Protecting Maine’s Islands from Wildfire

Addison Davis, Chebeague Island Resilience Fellow, discusses emergency preparedness in Casco Bay’s unbridged island communities. 

As someone who grew up in Los Angeles, California, wildfires are a familiar foe. All my life, I have seen the falling ash and the charred landscapes that fires leave behind. In January 2025, a close family member’s house burned to the ground, along with 18,000 other structures in the Palisades and Eaton fires. I was in Maine during that disaster, and during that long, cold winter, wildfire risk felt impossibly far away.

Yet in Maine, wildfire is a major environmental hazard, even though it does not receive the attention of the big fires in California and the mountain West. Maine is the most forested and the most rural state. This means that most of the state’s population lives among potentially fire-prone landscapes. History is key here: Maine’s woods have been regularly logged for three hundred years, minimizing large-scale fires in the past and creating a sense of security. However, those woods are now recovering just as the state is getting warmer and drier, presenting an enormous risk.

On coastal islands, the hazard is even greater. As a Resilience Corps Fellow, I serve the Town of Chebeague Island, an unbridged community in Casco Bay with 400 year-round residents and an all-volunteer Fire Department. Chebeague was mostly farms and pasture until about a century ago, when it shifted away from agriculture, and the island’s forests began to grow back. Today, those woods are all around the same age and very unhealthy, creating a dangerous fuel mix of dense and dying trees. 

Moreover, without a public water system or large freshwater sources, fire suppression is limited to a few small ponds scattered around the island. If a fire were to break out—from an unattended barbecue or out-of-control bonfire—assistance from the mainland could be hours away. The Fire Department must rely on their aging equipment, inadequate water supplies, and a bit of luck to prevent a devastating blaze.

A ruined cottage on Chebeague Island, featuring the Long Island Resilience Fellow, Darsey. Unmaintained structures amid dense woods like this contribute to high fire risk in certain parts of the island. 

Fortunately, the Fire Department has another resource at their disposal: community. I have been helping to develop a new Community Wildfire Protection Plan, which will help the Town access future grants to replace equipment and train staff. In June, along with the Long Island Resilience Fellow and environmental scientists at SWCA, we assessed wildfire risk in detail by visiting every road on the island. In each area, we took note of forest health, building type, and access conditions on a property-by-property basis. We also engaged residents in each area, getting their knowledge of where they thought wildfires would be the most threatening. With their help, we identified areas like Deer Point: a stand of extremely dense and unhealthy softwoods withhigh exposure to winds and limited access for emergency vehicles. The Community Wildfire Protection Plan will recommend strategic brush clearing and roadway improvements in this area - targeting action where it is most needed.

The Independence, Chebeague’s primary link to the mainland. EMTs on the island depend on the ferry for rescue situations.

This highly granular, field-centered approach would not be possible in a town with a less robust community. Here, we can make recommendations to address wildfire risk at a personal level, working with specific residents to understand where their property fits into the broader picture of fire ecology on the island. By working together, the island’s small community is an asset toward building resilience, making up for their isolation and limited resources.

Moving forward, continued wildfire awareness education on the island is key, along with translating that concern into action - clearing fuels, training volunteers, and improving infrastructure. Though coastal Maine may not have the same hot and dry ignition conditions of my home state, wildfire will pose a greater risk in the future, and it is time for each community to prepare.

About Addison

Addison is originally from Los Angeles, California and found his way to Maine via Bowdoin College, where he studied Environmental History. His research projects involved both his home city and adopted state: the politics of wildfire, water, and energy in Southern California, as well as the many challenges facing salt marshes in coastal New England. He also spent a summer working for the Town of Brunswick, Maine on the creation of their climate action plan. As a Resilience Corps fellow, Addison is looking forward to learning about Chebeague Island’s energy and environmental needs and puzzling through solutions unique to the island. From small towns to big cities, he is interested in finding ways to use nature without destroying it (and ourselves) in the process. You will often find Addison running around the trails of Greater Portland, looking at historical maps, and jumping in the cold, clean waters of Casco Bay.