From the Denver Post — thanks to Nick Smith at HFHC for the link.
Firefighters back off growing fires in dangerous dead forests north of Pagosa Springs in southwestern Colorado
Federal officials declared “full suppression” approach to 1,133-acre wilderness fire but cannot engage it for now
…
“There is no way to engage the fire because it is extremely deep in the wilderness. There are no roads. No trails. It is burning in extremely thick timber that is mostly standing dead and downed trees. It is extremely steep terrain. We’re not going to put firefighters at risk,” San Juan National Forest spokeswoman Lorena Williams said.
“We are developing plans for when the fire reaches terrain where we can engage it,” Williams said. “In areas surrounding the wilderness, we do have critical infrastructure — utility power lines, gas lines.”
It’s hard to tell if the agency spokesperson is boasting or whining about the situation. Deep inside designated wilderness, on steep terrain in a snag forest, forest managers should be welcoming a fire to help recycle downed logs and limbs. How else could or would managers reduce fuel loads in that place? And Mother Nature is doing it for free–why would we try to prevent or stop that?
Backing off and prioritizing suppression near human infrastructure that could be destroyed by fire is the right call. The agency should be proudly stating that it is being selective and strategic in implementing full suppression where it really matters: near values at risk of destruction, while providing for the highest values of all: firefighter safety.
Time to stop slapping “full suppression” objectives on all wildfire incidents across the entire landscape, or admit that it is merely a public relations ploy attempting to assuage the fears of a populace that has been socially-conditioned to fear all fires. No 20-year-old firefighter’s life is worth sacrificing in the attempt to stop a downed log in wilderness from becoming biochar soil.
Tim, I thought that’s what Lorena was saying.. “we can’t do anything now, but we will do something if the fire starts encroaching on powerlines, etc. ” She said they’re analyzing and preparing based on where the fire is likely to go and thinking about what resources to put where. I didn’t get boasting or whining, just explaining.
“No 20-year-old firefighter’s life is worth sacrificing…”
However, apparently, it is just fine to put millions of people (including babies and seniors) at risk to the effects of extended exposure to wildfire smoke?
Again, we need a ban on WFU during the peak 3 months of fire season, because of dry conditions and a lack of fire suppression resources. ‘Free Range’ fire isn’t the answer to our forest problems. We already tried that, with horrific results. Turning a 3000 acre wildfire into a 100,000 acre firestorm isn’t a good idea.
A bit disingenuous to only point to negative outcomes from WFU or “free range” fire as you refer to it. There are many examples of good outcomes from WFU. Maybe some horrific results as you say but I can also point to several examples in the past five years where horrific results were avoided in great part due to previous use of resource benefit fire in the area.
Hey, I only want to limit the times it can be used. And where. And under what conditions. And under what staffing levels. And when how many fires are burning across the country.
One of the things we know VERY well is that weather conditions change rather quickly in the mountains. If the area “really needs to have a fire”, then torch it off when conditions are safe, and the Forest Service can hold ITSELF accountable, instead of ‘letting nature take its course’, endangering us humans.
Now, more than ever, the public doesn’t trust the Forest Service to deal with wildfires and prescribed burns. The liability issue has their hands tied, preventing them from doing more prescribed burns, while letting more acres burn at higher intensities.
Yes, “free-range wildfires” would be good, in a pre-human forest. Not in today’s fuels-choked tinderboxes, though.
I agree – it is hard in all of these situations (seems like every fire lately) where dead trees are mentioned as a factor in fire-fighting – even where there are what I would consider “average” levels of dead trees – there have always been dead trees in a healthy forest. But the implication when it comes to fire seems to be that these dead trees, even if at “healthy levels” are symptomatic of a forest that is in poor condition.
This is the same line of reasoning that formed the basis for managing the 2013 West Fork Complex in this fairly remote area. The strategy was to allow the fires to burn in spruce-beetled killed forests, put personnel to work prepping areas around structures and hit the fire hard from the air when it moved out of the mountains and toward civilization. Only one small pump house was lost in those fires (109,000+ acres) and there were no loss of time injuries to 1,000+ personnel working on them. The Quartz Ridge and Bear Creek Fires are in fairly remote – although Quartz Ridge Fire could reach electric and gas pipeline infrastructure – and rugged terrain, and there is a lot of standing dead from past and current insect infestations. There is also some history on the San Juan NF with losing a firefighter to a falling tree. The weather forecast is for the area to receive some moisture over the next few days. From my vantage point it looks like the Bear Creek Fire may have received rain today.
Thanks, Mike! It’s good to hear from someone nearby. Are the electric lines and pipelines buried?
Good question. The pipeline probably is, but it comes to the surface in several places along its length. It’s been a long time since I have been in the area that fire is possibly headed, but I’m very familiar with other sections of this pipe line. I don’t recall much about the electric lines. The Bear Creek Fire is on the other side of the Divide from me, but really not all that far away, so I can see the smoke when it heats up. Depending on the weather and the future fire management strategy, this may be a fire that burns the rest of summer into autumn until we get snow.
One of the West Fork Complex fires took a week to burn 150 acres, after ignition. A Hotshot crew could have dealt with that, but someone made the decision to let the fire grow, no matter how long it took to burn. Yes, the ‘safety card’ can always be played, but you risk injury just going down to the grocery store, these days.
Ironically, resources that went to the West Fork Complex would have, instead, went to…… Yarnall Hill.
That would have been the West Fork Fire. It eventually jumped the Divide on June 19 and did most of its burning on the Rio Grande NF where I worked. The Papoose Fire, the other big fire of the complex, was first spotted on the 19th and made a big run the next day. There was no catching that one. Should the West Fork Fire been aggressively suppressed when it was small? That’s been fodder for many discussions around here.
There were a lot of fires in June of 2013, so saying resources that went to the West Fork Complex would have gone to Yarnell Hill seems speculative to me.
I followed that timeline very closely, and it was about a week between them. With the Situation Report so active, why add another big fire to the ones already burning? Personally, I think that someone probably said “That place needs a good fire!” I doubt that ANY District Ranger wants to sign off on a prescribed burn, in that particular instance, instead.
You never hear the State fire-fighting organizations mention dead trees as an issue – only the feds. Some of that may be the difference in forest conditions – state-protected lands tend to be more intensively managed than federal lands and have less “mature and old-growth” on them that may have more dead trees (even in a healthy state), but the “dead trees” always seem to come up from federal folks – why is that? Why is it that the state goes direct more often but the feds do not?
Which specific state/s are you referring to? And what metric says they’re going direct more than fed resources? Thanks.
The snag problem on federal lands mostly dates to about 1990, the ESA, and the invention of “ecological forestry,” in which it was somehow determined that snags and large, woody debris (“LWD” in government-speak) were somehow indicators of a “healthy forest.” All promoted by taxpayer-funded computerized modeling, as forewarned by Eisenhower 30 years earlier.
The “Six-Year Jinx” of Tillamook Fires in 1933, 1939, 1945, and 1951 were researched in great detail by experienced Oregon Department of Forestry forest managers and OSU Department of Forestry scientists and it was determined that: 1) the principal cause of the recurring and increasingly larger wildfires was the snags and dead wood left by the previous fires, and 2) “recovery” to a safer and more desirable condition could be hastened by planting seedlings. The snags were treated, fuel-free corridors created, trees planted, and now we have the Tillamook State Forest being threatened by HCPs and other federal regulations designed to stop logging and celebrate snags and dead wood because they are somehow “healthy.”
This isn’t science, it’s politics. After the Silver Complex Fire in 1987 the environmental industry fought the salvage of dead trees. Same with the 2002 Biscuit Fire, the 2017 Chetco Bar Fire, and the 2018 Klondike Fire — and the results have been largely the same as the Six-Year Jinx. Hotter, more intense and deadly to wildlife, more air pollution, and all paid for by taxpayers. If the east wind comes up before the Fall rains it will likely be more of the same for the Flat Fire: photos show thousands of snags around the perimeter of the current fire boundaries which are basically standing tubes of pitchy, air-dried firewood that can turn into giant Roman candles spreading burning limbs and embers as much as a mile in advance of the wind-driven flames. All predictable, mostly avoidable, and capable of producing significant tax revenues if properly managed, rather than continuously spending them on seasonal businesses and out-of-town workers.
“Healthy,” as you’re using the term, isn’t ecological science, where a healthy forest would be defined as within its natural range of variation for snags and dead wood. A forest with a dearth of these features would be sickly.
I guess I could agree that a decision to apply ecological science, instead of profit motivation, is a political decision. Just like removing these features as part of a fuel reduction strategy would be a political decision.
Jon: So in your view of “ecology,” what is “the natural range of variation” and how is that determined? And by who? That’s where the politics comes in.
And yes, you are unfortunately right. Any decision to actively manage a forest has become a political process. “Profit” is a consideration that might constitute motivation in some cases, but also might constitute sound reasoning as a “cost of doing business” in others. It’s not one or the other — or certainly shouldn’t be. It’s the computers that are binary, not people.
The politics is limited by regulation to “best available science” for NRV. Probably any recent forest plan you pick up would have desired conditions for snags and down wood.
And you are assuming that the “best available science” (BAS, really, in government-speak) hasn’t been politicized? Or that it is “scientific” enough to avoid responding to challenges? There’s a few decades of literature on this process — which typically takes place in the presence of lawyers. And by “regulation” you are referring directly to politics. “NRV” just confirms the source. Again, this is politics, not science.
It’s politics giving a lot of weight to science.
Hi Jon: We’re getting closer! I’d say it’s politics giving great weight and sustenance to science that supports its agenda. Like Eisenhower said.
Only if it’s the best available science, and that is not a political decision. It is a decision made in the first instance by agency scientists, to which the courts give deference. (If politicians intervene in the agency science, the agencies tend to lose in court, and the politicians tend to lose their jobs.)
Jon: We’re in agreement! “Agency Scientists” are exactly who Eisenhower was referring to. Government scientists with expensive computers funded by taxpayers working hand-in-glove with the courts to establish policies and regulations. Where are the non-governmental scientists that challenge the agencies in this process?
Like Hanson?
Touche!….LOL
Hanson’s a lawyer.
He has a law degree but he is a practicing ecologist – a non-government scientist who challenges the agencies.
And Hanson is still practicing his agenda. I’m sure he makes more money from donations than he currently gets from litigation (since he hasn’t won many cases, lately). I would think that Forest Service experts could easily debunk the claims that Hanson brings into court. Hanson’s studies aren’t comprehensive or compelling. They are more about semantics and agenda-based theories.
They do in Colorado. Mountain pine beetle and spruce beetle (and now Douglas fir beetle) has killed millions of trees which are now falling at a high rate. Like the USFS, the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control considers multiple safety factors, including dead trees, before sending firefighters into remote fires. As I mentioned in an earlier comment, the San Juan NF, specifically the Pagosa RD where these fires are located lost one of their own to a falling tree on a fire about 15 years ago.
I actually never hear much from any State fire-fighting organizations in the news. Maybe other than Calfire. So I checked around with Calfire and found Jerry Brown’s emergency declaration
“The “scale of this tree die-off is unprecedented in modern history,” Brown’s emergency declaration stated, worsening wildfire risks and erosion threats and creating “life safety risks from falling trees.”” He was the Guv and not Calfire but still…
https://www.kqed.org/science/793711/firefighters-wrangle-with-dead-trees
What I have heard in Colorado has been through direct conversations not in the media. When I used to go out on fires as a firefighter in the 80s, I had to “run” from fires three times (once in a clearcut in Oregon; the saplings, dry vegetation and slash left on the ground burned quite well with the help of the dry, 30 mph wind); I was “burned over” once (Black Hills. We got to a large safe spot and didn’t need to deploy, but the fire spotted over us and we were surrounded by fire all on sides with no exit); and had a burning tree fall between me and the person behind me while digging hotline on a fire AK. I think the increased caution being used by many decision-makers today is a good thing. All that said, I also agree with the comments that some decision-makers are playing the safety card because it is sometimes easier and more palatable to the public than saying out loud the fire is being managed as WFU. I’m saying this from some local experiences, not armchair quarterbacking from afar. The key point is every fire is different and requires different strategies. It is much easier to criticize than it is to make decisions where people’s lives are potentially at risk.
An update on the fires mentioned in this post: We have had a surge of much needed moisture. Not enough to put the fires out, but the forecast is for continued afternoon showers for the next week. Yay! Fire spread has been minimal and our pasture needed watering.