RODEO-CHEDISKI: SOME UNDERLYING QUESTIONS

Fire Management Today, Winter 2005 by Beal, Doug

Editor's note: The fires of 2002 revived a fierce debate over who or what is to blame for uncharacteristically severe wildland fires in the Interior West. Some say it's too little active management, and others say it's too much, or maybe not the right kind. In the wake of the Rodeo-Chediski Fire on Arizona's Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest, Fire Management Today (FMTJ discussed such questions with Doug Beal, a silviculturalist for the USDA Forest Service, Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest, Springerville, AZ.

FMT: It's sometimes said that fires like Rodeo-Chediski are "unnatural." Does the biological/paleoecological record suggest a history of similar fires in the region? For example, can ponderosa pine stands be identified by age class, perhaps suggesting a history of stand replacement fires under severe drought conditions?

Beal: Prevailing science tells us that the Rodeo-Chediski Fire was outside the historical range of variability for southwestern ponderosa pine ecosystems (Cooper 1960; Covington 1994; GAO 1999; Johnson 1996; Moore and others 1999; Steele 1994). Field observations on the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest support research findings that our southwestern ponderosa pine-and most other low-elevation, dry forest types in the Interior West-has an ecological history of frequent low-intensity fire.

The very anatomy of ponderosa pine-thick bark; protected buds; and long, resinous needles forming a litter layer conducive to surface fires-suggests a species adapted to surviving fire. By contrast, lodgepole pine-with its serotinous cones-has a strategy for replacing itself after large fires that kill entire forest stands.

The patchy nature of ponderosa pine also suggests a species that responds to a pattern of small disturbances rather than to stand-scale or landscape-scale replacement events. Although great variation occurred historically in the size and distribution of these relatively small events, there is little evidence that stands of ponderosa pine on the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest originated from a single widespread event like the Rodeo-Chediski Fire.

FMT: The Rodeo-Chediski Fire burned both tribal and Federal land, where management histories and strategies might have been quite different. Were there clear differences in fire severity across jurisdictions?

Beal: No. Mapped polygons of fire severity do not show a clear distinction in distribution or size of intensely burned areas on tribal and national forest lands. Fire severity was equally variable across jurisdictions, depending on variations in topography, fuel conditions, stage of the fire, and burning period.

If you look at the entire area burned by severity class, the percentages in each class do not differ significantly across jurisdictions. Rough calculations based on preliminary maps are reflected in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest's summary report on Rodeo-Chediski fire effects (USDA Forest Service 2002). They show about 28 percent in the high-severity class for national forest land and 32 percent for the entire fire area. Other classes show similar small differences, which are probably not statistically significant.

FMT: A postfire report by several environmental organizations (CBD and others 2002) suggests that the area of the Rodeo-Chediski Fire that is national forest land had been heavily logged in the 1990s, and that the fire's severity therefore shows the failure of active management. Is that correct?

Beal: Unfortunately, CBD and others (2002) confused the issue by comparing apples to oranges. The heavy regeneration cuts of the 1980s and early 1990s-including the ones listed by CBD and others (2002)-were designed to increase the representation of younger age classes under a land and resource management plan for the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest that called for even-aged stand management. Adequate treatment of slash and other fuels resulting from timber harvest was always an objective, but landscape-level management for fuels reduction-let alone ecological restoration-was not yet on the radar screen. At the time, aggressive suppression action was still a satisfactory strategy for dealing with large fires.

Since then, our management prescriptions have changed. In 1996, an amendment to the forest's land and resource management plan shifted ponderosa pine management into an uneven-aged/thin-from-below regimen for northern goshawk habitat. The Forest Service's Cohesive Strategy in 2000 and the National Fire Plan then refocused our management on landscape-level fuels reduction, especially in or near the wildland/urban interface. The corresponding projects are just now [as of late 2002] emerging through the planning pipeline.

It seems rather misleading for CBD and others (2002) to characterize logging as all one thing-the liquidation of the largest trees in a forest. In reality, vegetation removal comes in a variety of shades and hues. It can accomplish a whole range of land management objectives, depending on what your purpose is.