Last week we found out that most of us are for some use of managed fire, but have concerns, so this week we will dig into some of them. If you haven’t, you might want to review the piece from last week on how the Coconino uses managed fire, including the linked video (Mormon Fire Staff Ride) on how they make decisions. One question has been about the NEPA enabling this.. my source mentioned the 4FRI EIS and the LMP. Jon looked at the LMP here.
I’d like to introduce the “deck of cards” concept. I think when we talk about forests, or MF or any other treatment, we all have our own experiences and specific examples in mind. For me, I’ve had long-term MFs that I’ve driven through the smoke of for months. When I worked for the FS, we had (seemed like) several presentations on the Little Venus Entrapment of 2006, peer review here.
Point being, in my deck of MF cards, I had only “lightning ignited fire started in wilderness that is allowed to skunk around and is monitored.” I didn’t have anything like the Coconino’s firing operations in pre-treated areas, or 320K acres as Frank Carroll questioned about the Black Fire. If I had had those cards in my deck, I might have thought differently about managed fire. So perhaps many disagreements about MF (and forests in general) reflect what cards an individual is holding.
If you look at it through that lens, it seems like there might be (at least) two categories of MF, passive MF and active MF.
To understand why we disagree, then, we need to go to the next level.. which cards are you thinking of when you espouse a position? Since most of us turn out to be 2’s (not BAU and not full stop with MF) maybe we can further in exploring what we fear, what we would like to improve, how to build trust, and so on.
For the Coconino, it seems like the main difference between a PF and an MF is a fortuitous natural ignition which enables all kinds of resources otherwise inaccessible. And of course, obvious pre=planning NEPA process with potential litigation; the risk of not having funding when the process is complete, and so on.
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What cards are you holding and do they reflect active or passive MF?
I think I like the idea of differentiating between passive vs. active managed fire. I have some questions though.
1. Re: The Black Fire. Most of the burn area (around 96%) burned at low to moderate severity. Is this not a win? I’m asking genuinely, as I don’t know if there’s some additional context I’m missing.
2. Should we be conflating burn operations with managed fire? This seems to be a common sticking point I’ve seen, especially with those who are critical of managed fire. I worked on a few managed fires in the Frank Church and did dozens of burn ops on a hotshot crew, and objectives/strategies/intended outcomes between the two were fundamentally different.
Amanda,
I think you’ve pointed out something really important- what do we consider a win?
1. Is success measured ex post facto (ergo, it wouldn’t have to be a managed fire to be a win, the FS can claim good acres in Full Suppression Wildfire?
2. How is “success” measured? Is it just burn severity, or are there other values that need to be considered? Who decides?
3. Do citizens feel comfortable that they were involved in the decision-making (which is separate from 4)
4. What is the appropriate way to follow NEPA?
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I do think it’s easy to conflate burn ops with MF because as you said, it does depend on the objectives and outcomes.. and it’s not always easy to dig in and find that out. I can’t speak for anyone else, but the ones I think of as MF is because the Forest said so.
Thanks for contributing! We’ll talk more about this in the next post.
I come from Frank’s point of view 100%.
I’m unsure, in my own deck of cards, how much I like the distinction between passive & active managed fire. I probably prefer “monitored wildfire” over “passive management,” since management implies firefighting which involves the ten standard orders that end with, “fight fire aggressively having provided for safety first.” I understand this may not line up with the nomenclature, but operationally this is more useful to me.
On the managed fires that I have been on in R3, the name of the game has always been solid, fundamental firefighting. Establishing security around a good anchor point with values at risk in mind. We extend our work out from there to create our control lines & drag fire with us to keep a safety zone. Its nature is active.
I was on the Black Fire for over a month, arriving within a couple operational periods of the IA. Fire activity was intense, and I was certainly glad to be on burnouts that kept us on solid escape routes with solid safety zones. Far from being a managed fire, it still seemed beneficial to me as a clean understory burn all the times I’ve returned back since. Certainly easier to find sheds!
In my own deck, when I work as a FEMO, I look towards literature to figure out if something is beneficial or not. What were the historic intervals? What did stand density look like? How might these historic conditions line up with what direction I receive from my chain of command & the forest plan? It looks a lot different from my R1 home and my R3 home-away-from-home. Good planning processes help resolve these things ahead of time, and I believe there is use for managed fire in most parts of the west. We certainly need to grow greater expertise outside just R3 for it to be safe & effective.
Of course, personally, my criteria is simpler. Was this stand more huntable before or after the burn? After is the usual answer…
Need I say my views are my own, I’ve posted this on my day off, and I do not speak for my agency?