding for this initiative will come from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, which provides over $3 billion to decrease dangerous fuels and preserve the U.S.'s forests and grasslands.

Several states have experienced record-breaking wildfires over the previous two decades, with over 10 million acres burned in 2020, 2017 and 2015.