Blocking new roads in National Forests sounds green, but it actually does absolutely nothing to stop wildfires.
SSRN · March 13, 2026 · 6306221
Why it matters
Policymakers often argue for rescinding environmental protections to build roads for fire management access. However, four decades of data show that fire rates in roadless areas are statistically identical to those in developed areas, suggesting road construction provides no actual safety benefit against fire.
From the abstract
The US Department of Agriculture has proposed rescinding the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which protects inventoried roadless areas across the national forest system. The need to address wildfire is cited as a primary purpose for overturning the Rule. To facilitate informed decision making, we analyzed four decades of spatially explicit fire data across the 11 western states to assess differences between fire in inventoried roadless areas vs. the roaded and developed portions of the nat