Fighting Wildfires with Low-Carbon Buildings

The document examines the intersection of forest management and sustainable construction in Colorado. It highlights how a century of fire suppression and climate change have led to overstocked forests, increasing the risk of high-intensity wildfires. The authors propose scaling the production of mass timber—engineered wood products—using small-diameter trees harvested during thinning operations. This approach aims to offset the high cost of forest treatments, create local jobs, and reduce the embodied carbon of buildings compared to steel and concrete. The report concludes with a call for coordinated action from policymakers, developers, and insurers to establish a 'wood-first' procurement strategy and a state-level Mass Timber Action Plan.

• Colorado's forests are currently overstocked with small-diameter trees due to a century of mandatory fire-suppression policies starting in 1910, which increases the likelihood of high-intensity wildfires. Climate change is expected to make devastating fire seasons, such as the one in 2020, up to 10 times more likely.
• Forest thinning is an effective tool for improving forest resilience and protecting watersheds, but it is prohibitively expensive because 75% of the harvested timber consists of small-diameter trees (less than 9 inches) that historically have little to no market value.
• Mass timber, a class of high-performance engineered wood products, can utilize the small-diameter trees from thinnings, potentially offsetting the cost of forest treatments and reducing the embodied carbon of construction, which accounts for 11% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
• Mass timber offers structural and safety advantages over conventional stick-framed construction, including the ability to build up to 18 stories under the 2024 International Building Code (IBC) because large cross sections form an insulating char layer during fires.
• Colorado currently imports 90% of its wood products, representing an opportunity to create local high-quality jobs in rural communities by developing a domestic mass timber supply chain.
• Scaling a resilient local forest economy in Colorado requires overcoming several barriers, including a shortage of workers in the forest products and construction sectors, a lack of 'right sized' manufacturing capacity, and the need for consistent demand signals such as 'wood-first' procurement policies.

APA

Maharaj, S., & Bukauskas, A. (2024). Fighting Wildfires with Low-Carbon Buildings. RMI. https://rmi.org/app/uploads/dlm_uploads/2024/10/fighting_wildfires_with_low_carbon_buildings_brief.pdf

Chicago

Maharaj, Satyam, and Aurimas Bukauskas. Fighting Wildfires with Low-Carbon Buildings. RMI, 2024. https://rmi.org/app/uploads/dlm_uploads/2024/10/fighting_wildfires_with_low_carbon_buildings_brief.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Maharaj |first1=Satyam |last2=Bukauskas |first2=Aurimas |title=Fighting Wildfires with Low-Carbon Buildings |publisher=RMI |date=September 2024 |url=https://rmi.org/app/uploads/dlm_uploads/2024/10/fighting_wildfires_with_low_carbon_buildings_brief.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{maharaj2024fighting, author = {Maharaj, Satyam and Bukauskas, Aurimas}, title = {{Fighting Wildfires with Low-Carbon Buildings}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2024}, month = sep, url = {https://rmi.org/app/uploads/dlm_uploads/2024/10/fighting_wildfires_with_low_carbon_buildings_brief.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }