Living with wildfire - living in the country side

Sunset, April, 2001 by Matthew Jaffe

Reducing forest fuels

It is Fall 2000. I am in northern Arizona near Flagstaff for a firsthand look at pilot projects that may become models for forest fuel reduction. Such reduction is an essential element of most programs designed to reduce the threat of catastrophic wildfire.

A light October snow has dusted the crest of the distant San Francisco Peaks, but the forests at lower elevations are dry and bathed in a golden light. The grove we are standing in is part of the world's largest ponderosa pine forest.

"This area was logged heavily a century ago," says Martos A. Hoffman, executive director of the Southwest Forest Alliance. He goes on to explain that these forests regenerated without the benefits of the natural fire cycle, creating dense stands of younger trees that were dangerously susceptible to fire. But the alliance's 37-acre test plot bears little resemblance to the ponderosa forests nearby With its grassy clearings between small clusters of mature trees, the grove has the parklike feel of the original ponderosa forests described by early Western pioneers before the timber was logged: forests of trees so widely spaced that settlers could easily ride horses two abreast among the pines. Since the alliance's fuel reduction project began in 1998, Hoffman says 50 percent of the fuel load in the test plot has been eliminated through light burning and selective thinning, techniques that other experts agree are best for restoring our forests.

Although prescribed burns were heavily criticized following the Los Alamos inferno, Hoffman maintains that they're effective. From 1995 to 1999, the number of acres federal agencies treated with fire more than doubled; out-of-control incidents were few. Still, prescribed burning has its detractors--especially burns near communities, where the risk to structures is greatest and smoke can be a problem for residents.

As for thinning, there remains considerable debate regarding the proper degree of cutting, complicated by questions about a forest's original composition and about cost: Logging companies need to turn a profit. Some environmentalists fear that forest restoration will become a justification for increased logging of mature and old-growth timber. Hoffman sums it up: "Does the economy or ecology drive the decisions?"

Letting it burn

Another option for fuel reduction is to allow naturally occurring fires to burn. Mutch says that during last season's fires, about 70,000 acres in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness in Idaho and Montana were permitted to burn--under close scrutiny--as part of a longstanding prescribed burn strategy there. Ranging from lower-elevation stands of ponderosa pine to higher elevation lodgepole forests, these wilderness blazes burned according to natural patterns before reaching areas previously burned, where their intensity diminished. These fires were not catastrophic infernos but rather a life-giving natural event for the forest.

Paul Hefner, a fire staff officer for the Payette National Forest who served as a national incident commander last summer, says that even in nonwilderness areas, fires can be allowed to burn--provided that conditions fall within mandated safety standards and land management objectives. Letting fires burn can help the environment and frees up firefighting resources for immediate needs--most typically threats to lives and private property.