SOS Forests

Concerned Citizens for Responsible Fire Management Report

Last October (while the fires were still burning) the Concerned Citizens for Responsible Fire Management, a group made up of professional foresters resident in Trinity County, CA, critiqued USFS fire suppression practices in a (now) 48-page report to Congressman Wally Herger.

That report has now been posted in the W.I.S.E. Colloquium: Forest and Fire Sciences [here].

The nine authors (David Rhodes, Charley Fitch, Michael Jameson, Clarence Rose, Jerry McDonald, Frank Grovers, Stan Stetson, Dana Hord, Gay Berrien) have a combined professional forestry experience of over 220 years, most of those in fire prevention and suppression.

Their conclusions, expressed in the report, are that the US Forest Service leadership has altered (for the worse) Federal fire and fuels policies, and the new policies have led to repeated failures in fire management.

If these management policies in suppression are not addressed and changed, then we can look forward to the same catastrophic fire scenario each summer until our Trinity forest is no longer a forest.

As noted in a previous SOSF post [here], the Concern Citizens report also offered these comments:

… [A] lack of responsible suppression policies and actions … in the past several years have caused great damage and negative impacts to private property (timber, watersheds, water lines), the local economy, watersheds and soils, wildlife, aesthetics, cultural resources, and air quality–sometimes in radical proportions. Safety in firefighting is also challenged. When fires continue for such long periods of time, there is increased potential for accidents and, yes, fatalities. …

The fire suppression organization has been adversely affected due to retirement of many of the older, more experienced people in the last 20 years. This has left a void in the top incident command management positions as well as in line personnel. …

If the tactics were as aggressive and reasonable as they were several years ago, these fires would have been contained several ridges over from where they were finally stopped. …

Although we agree that fuels are a problem, something to consider in fire management, they are not THE cause of large-scale and long-enduring fires–the cause is changes in fire suppression practices. …

A few people think all fires are beneficial, irregardless of the reality. This is what is promoted by many environmental groups who do not seems to want any management of the National Forests. Under controlled circumstances… prescribed fire can be beneficial. Uncontrolled wildfire is NOT beneficial. …

The people of Trinity County are not happy with the mismanagement in the way fires are being suppressed, and the way the Forest Service is being managed. Something needs to change.

We need to (1) get the Forest Service back to managing the timber and other resources on National Forest Lands, (2) change fire management suppression tactics–if this includes adding more firefighters, then that is what should be done, (3) re-staff stations in remote areas, and (4) have the Forest Service address and resolve the “liability” issue. …

In another SOSF post [here], we presented a letter-to-the-editor by one of the Concerned Citizens report authors, Charley Fitch, retired District Ranger on the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. He wrote in part:

It appears that the Forest Service has lost its ability to fight fires. Not only is the Forest Service in this situation, but so are the other federal agencies that have joined in these new “safe” suppression tactics. It seems that very soon the Forest Service and other federal agencies will need to decide if they are going to fight fire at all. Or will they just admit that they can no longer safely fight any fires and get out of the business? As a retired Forest Service employee, I would hope that the Forest Service and other federal agencies would review their present positions and return to a more conventional style of fire suppression. It can be done safely.

Mr. Fitch touches on a contentious issue. A frequent USFS “talking point” (excuse) for hands-off fire suppression tactics (such as those used in Trinity County last year) is “firefighter safety.” The purpose of no initial attack, let it burn for months on end, back off and backburn from miles away is ostensibly to promote the safety of the fireline crews. However, the Shasta-Trinity NF fires of last summer resulted in the deaths of 10 firefighters, including the worst fatality incident since Storm King Mountain in 1994. From our post ‘Appropriate Management Response’ Tantamount to Arson of last March [here]:

All told, on those three NF’s (Klamath, Six Rivers, Shasta-Trinity) something like 650,000 acres (1,000 square miles) burned at a “suppression” cost of over $400 million. The fires burned for three months, choking Northern California airsheds, causing extensive public health problems, ruining agricultural crops, all but eliminating an entire season of recreation, and inflicting (conservatively) $10 billion in collateral economic damage. Major traditional heritage sites were incinerated, and an unknown but significant number of spotted owl nesting stands and salmon spawning beds were destroyed.

Twelve firefighters lost their lives, in machine accidents — not burnovers.

Appropriate Management Response broke the USFS fire budget, too.

Large amounts of private land were burned, too, in backburns set by USFS fire crews. Fires that could have been contained miles away were allowed to burn to the city limits of Junction City, Hayfork, and other NorCal towns.

By mid-August of last summer the Iron Complex Fires had been burning for nearly 8 weeks. Over 50,000 man-days of firefighting had been invested. And then the accident occurred that took the lives of nine firefighters.

When fires are allowed to burn for weeks on end, the opportunity for accidents increases. The “talking point” regarding firefighter safety is tragically disingenuous.

Another “talking point” used by the USFS is that Let-It-Burn reduces the fire hazard by removing fuels. Again, that argument is wholly disingenuous.

Let-It-Burn fires are the actualization of the hazard, not the prevention. Fuel loadings are often increased because green trees are converted to dry, dead fuels. The hazard is not abated but instead worsened, and subsequent fires return within 5 to 15 years. The follow-on fires are often larger, more intense, and do even greater damage to forests (including permanent conversion of forests to fire-type brush).

These issues are discussed in the Concerned Citizens report, and the history of the Big Bar Ranger District is given as an example.

Prior to 1987 the largest fires there were the Peacock Fire (1945, 9,000 acres) and the Jim Jam Fire (1951, 7,000 acres). The largest fire during the 1970s was the Virgin Fire (725 acres).

Then in 1987 over 90,000 acres burned in Trinity County (including about 26,370 acres on Big Bar District) in “the worst fire season” in Northern California history.

The Big Bar RD was merged with the Weaverville RD in 1997. Active management all but stopped, fire prevention was reduced, and fire protection personnel cut back.

As a direct result, in 1999 the Big Bar Complex fires burned 141,000 acres. In 2006 the Bar Complex fires burned over 100,000 acres. In 2008 the Iron Complex fires burned over 105,000 acres.

Megafires do not prevent future megafires — in fact, the opposite is the rule. Unless and until forest and fire management policies are changed on the Shasta-Trinity NF (and nationwide), our forests and communities will continue to be subjected to ever larger and more destructive megafires.