Fighting fire with fire - forest fire - includes related articles

American Forests, July-August, 1995 by Herbert E. McLean

Land managers have identified conditions that must be met before the first drip torch is struck. The burn's purpose and objectives must be clear, and established parameters must be followed. Critical factors include the burn area's size, location, elevation, land form, soil type, vegetation including fuel load, climate, wildlife, and habitat. Other considerations include agency policy, funding, air quality, safety of people and property, and access. And, of course, weather and environmental conditions have to be suitable.

In addition to defueling forests, fire can create profound benefits to wildlife:

Several years ago a prescribed burn was torched on a three-acre tract in interior Alaska, conducted jointly by Alaska's Department of Fish & Game (ADF&G) and Department of Natural Resources' Division of Forestry (DNR) and the U.S. Bureau of Land management. The purpose was to determine the economic feasibility of using spring fires to improve wildlife habitat in marshes. the flash-type fire raced through light fuels in marsh grass. The burn was monitored for several years, and each spring the burned ground's warmer and richer soils greened up seven to 10 days earlier and stayed green seven to 10 days longer in the fall.

In 1994 ADF&G and DNR allowed certain areas to burn during a 23,000-acre wildfire in the Delta Junction area. It was a hot burn sparked by lightning, in mostly black spruce forests. Improved habitat for moose, bison, and other creatures is expected over a large portion of that burn.

Biologists in the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge are drafting a moose-management plan that includes burning some 2,000 acres perpetually to maintain a healthy population. The plan will sustain moose numbers of about 6,500. Recurring fires will maintain habit at diversity by creating a mosaic of different-aged forest communities, and in the process reduce the possibility of disastrous wildfires.

Prescribed burning is one of the options being looked at by foresters in south-central Alaska struggling with the worst beetle outbreak ever in all the 50 states. Millions of acres of prime while spruce have been killed. Compounding the problem is that patches of resin flow down the bark of infested trees, providing a hazardous secondary fuel and greatly influencing fire behavior.

As an experienced game biologist, I sometimes react emotionally to the visual impact of a recent fire. But often in a week the burn area will be bursting with new grass shoots, followed by pink fireweed, tiny green willow, aspen, and birch sprouts. Research confirms my personal observations that what appears to be terrible destruction is really Nature renewing the land and the creatures thereon.

Wildlife is a dynamic force in the ecology at boreal forests, and Alaska's resource managers will continue to fine-tune the use of fire to ensure a healthy, diverse, and productive ecosystem for all life.

- DOROTHY T. SIMPSON

RELATED ARTICLE; TNC's Fire Setters

A few decades ago, the idea of intentionally torching our most precious natural preserves would have been unthinkable. No longer.