SOS Forests

Return Fire

A 5-part essay by Mike Dubrasich

No Forest Worries, Mate, Says the JSFP

The Joint Fire Science Program (JSFP) is a government bureaucracy dedicated to wildfire [here]. Fire is the be-all and end-all of their existence.

Now, I’m not saying that the JSFP is made up of bug-eyed arsonists, but fire is their bread and butter, the source and inspiration of their funding, their primary focus, and their conceit.

Forests are not their focus, although wildfires often burn forests. Fire is the consuming concern of the JSFP; forests are merely the backdrop — in their eyes piles of fuels ready to burn –- and in some ways justification for the existence of the JSFP and buttering their bread.

Because forests sometimes erupt into forest fires, which enflame the passion and conceit of the JSFP, and because the JSFP styles itself as a scientific institution, they occasionally foray into forest science. Sadly, those forays betray a profound ignorance of the subject. The JSFP knows next to nothing about forests, and indeed, next to nothing about why and how forests burn.

That ignorance is on display their web publication, Fire Science Brief, Issue 49, May 2009 [here]. In that issue the JSFP resurrects a two-year-old paper and badly fumbles the context and the findings.

The resurrected paper discussed in Fire Science Brief is from an actual forest science study, (Shatford J., D.E. Hibbs and K Puettmann. 2007. Conifer Regeneration Following Forest Fire in the Klamath-Siskiyous: How much, how soon? Journal of Forestry 105:139-146), but the JSFP discussion does not reprint the report. Instead, they misinterpret it out of context.

Drs. Hibbs and Puettmann did a small regeneration survey in the Biscuit Burn and found some conifer seedlings. The JSFP imputed a grand conclusion: that following a severe fire forests will naturally regenerate a new forest. From the unsigned Fire Science Brief article:

This may be the key to the whole story: The conifer forests of the Klamath-Siskiyou region are resilient, and the researchers’ work clearly shows that even severe fire does not appear to spell long-term conifer loss. The team’s data highlight a sense of biological exuberance in these forests, that managers and planners of these areas may find relieving, if not down right, comforting.

In a follow up article, a Manager’s Viewpoint opinion piece by Paige Houston (same link), more gushing burbles forth about “ecosystem and landscape recovery”:

Statistics derived from the study illustrate useful information to land managers regarding burned areas and how to sustain natural regeneration post fire in southwestern Oregon. …

In addition, this study’s statistics will provide land managers guidelines in understanding stand dynamics decades after fires, as survival of conifers is apparent after high-severity fires. …

As the findings have illustrated regarding regeneration over time and space, artificial planting is not needed due to how well the forests are recovering post fire. Ten to 20 years later we see positive signs of how adaptation is occurring. As more time passes, more and more conifers and hardwoods are replenishing (Shatford and Hibbs 2006).

The implication presented by JSFP is that severe fires are no big deal. So what if a forest burns down? –- new seedlings will pop up and the forest will be “renewed” by Mother Nature. No worries, mate. We can burn the holy bejabbers out of heritage forests and then Gaia makes a new one, presto like magic!

Stop your whining, all you forester types. Trust the Fire Community. We can burn your forests to smithereens, and you can take a hike, twenty years later in the renewed and recycled forest!

Re-Debunking the Myth

We (myself and other foresters and forest scientists) debunked all this tripe years ago, during the Donato Fiasco that nearly destroyed the College of Forestry at Oregon State University [here, here, here, here, and more]. But apparently JSFP did not get the memo. So we feel compelled to set the forest science record straight one more time.

There will be no towering conifer forest to hike through on the Biscuit Burn twenty years from now because that brush pile will catch fire and burn again in a return fire before then.

The Biscuit Fire (2002) was a return fire itself, a subsequent reburn of the Silver Fire (1987). The Silver Fire severely roasted 180,000 acres, including most of the 100,000-acre Kalmiopsis Wilderness Area. Fifteen years later another severe fire burned over the same ground and 320,000 additional acres besides.

The first fire killed old-growth. The second fire killed more old-growth and burned the dead logs and snags from the first fire. The third fire (expected about 2017) will kill whatever regeneration Hibbs and Puettmann found in their survey.

Here’s the photo of the “renewed forest” posted by JSFP accompanying the articles in Fire Science Brief:

Photo by David Hibbs. Click on image for larger version.

Note the deep brush that resprouted after the Biscuit Fire (four years of growth). Those fine fuels combined with the abundant large dead and dry wood (note the snags) will combust severely in a few years. The tiny conifer germinants (that cannot be seen in the photo) will be killed.

No new forest will be towering on that site. No new old-growth will develop. The area has been permanently converted to fire-type brush. More return fires will occur as the fuels accumulate.

There is no restoration plan or active management. There is no new fire plan; Let It Burn is still in effect. The next fire will be soon, and it will be severe and cover a large acreage. It will be another megafire.

The “adaptation” of the ecosystem is to severe return fires. The old-growth that occupied the region prior to the Silver and Biscuit Fires was not a natural occurrence –- it was an artifact of historical human stewardship: the frequent, seasonal, anthropogenic fires set by the human residents over millennia.

A few germinants do not a forest make. JSFP has no conception or understanding of the historical forest development pathways in SW Oregon or their human-mediated character. What is worse, JSFP has no grasp of return fires, a phenomenon that should be in their field of study and interest.

Returning Like Clockwork

The most famous return fires were three of the four Tillamook Fires in the Oregon Coast Range. The first Tillamook Fire was in August of 1933 and burned 311,000 acres. The Depression was on and little salvage was done. Then six years later fire struck again, burning 190,000 acres within the older burn. The brush grows quickly in the rainy Coast Range, and after six more years (in 1945) the third Tillamook Fire occurred, covering 190,000 acres. Three megafires, each six years apart, seemingly burned up every bit of biomass extant, but then six years later a fourth fire erupted. The 1951 fire burned “only” 32,700 acres, but the citizens of Oregon had had enough. Major rehabilitation was done including construction of a permanent road network, herbicide application to the brush, the planting of millions of trees, and establishment of a modern fire response/control system.

Since then the Tillamook Burn has not reburned and is today a thriving forest of 60 to 70-year-old trees. That is not because Mother Nature was all worn out and tired of fire, not because the forest “adapted,” but because of human stewardship and active management.

The Biscuit Fire (2002) was a return fire following the Silver Fire (1987), as we noted above. The fifteen year hiatus was in keeping with the slower growth of the brush in more xeric SW Oregon.

The Rattle Fire (2008) was also a return fire, burning over the same area severely cooked by the Spring Fire (1996). The Rattle Fire charred more than 20,000 acres. Most of the 19,100-acre Boulder Creek Wilderness was roasted, and the fire spread out of the designated wilderness area to the west, south, and east. Most of the 16,500-acre 1996 Spring Burn was reburned. The 12-year interim between fires was commensurate with the medium productivity of the brush there (as compared to the lush and wet Coast Range and the dryer Siskiyou Mountains in SW Oregon).

Fuel loadings on the Rattle Fire exceeded 300 tons of dead old-growth per acre, thanks to the severity of the Spring Fire. For some excellent photos of the brush growth and dead snags between the burns, see [here].

The Backbone Fire [here] is currently burning in the New River watershed in Trinity County, CA, within the footprint of the Megram Burn. The Megram Fire (125,000 acres) was part of the Big Bar Complex (141,000 acres) of 1999. Estimates are the dead woody debris today exceeds 200 tons per acre.

The old-growth snags from the Megram Fire are now a major hazard to firefighters on the Backbone Fire. The fire team on the job is well-aware of what a return fire looks like, and how it burns, and what the hazards are if no rehabilitation is done after the first fire. The JSFP ought to study those conditions and rethink their position on post-fire rehab. There isn’t a war going on between foresters and the Fire Community –- at least, that’s not the intention on our side. But one wonders why the JSFP is all hot and bothered to bad mouth post-fire rehab, since it’s their sorry noggins that stand to get conked by falling snags during the return fire.

The San Miguel Fire [here] is burning right now in the footprint of the Cerro Grande Fire (2000). The latter is rather famous. The Cerro Grande Fire began as a prescribed fire “for resource benefit” in the Upper Frijoles Units 1 and 5 of Bandelier National Monument. It “escaped prescription” on May 5, 2000 and burned north through the Santa Fe National Forest until it reached Los Alamos, NM, where it destroyed over 400 residences, caused the evacuation of 18,000 people, and did significant damage to the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The Cerro Grande Fire inflicted over $860 million in direct costs and losses.

Nonetheless, the San Miguel Fire has been designated a foofurb (a fire used for resource benefit) and nobody is fighting it. It’s a Let It Burn fire monitored by airplane. If a south wind comes up, goodbye Los Alamos again.

It seems the Fire Community has forgotten that lesson, too. The JSFP would do well to extend their “scientific” vision beyond two years, forwards and backwards.

It’s the Biology, Stupid

The very idea that the Fire Community would designate wildfires as “beneficial” to resources is evidence of their general ignorance about fire effects, about forests, and about ecology. That many members of the Governing Board of JSFP call themselves “fire ecologists” is anathema to real ecologists, the kind of scientists who study living organisms, not chemical combustion reactions.

Fire is, in fact, rooted in biology. It is organic biomass that fuels wildfires. Without some scientific understanding of biology, ecology, and where biomass comes from, so-called “fire ecologists” are sadly ignorant of the basis of their own field of study.

With tragic tunnel vision, the Fire Community and JSFP are myopic to the phenomenon of return fires. They are also blind to the destruction of forests, heritage, wildlife habitat, soils, watersheds, streams, rivers, airsheds, recreation opportunities, scenery, public health and safety, homes, lives, rural economies, and all the other resources that most assuredly do NOT benefit from wildfires.

They see money, the money that comes from firefighting and “studying” firefighting. JSFP is all about the money, and what butters their bread.

JSFP is not about forests. They are not foresters, or forest scientists, or wildlife biologists, or hydrologists, or historians, or ecologists (at least not the kind that study living organisms). I’m not saying that they are bug-eyed arsonists, but their conceit is fire, not resources, and not biology.

And therein lies a big problem. The people that study wildfire are disconnected from the stuff that wildfires consume. Tax dollars that fund JSFP are being burned with abandon, literally.

Any Rebuttal?

For what it’s worth, I call upon the Governing Board of JSFP to defend themselves and the Fire Community from my heated accusations.

Prove to all of us that you do actually know what a return fire is. Prove to us that you have contemplated the long term effects of wildfire on natural resources. Prove to us that you have a clue about something other than padding your pockets with taxpayer dollars while reveling in your conceit.

Because the impression you present is the exact opposite of that.