Wildfire

As I write this the local news reported there were 262 fires started in Montana by a lightning storm this past Friday. That is an impressive number of fires for one day, but years of gathering statistics suggest that for every wildfire caused by lightning there were twelve caused by human error. Fires that may have been caused by tossed cigarettes, unattended or mismanaged campfires, garbage and debris burning, equipment operation, arcing power lines, railroad trains or arson.

At one time or another wild land fire was present all over the Earth since the beginning of the planet. It is logical to assume that before humans there were numerous lightning fires and fires caused by fiery volcanic eruptions that were a major influence on the type and diversity of the plants and animals that evolved over eons of time. In the absence of any suppression those fires burned until they ran out of fuel or were naturally controlled by the weather. Because those fires were able to continue as long as the weather and fuel allowed, many forested areas were cleared of heavy underbrush by fire.

 In North America the earliest settlers from Europe observed that Native Americans frequently used fire to clear the land, provide better hunting or farming conditions, or during warfare. The Native American practice of burning the land opened up grazing areas and is thought by many scientists today as a factor which allowed the bison to populate the eastern shore of the United States. Fire was a useful tool for most Native Americans. However, the early settlers who lived in immobile log homes viewed fire as something to be suppressed. Fire meant the loss of their home or their crops, whereas nomadic Native Americans moved to another desirable location.

 Wildfire was a threat to the existence of the earliest settlers and is even a greater threat to those that live in the West today. There are hundreds of thousands of contemporary homes built in or adjacent to lands that are covered with brush, grasslands, or forest lands that are subject to a conflagration. Likewise there are millions of acres of government lands managed by the National Park Service, National Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management that are vital resources for wildlife, recreation, grazing and timber that are subject to loss or change due to fire. It is not a matter of if a fire will occur; it is only a matter of when.

 Without adjustments to the forest to reduce the accumulation of fuels, the risk to property owners, their buildings and private or government managed lands which are important for diverse wildlife habitat, timber, and recreation will continue. However, the general public sentiment that all wildfires are bad is not true. There are good fires and bad fires.

 Bad fires destroy property and lives. Because people build their homes in and around forested areas they subject themselves and their property to losses due to fire. There are preventive measures they can employ such as having a reliable water source, clearing the property around them of heavy underbrush, having a non-combustible roof and porches or decks with a similar roof cover, but there is still an elevated risk. It would be a safer situation if the forest surrounding their property is a healthy ecosystem maintained by prescribed fire which reduces the opportunity for a catastrophic wildfire due to an excessive buildup of ground level fuels.

 Fire is actually the key to healthy forests and grasslands. It is, in fact, absolutely vital to maintaining a healthy ecosystem, and is mandatory for the continuation of plant and animal diversity. A good fire is one that burns through the under story of light fuels without excessive heat. Without fire, plants and animals requiring nutrients and a diverse mix of vegetation would eventually disappear. Fire converts some of the atmospheric nitrogen that is not available for plant growth to nitrates, which is then readily available to the succeeding plants. Fire converts phosphorus to orthophosphate releasing it into the soil as a beneficial nutrient for plant growth. Photosynthesis requires carbon dioxide and fire releases the carbon in organic matter in the form of carbon dioxide. Plants then return the carbon back to the soil as the plants grow, die off and decay on the forest floor. The black ash after a fire absorbs a higher level of the solar energy which enhances seed germination.

 Fire is required for the continuation of Jack pine and Lodgepole pine. The heat of the fire opens the cones for seed dispersal. The Giant Sequoia tree of the Sierra Nevada range in California is a fire resistant tree due to its heavy bark. The Sequoia requires fire to thin out the firs and pines that would effectively compete with the Sequoia and eventually occupy the forest, and Sequoia seeds are released in their greatest number to the mineralized soil after a fire. Ponderosa pine, principally found in the Intermountain West, is adapted to low intensity fires. Fires which spread through the ground bed of Ponderosa pine needles at low intensity, reduces the opportunity for a crown fire, which can kill the Ponderosa. The nutrients released by this type of fire provide an excellent seed bed for the Ponderosa pine seeds.

 The fires in North America were so great and widespread in 1880, that Professor Stephen Pyne in his book America’s Fires: Management on Wildlands and Forests (1997) described the period as “The Great Barbecue.”  Most of North America was on fire. Prior to that in 1871, 1,300 people died as one million acres were burned in Wisconsin. There were numerous other destructive fires such as the well known Chicago fire in 1871 that killed many residents, and major forest fires in Washington during 1902 and in Virginia and Oregon during the 1930’s and 1940’s. These and other fires were largely responsible for the public perception and government agency policies of the U.S. Forest Service (1905) and the National Park Service (1916) that all fires were to be suppressed and extinguished as soon as possible. Though the concept of prescription fires as an effort to manage forests and prevent major fire conflagrations was floated in the literature in the 1930’s, it was rarely or effectively practiced. It wasn’t until the 1970’s that the science of Fire Ecology was beginning to be accepted and their principles applied in land manager’s fire management plans. The general public understanding of the importance of fire to the ecology of the Nation’s forests experienced serious setbacks and caused numerous debates due to the massive media coverage of the fires in Yellowstone in 1988, and the heavy fire seasons of 1994 and 1995.

 Many of the residents of North America believe that all wildfires can be controlled. If the fire is big enough and the conditions are favorable, they cannot. But, the belief is widespread because Mr. and Mrs. America view many building fires on their television being extinguished every time, and all wildfires eventually go out because they run out of fuel, weather conditions slowed them up where they could be controlled or it snows on them.

 Today the federal land management agency’s policies recognize that fire is an essential ecological requirement for a healthy forest. The previous decades of aggressive suppression has led to the buildup of underbrush and other fuels which became the source for massive fire conflagrations. Their policies now reflect that natural lightning fires, or fires purposely ignited to control the under story of brush buildup (prescription fire) will not be aggressively fought IF the conditions of air temperature, fuel moisture, humidity, wind speed, drought conditions and wind direction are conducive to allow the reduction of fuel accumulation. Fires that threaten people or structures will be aggressively fought. This is not an easy job because of the many years of suppression and the massive buildup of fuels throughout the Nation’s forests, but that is the policy intent. Eventually, more and more of the Nation’s forests and national parks will be in compliance.

 As you can imagine, the science of Fire Ecology and the knowledge and techniques for fire management are complex and require considerable training. Many of the universities that offer courses and/or degrees in fire ecology are in the western United States in Montana, Idaho, Colorado, California and Wyoming.
The important pine forests and national parks of America’s southeast likely have similar courses and degrees available at the universities in Florida, Georgia, Alabama and North or South Carolina.

 The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in Boise, Idaho, coordinates with eleven Regional Coordinating Centers scattered throughout the lower forty-eight states and Alaska. Should a wildfire escalate beyond the capabilities of personnel and equipment in any one of the regions they can call upon NIFC for locating air tankers, radios, fire crews or Incident Management Teams.

This entry was posted on 17. August 2007 at 17:27 and is filed under Wildfire. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.