May 20, 2004

After the fire, a whole new world

By Scott Staats
Tidings Correspondent

The cow elk and its calf turned to look at me briefly then trotted off. Only a few hundred yards farther, a loping coyote stopped suddenly, melting into its surroundings. Deer tracks carpeted the ground. The jackhammer sounds of woodpeckers on the blackened snags reverberated throughout the forest. Life had already returned to the recently burned area.

	Fires in Oregon are becoming larger, though the intensity of the blazes is generaly low. File photo | Ashland Daily Tidings

As with the Yellowstone fires of 1988, a hike through just about any recent forest fire will lead through low, medium and high intensity burned areas that result from a natural mosaic pattern.

For the most part, people want the U.S. Forest Service to suppress all fires. The agency was relatively effective at this for many years, but now the conditions are changing enough that they are less and less effective. The reason some fires get out of control is that land management agencies usually have their hands full with several other fires ignited by the same thunderstorm.

Fire's benefits

To return to more historical fire regimes, fire ecologists say it will take a combination of controlled burns and closely monitored natural fire. Most forests could attain that goal in about 30 to 40 years.

"Many people think fires erase the area from the face of the earth," said Steve Ziel a fire behavior analyst in Central Oregon. "Most fires are in no way disasters," he argues. "It's a natural event and people simply put their own social values on it."

The evening news covers the number of million-dollar homes lost or threatened by fires, but Ziel said people need to be aware of the positive things that fire can do for a forest ecosystem.

He explained that fires clean up the forest floor and provide for fresh grasses to grow as nutrients are released into the soil. Dense forest canopy areas are opened up to more sunlight and allow more moisture to stay on site. Wildlife benefits tremendously the spring after fires. Snags are created for birds such as woodpeckers and other cavity nesters.

"I look at the woods and see fire scars everywhere," said Ziel. "The forests wouldn't be there if fire hadn't occurred. When people see a green forest it is most likely because it was blackened at one time."

In the past, fires of 10,000 acres were considered huge. Today, it's not uncommon to have fires over 100,000 acres. Ziel agrees that this is the result of 100 years of fire suppression.

"In some ways, we are protecting the forest to death," he said.

Oregon fires

The Biscuit Fire of 2002 has been repeatedly referred to by some as "catastrophic, devasting and unnatural." However, according to the Siskiyou National Forest, 84 percent of the fire was either unburned or burned at low or moderate intensity and much of the high intensity burn areas were actually set intentionally as back-burns by firefighters.

The B & B Complex Fire of 2003 near Sisters also got some attention. When President George W. Bush came to Central Oregon last summer to promote his Healthy Forest Initiative policy, he called the fire "a holocaust" and "devastating." But, the forest service reported that 90 percent of the fire area was unburned or burned at low or moderate intensity.

Since 2000, an average of 5.5 million acres of forests and grasslands have burned annually in the country. Compare this to the annual average of almost 14 million acres burned from 1919 to 1999.

Many studies by the Departments of Agriculture and Interior have shown that logging doesn't decrease the risk of wildfire, but actually increases the risk by leaving behind small materials such as branches, twigs and needles.

Setting fires

To get back to that natural cycle, Ziel says there needs to be more prescribed fires to prevent the buildup of fuels.

He said the forest service will continue to suppress fires that threaten communities, commercial timberlands and social and economic values. But, he added, by continuing prescribed burning, the size and intensity of future fires would be reduced.

The cost of fire suppression to the American public is exorbitant. The larger fires end up costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. "We have allowed fires today to become unmanageable through past practices," Ziel said. "As a nation, we are now just realizing how detrimental fire suppression has been in the past."

The Yellowstone fires put the fear of fire into most land managers as well as a fear of their retirement. Few managers want to put their career on the line by letting even smaller fires burn, even if there's no risk to surrounding communities. Hence, fires in wilderness areas are often attacked.

Urban growth is also a concern. New construction in many communities is extending into the forestland/urban interface. Fires in many of these areas, especially in ponderosa pine forests, usually occur naturally every 10 to 15 years. Homeowners need to take precautions such as having defensible space around their homes and roofs of noncombustible material.

Ziel agrees there is much politics coming into play concerning the fires in the west. Many blame the last administration for the large fires.

"That's like blaming my parents for my aging," he joked. He said about the same number of acres has burned per year on the average over the last several decades.

We are already hearing on the news the same thing that we hear every year about this time. A reporter stands in front of billowing smoke and declares that this is looking like one of the worst fire seasons on record. It doesn't seem to matter if it's a dry season or a wet season; a wet season only makes the grass grow tall before it dies, adding to the fire danger.

Which leads us to Ziel's conclusion: "We all need to realize that fire always has been and always will be with us."

At a viewpoint along the trail, I paused to look out at the mosaic pattern the fire left across the landscape. In places, islands of green trees that survived the hungry flames remain surrounded by patches of trees with brown needles. In the steeper draws, the fire funneled upward leaving behind black, skeletal trunks.

A shriek from atop a nearby charred snag caught my attention. Two kestrels fought over a small snake dangling from one of the bird's sharp talons, reminding me that for something to live, something must also die.