A study by The Wilderness Society has found that roads bring more fires to forests, leading to the US Department of Agriculture's plan to rescind a rule limiting roadbuilding and timber harvests on millions of acres of national forests and grasslands. Critics argue that roads are needed to fight fires in remote forests as a cover for the timber industry. The study also found that wildfires were four times more likely to ignite within 50 meters of a road than in a forest without routes for motor vehicles. However, fire scientists, frontline firefighters, and the agency’s historical record have refuted this claim. The Department of Forestry stated in its original environmental impact statement for the 2001 Roadless Rule that building roads into untracked areas would likely increase the chance of human-caused fires due to the increased presence of people. The new study found that fires near roads were on average smaller, but high variability makes this difference difficult to determine.