ONEOFMANYFEATHERS'

Devastation of Forest Fires

 

National forests in the West are in deplorable condition, and the practice of letting natural fires burn, or at the present time the use of prescribed burns, is reeking havoc. Environmentalist and bureaucratic policies have rendered the federal agencies ineffective in managing our forests. The primary goal in terms of fires on all land owned by federal agencies (wildland) should be directed towards prevention...not letting the fire burn until it is uncontrollable. The two best examples of the devastation caused by natural or prescribed burns resulted in the Yellowstone National Park fires of 1988, and the Los Alamosa fire of 2000.

Environmentalists paint a picture of our oldest National Park as being more beautiful than ever, and what a wonderful thing it is to observe nature at work, but for many people, the 1988 Yellowstone National Park fires were an absolute fiasco. The destruction in Yellowstone will be visible for the next several generations.

Is a legacy of burned forests what we want to leave our children's children?

The first of the Yellowstone fires started near Enos Lake in the Teton Wilderness Area. The fire was under a thousand acres for the first week while the Forest Service was deciding whether to put it out or not. Once the fire took off and with no hope of controlling it, one of the excuses given by, then Yellowstone National Park Superintendent, Barby was that no one could predict how dry the forest was. If Park Rangers had gotten out of their pickups and ridden across the meadows along Pacific Creek with a string of packhorses behind them, as we did two days before the fire started, they would have known how dry it was from the dusty trail.

Abnormally low tree moisture content, a fire suppression policy until 1972, accumulation of dead trees, and heavy areas of downed timber set the stage for the Yellowstone fires. These factors should have been obvious to anyone charged with the management of our oldest National Park.

In regards to Yellowstone, Monica Turner, landscape ecologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison concludes,

Big fires are not detrimental to the system in any way. It's difficult for the human-wild land interaction, but from the perspective of plants and animals, fire is a normal event, well within their capacity to deal with. The conflagration of '88

Dr. Turner and other proponents of letting natural fires burn fail to mention that in many heavy forested areas the fire sterilizes the soil, killing all of the insects and burrowing animals. Since nothing can live in these "sterilized areas", the only way it can regenerate is by wind blown seeds. This process of regeneration will take the next one hundred to one hundred and twenty years.

In the grand scheme of an ecological system, big fires may not be detrimental, but they are devastating to many of us. A few years ago, I rode through areas of "dead forest" below the head of the Yellowstone River. The blackened snags, and total lack of sounds from birds, insects, and small mammals produced an eerie, sad feeling as you rode along the trail.

You cannot fault environmentalist groups for their ideals, but they are completely misguided. In trying to protect the forests, they are destroying them. There is no question that meadows and other open areas come back better than before, but not the trees. After 14 years, there is little growth of new trees along this section of road between the South Entrance of Yellowstone and Lewis Lake.

 

Why is the West burning?

The National Environmental Protection Act provides radical environmentalist groups a means of filing lawsuits against wildland agency personnel if their decisions do not follow a myriad of bureaucratic guidelines. In order to protect themselves from lawsuits, various specialists are required to make sure the supervisory personnel's decisions meet all of these guidelines. This has created a situation where it may take years of study to make a simple decision. In terms of the forest service a large portion of its budget is spent on paper work, and lawsuits...not on forest management.

Environmentalist policies, decades of fire suppression, build up of dead trees, both standing and down, urban sprawl, mountain retreats, subdivisions surrounded by national forests, road building, basically nonexistent logging in national forests, etc. have created an environment in which forest fires are difficult, if not impossible, to control.

A primary cause of fires burning out of control is the build up of down timber, and yet, other than with the use of prescribed burns, environmentalists oppose any attempt at forest cleanup.

From 1988 to 2001, environmentalist-fostered policies resulted in an eight percent increase in wildland fires over the previous fourteen years. During the ten years from 1988 to 1997 (only data available), eighty-eight percent of wildfires were attributed to human causes and twelve percent to lightning. However, natural fires accounted for fifty-two percent of the total acres burned...twelve percent resulted in fifty-two percent of the burned area. In 2001, lightning caused fifty-nine percent of the fires and accounted for eighty-two percent of the acres burned.

The total cost of fire suppression on our national wildland in the year 2000 was $1,362,367,000 dollars...ten percent higher than the previous three years combined.

With our wildland burning up, the environmentalists cry is, "If the fire is from natural causes, it should be allowed to burn", but Thomas M. Bonnicksen a professor of Forest Science at Texas A&M University disagrees.

In a historic forest, gentle fires burned often enough to clear dead wood and small trees from under the big trees. They might flare up in a pile of logs or a patch of thick trees, but would quickly drop back to the ground. Such hot spots kept forests diverse by creating openings where young trees and shrubs could grow.

...The Sierra Club and other environmentalists say deliberately set fires are the best way to solve today's wildfire crisis, but each 20,000-acres of "prescribed burn" is likely to produce one escaped fire. Their simplistic reasoning: fire is natural and therefore good for forests. Yet, ironically, the Sierra Club also has a "zero cut" policy. It wants to protect trees from loggers, but it does not mind killing millions of trees with fire. www.nationalcenter.org

This summer presented me with a unique opportunity to observe a forest fire first hand. The area burned by the Mule Fire was on the north side of North Horse Creek about twenty miles from the Mountain Man Rendezvous of 1833, 1835, 1836, 1837, 1839, and 1840. As a fur trade historian, it was important that this area not be destroyed by fire. Despite my disgust and anger at the way the fire was initially handled by the forest service, the experience gave me a greater appreciation of the problems involved.

The fire was started by a lightning strike that had smoldered for several days. The first smoke was on July 11, 2002.

 

 

 

The next morning, Roby McNeel, the son of the owner of the cattle on Spring Creek, and I were at the head of the canyon at daylight to roundup and bring out the cattle. Fireballs had crossed over Mill Creek to the head of Spring Creek, which was over a mile from the main fire area. These fireballs set several small areas on fire.

 

These fireball-started fires did not spread because they lit in areas of green plants with high moisture content. The moisture content of the trees, plants, and soil play a key role in the severity of forest fires, as is shown by this green area around an elk wallow.

As we reached the mouth of Spring Creek with the cattle, a Type II Incident Management Team from the North Carolina Forest Service arrived to take control of the Mule Fire. Besides the fifty people on the management team, there were at various times, crews from Idaho, New York, Maryland, Maine, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Florida, Texas, Tennessee, and Arkansas. In addition to these people, there were emergency medical teams from Rock Springs, local firemen and law enforcement officers, and forest service personnel from Utah, Sublette County, and Jackson, Wyoming.

The Mule Fire ranked 43rd on the National Priority List of Fires because no structures were endangered. Despite the majority of these crews coming from areas near sea level to an elevation from 7500 to over 9000 feet, the fire was attacked as if it was the number one fire on the list. Within hours after the North Carolina team arrived, my feeling was that this fire would be contained. I cannot speak for all fires, or fire personnel, but on the Mule Fire, it amazed me how hard the crews worked under difficult conditions and terrain.

Excerpts from a press release prepared on July 23rd by Teresa Odom, information officer, of the North Carolina Forest Service gives a typical day’s activity. The inserted pictures were not part of the press release.

One super Huey 205, one Bell Jet Ranger, along with the Teton Helitack Helicopter flew in 14,428 pounds of cargo, and delivered 36,963 gallons of water on the fire logging 16.3 hours of flight time.

The crewmembers aboard the Teton Helitack Helicopter were repelled from the helicopter yesterday to help strategically locate equipment positions on the fire.

Infrared flights yesterday detected some hot spots along the fire perimeter south of Lead Creek. After several days of drying these areas could ignite and spot across containment lines if the forecasted winds pass through the area. Crews will work extinguishing those areas today.

Presently the Mule fire is 3,585 acres and is 65% contained. Resources currently working the Mule fire include eighteen 20-person hand crews, four ten-person camp crews, four helicopters, three dozers, fourteen wildland engines, and a type II National Incident Management Team from the North Carolina Forest Service, www.tetonfires.com/.

On July 25th the fire was 100% contained, and on July 29th a type III Incident Team took over the restoration work and to monitor the burned areas. At this point, the fire had burned 3,982 acres at a cost of $4,395,866 dollars.

The management team and fire personnel were able to confine the Mule Fire to the south-facing slopes, instead of the heavier timbered north-facing slopes, and the fire did not burn hot enough to sterilize the ground. Due to their efforts, next year there will be re-growth of grasses and bushes on the fire-fertilized ground.

The white powder around the base of the tree contains potash. The spread of this natural fertilizer by wind, animals, and rain is one of the reasons that meadows and open areas come back better than before, even in the worst of fires, but again, not the trees. Several commercial companies, for example UAP Timberland, use potash in their fertilizers.

Small spot fires continued to break out in the burned areas until a heavy rain during the first week of September. These fires were in areas where they presented no danger and were allowed to burn.

The Mule Fire did as little overall damage as could possibly be hoped for. The worst burned area is not far from where the night fire picture was taken.

There are three major reasons for the Mule Fire being contained within small areas: (1) management skills in directing the fire, along with the hard work and dedication of the fire personnel involved, (2) this area was heavily logged by the tie-hackers (for railroad ties) in the nineteen-thirties, so in many areas there was not a build up of downfall from old growth timber, (3) logging with strip clear-cuts was permitted in this area by the Bridger-Teton Forest Service into the mid-nineties.

This picture taken on the ridge separating Mill Creek and Spring Creek in September clearly shows the value of clear-cuts in forest fire management.

The cost of fires is high, but after the money circulates through the economy three or four times, the government has recovered most of its costs. The problem is we look at black, dead tree-snags the rest of our lives. It would make more sense to spend the money on proper management and preserve our greatest national resource.

On June 12th, 2002, Dale N. Bosworth, Chief of the Forest Service, testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health. His report on "Process Gridlock on the National Forests" sets forth the reasons for the agency's inability to effectively manage our national forests. Excerpts from his testimony:

...statutory, regulatory, and administrative requirements impede the efficient, effective management of the national forest system and that these requirements lead to excessive analysis, ineffective public involvement, and management inefficiencies that delay or halt the Forest Service from restoring the nation's forests.

...I am dedicated to revising, not just reviewing, Forest Service processes to provide the best tools and training for our line officers and staff.

...We will do a better job of managing our processes. But I do not want us to just get better at playing a bad game. I want to fix the game,
www.safnet.org/archive/702_gridlock.htm.    http://www.safnet.org/

President Bush announced his Healthy Forests Initiative in Oregon on August 22, 2002.
The Bush Administration plans to:

Significantly step up efforts to prevent the damage caused by catastrophic wildfires by reducing unnecessary regulatory obstacles that hinder active forest management; work with Congress to pass legislation that addresses the unhealthy forest crisis by expediting procedures for forest thinning and restoration projects; and fulfill the promise of the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan to ensure the sustainable forest management and appropriate timber production.

Background information for the Presidential Action:

The 2002 fire season is already one of the worst in modern history. More than 5.9 million acres have burned this year in an area the size of New Hampshire and twice the annual average. This year’s fires have driven tens of thousands of people from their homes, destroyed more than 2,000 homes and structures, and caused the deaths of 20 firefighters. These fires have also killed hundreds of millions of trees, devastated habitat, and severely damaged forest soils and watersheds for decades to come.

America’s public lands have undergone radical changes during the last century due to the suppression of fires and a lack of active forest and rangeland management. In healthy forests, low-intensity fires help rejuvenate habitat by clearing out underbrush and small trees, leaving an open forest with strong, fire-resistant, mature trees. Today, the forests and rangelands of the West have become unnaturally dense, and ecosystems have suffered.

When coupled with seasonal droughts, these unhealthy forests are vulnerable to unnaturally severe wildfires. They are overloaded with the fuels for fires in underbrush and small trees. A large, catastrophic fire can release the energy equivalent of an atomic bomb and destroy, rather than renew, our forests.

Currently, 190 million acres of public land and surrounding communities are at increased risk of extreme fires. In May, the federal government reached agreement with 17 western governors, tribal, and local officials on a comprehensive 10-year Fire Plan implementation strategy to reduce the threat of severe fires and promote healthy forests. This strategy calls for active forest management, through thinning and prescribed burns, to reduce the unnatural buildup of fuels.

Current firefighting techniques are often successful, but land managers must do more to prevent these catastrophic fires. The federal government has provided record levels of support for firefighting, but efforts to tackle the root cause of these fires through active forest management are too often hindered by unnecessary procedural delays and litigation.

For example, in Oregon, federal officials identified the Squires Peak area as a high fire risk in 1996, and began planning a project to thin crowded trees and dense underbrush on 24,000 acres. After six years of analysis and documentation, administrative appeals and two lawsuits, work was allowed to begin on 430 acres of the original 24,000-acre project. When lightning ignited the Squires Peak fire on July 13, 2002, with only a fraction of the area thinned, the fire quickly spread to 2,800 acres. The thinned area was unharmed by the fire. In un-thinned areas, the fire killed most trees, sterilized soils, and destroyed the habitat of threatened spotted owls. The fire cost $2 million to suppress, and $1 million will be needed to rehabilitate the devastated area.

The 1994 Northwest Forest Plan, which was designed to produce a healthy and sustainable forest economy while providing needed habitat protection, has failed to live up to its promise due to costly delays and unnecessary litigation. The Bush Administration will work with all interested parties, including Congress, to resolve the legal and procedural problems that have undermined the promise of the Northwest Forest Plan, www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/healthyforests/.

At the present time, there are too many bureaucrats, too many environmentalist groups, and too many environmentalists within the federal agencies to let any comprehensive change in the management of our wildlands take place. There is already strong opposition to President Bush and Chief Bosworth for having the audacity to try and revitalize our national forest. Chief Bosworth’s "fixing the game" and President Bush’s Healthy Forests Initiative can only succeed with the support of everyone who wants to preserve our national lands.

As a conservationist, I do not want our National Parks, Wilderness Areas, and National Forests consumed by fire. Burning down our natural resources is not the way to protect them.

For those who agree, it is time to make our voices heard. Please send an email to Dale N. Bosworth, Chief of the Forest Service. nbosworth@fs.fed.us
Subject line: Prevent Forest Fires.
Message could read something like: We are tired of the West burning and support yours and President Bush’s efforts to bring about comprehensive changes in the management of our national forests.
Be sure and sign your message.

This same email in support of President Bush should be sent to the congressional members from your state. Email address for members of congress can be found on the,
CongressionalEmail Directory

Message could read something like: We are tired of the West burning and ask your support for President Bush’s proposals to bring about comprehensive changes in the management of our national forests. Be sure your message is signed.

In addition, please send everyone on your email list a link to this article, The Devastation of Forest Fires and ask him or her to forward it to the people on their lists. It is only through our devastation of efforts, yours and mine, that any meaningful congressional reform will occur to save our forests.

With all the fires raging in our national forests, we commonly hear or read, "The fires will burn until it snows." Changes in the management of our forests would result in more scenes like this after the first snowstorm.

For those who disagree with this article, email me. If your arguments are signed, I will gladly post your response.

There will be a lot of criticism to this article. I encourage everyone to check back often and read the responses. I will post them under I Post You Decide.

Points of interest on the Mule Fire: Percentage breakdown of fire costs:

The Incident Command System (ICS):

Managing emergency incidents like wild land fires can be complex, confusing and inefficient, usually because multiple agencies at the Federal, state and local levels are trying to work with each other in a pressure-packed situation. The single standard Incident Management System (ICS) was developed in the United States almost 30 years ago, and it has become the system envied and imitated by emergency response organizations around the world,
www.nifc.gov/fireinfo/ics_disc.html

At this altitude (~8000 feet) the smaller Huey could carry 250 gallons and the super Huey 400 gallons of water, whereas at sea level, they carry several thousand gallons.

Maximum number on fire line        449
Support People                             106

2500-calorie meals were served three times a day. This is 5500 calories higher than what is recommended for the average diet, and from talking to people on the fire line, every morsel was devoured.

The large Huey cost $18,000 dollars a day to standby, while flight time ranged from $1800 to $3000 dollars an hour...this sounds extremely expensive, but helicopters are the most effective means of controlling and directing a fire.

I would like to thank the following forest service personnel for providing me information for this article.

North Carolina Forest Service Incident Team

Teresa Odom. Information Officer
Dan Smith, Incident Commander
Bob Houseman, Chief of Field Operations

Bridger-Teton National Forest

Jay Anderson, Information Officer
Mary Lendman, Information Officer

 

 

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