I ran across an interesting story from earlier this month on Boise State Radio about managed fire.
“Easily the most tightly grouped consensus was around getting the explicit support from leadership,” he said, adding: “Washington-level leadership that comes out and says, ‘we expect you to take necessary risks, done so intelligently, and we’ve got your back if you do so.’”
Franz said it would also be helpful to make it easier for managers to get credit from their agencies toward their land management goals and objectives when they allow wildfires to burn at low- and medium-intensities.
“But at the moment, there is no explicit incentive that focuses on the use of fire to accomplish land management objectives,” he said.
My understanding is that the FS claims those acres under “acres treated” as part of the whole, as I discussed in this piece in 2023.
Also, it seems like if you look at the Coconino, for example, they are doing plenty of wfu. Are they doing it without incentives? Or are incentives and culture (and successful history) more localized?
And doesn’t that part of performance (those actions formerly known as WFU) trickle down to the local land manager? Or is the success split between the incident management team and the local official? Or does accomplishment at the national level not trickle back to local incentives?
Hi, I’m the “Franz” referenced in the article and author of the referenced study. To clarify the “no explicit incentive” comment (as there was some nuance of our conversation that didn’t make it into the relatively short article and radio piece): managing wildfire other than full suppression (formerly WFU) can be counted toward acres treated, but typically only if a NEPA assessment is on the ground saying that fire can be leveraged or a prescribed burn is planned for an area that sees a natural ignition. This was identified as a limitation for the participants of our study. This also corroborated some great work by Courtney Schultz and her lab at CSU on wildfire management incentives (link: https://sites.warnercnr.colostate.edu/courtneyschultz/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2022/09/PP-15-Report-on-May-2022-Workshop.pdf)
Long story short, NEPA assessments and explicit public support from leadership were two of the most sought after incentives that would make our participants feel more confident managing wildfires in this way.
If you’re curious about the full study that informed this media piece, you can find it here: https://fireecology.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s42408-025-00379-y
Thanks for the additional info, Scott! I still wonder whether MFOTFS (formerly WFU) is counted the same in the national write-up as in performance of agency folks. I’m a tiny bit skeptical of those hundreds of thousands of acres counted as having been NEPA-ized (but it’s possible).
And that raises the question of whether forest level fire use plan amendments would count as NEPA ized, versus a site-specific pre-existing NEPA review. I’m just looking at it from the point of view of how NEPA design (clearly the whole forest should have NEPA if that’s an issue) might intersect with desired incentives, and of course, in the world of Cryptic Fire Accounting, how it adds up from individual forest to the national numbers. I could read the papers, but this is an opportunity (since you are here) to get key aspects of what you found from the horse’s mouth.
I remember a previous discussion where I said NEPA compliance should be a prerequisite for counting managed fire as an accomplishment, thinking that would be an incentive to do some actual planning for future fire use. I may regret tossing this out there, but I think use of fire might lend itself to something like condition-based management (some of those conditions being unknowable future fuels and weather conditions, as compared to logging, where they just haven’t done the field work), and that I think condition-based management could (and maybe should) be a forest plan decision (applicable to all future projects).
Well, remember that condition-based management began as a response to bark beetle where their future attacks were in fact unknowable.
At the same time, we both agree that wildfire use plan amendments would be useful.
The Smokey Wire: Are There Appropriate Incentives for the Use of Managed Fire?
Wow! Where to start?
Sharon – this post is likely to generate a lot of clicks.
“Washington-level leadership that comes out and says, ‘we expect you to take necessary risks, done, so intelligently, and we’ve got your back if you do so.’ (Scott Franz, with Northern Arizona University’s Ecological Restoration Institute)
This is a semi-informed opinion, not a stroke of genius!
Of course, even Trump’s Washington, DC, had the back of the Grand Canyon National Park Superintendent as he tended to the Indians. At the same time, the Dragon Bravo Fire consumed the North Rim Lodge and cabins over the weekend of the 249th anniversary of the founding of the Nation. The hapless Type 3 Incident commander was summarily dismissed from the Dragon Bravo after “unexpected winds” arrived on the gale-prone North Rim. The Dragon Bravo burned all summer, disrupting the economies of the tourist-dependent towns of Fredonia, Kanab, and Jacob Lake. The senior executive service park superintendent retired with full benefits and no accountability.
The ill-fated Debbie Cress, former Forest Supervisor of Santa Fe National Forest, commanded the pile burning at Calf Canyon and Cerro Pelado in the winter of 2022, and on 6 April 2022, approved the ignition of the oxymoronic “controlled burn” named La Dispensas that became Hermits Peak Wildfire. On “Earth Day” 2022, the Calf Canyon and Hermits Peak combined to form the largest escaped fire in Federal Government history and New Mexico’s largest wildfire in recorded history, over half of which was direct destruction of 900 homes/structures and “Dredsen-esque” impact to 171,000 acres of private land. The ne’er-do-well forest supervisor was promoted twice in two years since her debacle. The positions that she held were deputy chief of staff of the Forest Service on the 4th floor of the Yates building and deputy regional forester for the Alaska Region. Meanwhile, her catastrophe has cost the US taxpayer $5.5 billion for 51% of the government-sponsored pyromania, and Congress placed a four-letter f-word agency (FEMA) as paymaster to further plague the affected Norteños. Both the Cerro Pelado Fire in the Jemez Ranger District, which burned 48,000 acres, stopping just short of Los Alamos, NM, and the Calf Canyon Fire were placed under criminal investigation by the Regional Forester of the Southwest Region to avoid scrutiny and accountability. No arrests or prosecutions were made because the Forest Service was investigating itself. Typical of Randy Moore’s Forest Service, the Regional Forester, Michiko Martin, is still on the job. Throughout his time as Chief, Randy continued to tell fabulous stories about the 2022 New Mexico fires, blaming “global warming” and absolving his pyromaniacs.
Mary Wagner, the former associate chief, served as forest supervisor of the Dixie National Forest in 2002. She oversaw, at the time, the largest escaped fire in Federal Government history, with Sanford Burn at 76,000 acres. The Facilitated Learning Analysis absolved all involved but blamed the old-time district ranger. The background of the Sanford burn was a “controlled burn” ignited around St. Patrick’s Day. It was not a clean burn but an irregular mosaic, and the post-burn suppression efforts were lackadaisical. In the daily high winds of the Southern Utah Markagunt Plateau, the Sanford burn grew every day, until Memorial Day weekend, when it became plume-dominated and annihilated the plateau between Utah Highway 12 and Utah Highway 62. Brett Fay, the forest fire staff, was promoted to Assistant Fire Management Coordinator in the Pacific Region of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The District Fire Management Officer, Kim Soper, became the Service First Fire Staff for the Central Utah BLM and the Fishlake NF. Soper is now the Mayor of Panguitch, UT. Carl Guillette, the long-time district ranger, was forced to retire in infamy.
For Federal burners, the law is not in their favor. None of the Federal Land Management Agencies (FLMAs) has explicit or implicit authority to burn or use an “other-than-full-suppression” strategy by law. The annual appropriations bill requires the following:
For necessary expenses for forest fire presuppression activities on National Forest System lands, for emergency wildland fire suppression on or adjacent to such lands or other lands under fire protection agreement, and for emergency rehabilitation of burned-over National Forest System lands and water, $2,116,956,000 (increased by $2,000,000) (increased by $5,000,000), to remain available until expended: Provided, That such funds, including unobligated balances under this heading, are available for repayment of advances from other appropriations accounts previously transferred for such purposes: Provided further, That any unobligated funds appropriated in a previous fiscal year for hazardous fuels management may be transferred to the ‘‘National Forest System’’ account: Provided further, That such funds shall be available to reimburse State and other cooperating entities for services provided in response to wildfire and other emergencies or disasters to the extent such reimbursements by the Forest Service for non-fire emergencies are fully repaid by the responsible emergency management agency: Provided further, That funds provided shall be available for support to Federal emergency response: Provided further, That the costs of implementing any cooperative agreement between the Federal Government and any non-Federal entity may be shared, as mutually agreed on by the affected parties: Provided further, That of the funds provided under this heading, $1,011,000,000 shall be available for wildfire suppression operations, and is provided to meet the terms of section 251(b)(2)(F)(ii)(I) of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985.
Example above, From the FY 2024 Department of the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies. P.L. 118-42 for the Forest Service (but for the Department of the Interior, the language is identical).
In the excerpt above, Congress is requiring that the appropriation be spent on presuppression (training/hiring/contracts/suppression supplies etc.) on National Forest System Lands, emergency wildland fire suppression on or adjacent to such lands or other lands under a fire protection agreement, and for emergency rehabilitation of burned-over National Forest System lands and water (BAER – burned area emergency rehabilitation). Nowhere in the law does it allow for anything other than full or complete suppression, and it declares wildfire to be an emergency for which immediate action, that is suppression, is required by law!
The Organic Administration Act of 1897 established the uses and management of the Forest Reserves for: [the purpose] except to improve and protect the forest within the reservation, or for the purpose of securing favorable conditions of water flows, and to furnish a continuous supply of timber for the use and necessities of citizens of the United States;
(purpose of forest reservations, when to be established from:
AN ACT making appropriations for sundry civil expenses of the Government for the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, and for other purposes. Fifty-fifth Congress Session 1. Chapter 2. 1897 Page 35. ) citation
In the hierarchy of Federal Laws, the Organic Administration Act of 1897 controls the use of fire in the National Forest System. It requires that the Secretary shall make provisions for the protection against destruction by fire…
AN ACT making appropriations for sundry civil expenses of the Government for the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, and for other purposes. Fifty-fifth Congress Session 1. Chapter 2. 1897 Page 35. ) citation
The Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act (MUSYA) and the National Forest Management Act (NFMA) are non-players because neither authorizes fire, fire use, or other such Orwellian contortions of the English language to allow anything other than suppression. Indeed, fire has a direct and profound impact on the multiple uses enumerated in MUSYA.
So, Franz’s interview with NPR and “peer-reviewed” pub from the Southwest Ecological Restoration Institute (SWERI) are non-starters with his quote for “Washington-level leadership that comes out and says, ‘we expect you to take necessary risks, done, so intelligently, and we’ve got your back if you do so. Franz doesn’t realize that our government is a system of laws promulgated by Congress, executed by the President, and interpreted by the Judiciary. (Note to Franz, please pick up a pocket constitution.)
To expect Senior Executive Service leaders not to follow the law and absolve agency lawbreakers demonstrates how uninformed he and his cohorts at SWERI are.
Franz is either suffering from hubris, a common disease among burners, or naivety, a common disease among academics, when he states that managers allow wildfires to burn at low – and medium-intensity levels as if fires are problem employees and need either disciplinary action or a personal improvement period!
Franz does not recognize private property rights in his zeal to incentivize annelation of the Nation’s public and private forests. And of course, the US Constitution’s sovereign nature, where torts may only be filed after the injured party has been denied under the Federal Tort Claim Act (FCTA), and when denied, then may seek justice in Federal District Court, only to be curtailed by the Act’s Discretionary Function Exemption, where the burden of proof is switched to the plaintiff to prove that the government was not following the law, regulation or policy. Filing under the Tucker Act (5th Amendment procedural law) for inverse condemnation—the taking of private land for public purposes — is also a difficult path to follow, requiring a special court (although an Article III court) to gain standing and to fulfill the complaint.
Franz would do better to understand the laws that govern our natural resources and private property rights. The only time that a “confine and contain strategy” worked was during the Three Mile Island near nuclear meltdown. It sure did not work during Dragon Bravo!
Joe, all we know is that the quote I mentioned in the post set me off thinking about possible misalignment between what the Agency reports to Congress and how decisions are incentivized at the field level. We’ve had many discussions about MF before including this one in July, in which I tried to find Zones of Agreement. https://forestpolicypub.com/2025/07/21/zones-of-agreement-and-more-topics-on-the-managed-fire-discussion/
As to Scott, he just authored a paper and may or may not have been quoted exactly accurately, so it’s not fair to pile on him. We would like more academics to be involved in TSW and help break down barriers. Remember I started this with Martin Nie with that in mind.
Everyone here deserves to be treated well, and with the best assumed about their intentions. I don’t always catch those things, but Scott is our guest and certainly deserves good or better than usual treatment.
Actually, I think it was the tone of the quote that may have thrown some people off, and for all we know he didn’t exactly say what the quote says. This happens a lot with complex and highly charged topics. It’s happened to me and sometimes I think “folks could take this the wrong way” but by the time it gets nuanced, the statement is too long, and I give up on clarifying.
I’m going to give this a shot; I think what Joe is saying is spot on, and you are reading emotion in his text – pure and simple! We long timers dedicated our lives in protecting and managing an ever changing resource, with an ever changing public sentiment and volumes of contradicting Law. We now see MF as a basically non-guided mechanism that incinerates whole ecosystems for a common (no) good. The science of Rx fire is not really settled in the West, and MF is decades behind Rx fire in understanding rational use! The South and East? Meh, they have it (and timber management) figured out.
Many so called leaders have allowed large screw ups in MF, with the consequences being hardly any to none. It’s just wrong; leaders should be held to a higher standard and the consequences of their actions should be commiserate with their poor decisions! If folks want to expend their energies with MF, keep it within Wildernesses! It’s a better fit and the consequences – while still dire, are at least fitting within an all natural context!
So don’t fault Joe, he has adequately expressed his, and many, many others sentiment on an errant course the FS is heading down…..
Thanks, Jim, for interpreting my distinctly emotional missive on “Are There Appropriate Incentives for the Use of Managed Fire?”
Like you, Jim, I see “Controlled Burning” and “Managed Fire” (the absence of fire suppression) as ad hoc policies, unguided by law, and lacking oversight by Congress. As in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the powerful, awe-inspiring force of nature contrasts with hubris. Can humans control fire, especially in the forests west of North America’s 100th Meridian? Fire is fire — a physical force driven by weather and a chemical reaction that, in polite company among acolytes, is called “good fire.”
When I signed the Decision Notice (DN) and Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) for the Environmental Assessment for the Gallinas Municipal Watershed Wild-Land Urban Interface Project in June of 2006, I had little if any idea that I was precipitating an ecological disaster! Both the Calf Canyon “slash pile burns” and the Las Dispensas “Controlled Burn,” which became the Hermits Peak wildfire, were authorized under my 2006 DN/FONSI.
The two fires, Hermits Peak and Calf Canyon, spread to adjacent private land and eventually combined on “Earth Day” 2022. Under the federally controlled incident management teams, private property was burned with impunity. In-laws of my daughter, who agreed to be evacuated from their 80-acre Mineral Hill property outside of the National Forest System boundary on April 29th, came back on May 15th to their blackened and charred property, deliberately ignited by Federal fire crews. The arson of private property was confirmed by the local volunteer fire department Chief, who was a stalwart leader in the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon game of “whack-a-mole,” chasing off federal incineration crews from distant States with no stake in the arson they committed and seemingly justified by a minor potentate’s Incident Action Plan.
The prima facie evidence, though, was when I arrived at their (in-laws) burned and charred forested homestead and walked the west property line; the land and vegetation were not burned on the west side of the property fence. When I arrived at the property’s north fence, running east/west, the land and the property were unburned on the north side of the fence. Even a neophyte arson investigator would conclude that “Federal lightning” was the cause of ignition in the NW corner of their non-industrial private forest land.
The New Mexico Forestry Division District Forester for District 4 (Las Vegas) was the agency administrator (AA) for the New Mexico State jurisdictional lands affected by the Forest Service’s perfidy. At the daily command and general staff meetings, the AA would demand that the non-industrial private forest lands be spared from the Federal arsonists, only to be ignored and told by the black cowboy-hatted Incident Commander to be polite and sit in the corner, because the Feds “got this.”
The “Wildfire Crisis Strategy” announced by former Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack and retired Forest Service Chief Randy Moore in January of 2022 called for “treating” 30 million acres of other federal, state, Tribal, private, and family lands in so-called “firesheds” with fire “controlled” or otherwise. Both men came of age during the lost Vietnam War and hoped to apply the ironic and oxymoronic paradox “that to save the forest we have to destroy it” to the Nation’s non-industrial private forest lands. In the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon, less than four months from their treacherous announcement of a Wildfire Crisis, a wildfire crisis was federally imposed on San Miguel, Mora, and Taos counties, damaging and destroying the environment and killing three people under an 18-foot high “wall-of-water.”
Joe, unfortunately, your points are easily missed due to the caustic tone of your comments. Insulting people does not improve persuasiveness.
Personally, I’m all for managed fire under the right conditions in appropriate locations as a lot has been learned about fire’s role in forest ecology since 1893. But, you bring up a point that I feel the need to ask because I’m not a legal or NEPA whiz by any stretch of the imagination. Is it legal for the forest service to manage natural start fires for resource benefit?
If so, then I think incentives can be a good thing as long as land managers don’t feel pressure to manage natural start fires. My understanding is that was one of the points of concern with the Calf Creek/Hermits Peak Fires.
Another question is should there be different levels (“levels” is probably not the right word here) of NEPA for prescribed fires vs managed fires? I ask this question because I am familiar with more than one managed fire where fire personnel decided to “help” the fire continue to burn with drip torches. In my mind, that is when a managed fire becomes a prescribed fire.
Mike, I have the same questions you do. If you think that a focus on timber makes employees less careful, why wouldn’t you think that a focus on acres makes the same (more or less) employees less careful about fire? And I agree that what the Coconino does is more like an MF/PF hybrid with pre-existing NEPA. It seems to me that trust needs to be built around the use of MF, and preexisting NEPA is one way to get there.
In other areas where people are exposed to dangers, say nuclear power or air travel, there is very heavy regulation. But those conditions are more or less stable, and there seem to be more variables and unpredictability involved in MF. There is also the question of different funding sources for prescribed vs. MF. And like you said, different approaches might be necessary for a firing op that is a mile from the fire vs. six miles or whatever. At some point I think it goes from “closest way to suppress fire and protect infrastructure” to “let’s get more work done” without invoking NEPA or PF$. Tough stuff.
Sharon & Mike:
Thank you for your comments on my post, “Are There Appropriate Incentives for the Use of Managed Fire?”
First, I apologize to Scott Franz and the Ecological Restoration Institute at Northern Arizona University for my words and writing in my post. As Sharon reminds me, “that everyone needs to be treated well”, and my writing did not treat Mr. Franz well or his employer, the Ecological Restoration Institute.
Second, I agree with Mike, who noted that my points were lost due to my caustic tone. For that tone, Mike, I apologize.
Third, I apologize to Sharon, always a fair hostess/moderator, and the TSW universe for my breach of etiquette. I beg your forgiveness.
In response to Mike’s question about the “legality” of “managed fires.” Two federal laws, the Organic Administration Act and the Annual Appropriations bill for the Department of the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies, say no.
A plain reading of the Organic Act says no: it’s requiring the Secretary to make provisions for protection against destruction by fire…
An equally plain reading of the Appropriations Bill says no, too. Congress is appropriating money for emergency wildfire suppression, not managed wildfire.
In the case of a managed wildfire, there is commonly no disclosure under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Indeed, for wildfires, the Federal Land Management Agencies (FLMAs) have “alternative arrangements” with the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). Alternative Arrangements give the agencies carte blanche to avoid the pesky and nettlesome public involvement process.
For “controlled burns,” NEPA is applied to the action. However, the Organic Act has not been amended to allow for “controlled burning.” Therefore, “controlled burning” is not supported by the authorizing law.
A proposal that is not supported by federal law (through authorization or appropriation) cannot be legal, even if it complies with NEPA’s procedural requirements. NEPA requires environmental impacts to be considered, but it does not provide the substantive legal authority for federal agencies to act. Proposals without statutory or financial support would violate the Appropriations Clause, the Anti-Deficiency Act, or other federal statutes, making them subject to legal challenge and invalidation.
In 1975, the Izaak Walton League of America v. Butz, the court held that clear-cutting across the National Forest System violated the Organic Administration Act of 1897, as the statute permitted only the selective cutting of marked trees. The case highlighted the tension between the Forest Service’s management practices and the OAA’s statutory constraints. That still exists today in the “burning issue.”
But hey, until an individual or an organization files a complaint against the United States, both “controlled burns and “managed wildfire” are legal for the time being.
Apology accepted, Joe! You and your points of view are always welcome and appreciated here.
Thank you for your response, Joe. No need to apologize to me as nothing you wrote was personal towards me. I appreciate the humility in your follow up. I’m also intrigued by your point about legality. I think you are right that like so many things it will take a court case or two to make a determination.
I spent 38 of my 41 years with the USFS on the Rio Grande NF. We successfully managed several fires over the years with our largest one reaching just over a 1,000 acres. Most of our managed fires never reached our acreage goals because the monsoons put them out. The Rio Grande NF does not have much in the way of high density WUI areas and more than half the forest is in designated wilderness or roadless areas, so we have options that other forests don’t have.
Currently, the Douglas fir in many areas around here are being hit with a one-two punch by spruce budworm and Douglas fir beetle. The Forest’s own analysis suggests that the mixed conifer zone in this area had a fire return interval of 35-85 years. We have missed at least one fire cycle here due to fire suppression and now one could argue the bugs are thinning the forest and adding large quantities of dead fuel to the mix.
Many of the areas covered with mixed conifer forests are in designated roadless areas, on steep slopes or of a size class that has minimal commercial value. Local residents are quite concerned about all the dead and dying trees and want the Forest to “do something.”
Well over a million Engelmann spruce died in the subalpine zone on the Forest in a spruce beetle epidemic that began after the 2000-2002 drought. The first large fire in over 100 years occurred on the Forest in 2002. There have been several more in upper Rio Grande since then.
Managing natural start fires is not for every forest and obviously shouldn’t be undertaken in high risk areas, during high risk weather or without the human resources to do it properly. In my mind, it is a tool that can be used to help manage some forest types in the right places at the right times. Incentives via targets worry me though as I think that mindset leads to mistakes.
But all of my pro-managed fire thoughts are irrelevant if it is illegal to do it.
Mike, I am not a lawyer, but when I was with the Forest Service, I played one first as a NEPA nerd, and later in my career, I was a legislative affairs specialist in the Chief’s Office. In my time with the legislative affairs staff, I analyzed and drafted legislation, obsessing over commas, conjunctions, phrases, and context. In legislation words like “shall” grant no discretion to the Executive; on the other hand, words like “may” grant discretion to the Executive. “Notwithstanding” is a specific exemption from an existing law for that discrete legislation.
In further candor, though, I had never read the Organic Administration Act (OAA) of 1897 during any of the 39 years of my career. At a public meeting with the constituent service staffer for the local US Representative for Trinity Center, CA, a retired Special Agent in Charge of Region 5 Law Enforcement and Investigations kept bringing up the OAA. He mentioned it so many times and was so knowledgeable about its provisions and context that it piqued my curiosity. This occurred in 2021, and I had retired four years prior.
I will say this: Please look up and review the Four Cornerstone Acts of the Forest Service. They are:
Organic Administration Act 1897
Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act
Resources Planning Act (RPA)
And the National Forest Management Act (Amendment to the RPA)
The annual Appropriations Bill – Department of the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies (one of twelve), or as is now familiar, the year-long continuing resolution (CR), by searching one of the myriad titles in the CR (Department of the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies). Also, search for the “Explanatory Notes” connected with the title in the CR.
Lastly, review the case law established by the Isaac Walton League of West Virginia v. Butz, 367 F. Supp. 422 (N.D.W. Va. 1973), a case involving the Forest Service’s approach to timber harvesting under the OAA.
I understand the conditions of the Rio Grande NF, one of my favorite National Forests! I founded Fexilis Forestry LLC in 2017 in Durango, CO, and was more successful with the elk and deer hunting on the east side of Wolf Creek Pass. I am very fond of the Ski area too, better snow than Durango’s ski hill. As a newly graduated forester in 1977, I did inventory work for the Rio based out of South Fork, CO. When I moved from DC to Durango, I was appalled by the extensive mortality on Wolf Creek Pass. However, with the billions, trillions, tons of fuel standing and on-the-ground would “pyro silviculture” be the solution?
To answer your last question, Joe, no. The spruce-fir zone in our area has a large fire return interval of 200-1,000 years according to research done by Romme. Small fires started by lightning are common. Conditions are generally too moist for fires to spread more than a few acres.
When the conditions are right and there is an ignition, the spruce-fir zone burns big as it did in 2013 and in 1893 and in the 1850s around here. The large aspen stands on the forest are from the past large fires.
In our area, managed fire is most appropriate in the mixed conifer zone and even then the conditions need to be right. One could also make the case that managed fire might be appropriate in the subalpine zone if there is an existing aspen component and there is a desire promote aspen regeneration or if the goal is to create relatively small openings.
Whereas the spruce beetle epidemic was tied to record breaking drought, what is unfolding in our mixed conifer forests may be at least partially tied to fire suppression. As the forest has become more dense, there is greater competition for resources in a life zone that often has dry spells. The spruce budworm is taking advantage of the denseness of the forest. The Douglas fir beetle is taking advantage of the trees being under stress.
In some of our mixed conifer and ponderosa pine forests, managed or prescribed fire could help thin the forest reducing the stress of competition. In denser stands, it would probably lead to a type conversion, so one would think it would be best to quickly fully suppress fires unless a type conversion is the goal. Appropriate NEPA would assist to identify the areas and management goals for using managed fire.
The forests where I live seem to be unraveling and part of the reason is due to fire suppression. I personally have helped extinguish many fires in our mixed conifer zone. Eventually, conditions will be right and an ignition will occur and they will burn. Is it better to use fire to assist with managing these forests when conditions are favorable for low to moderate intensity/severity burns or should we wait until natural or accidental ignitions occurs during extreme conditions?
What happened in New Mexico was terrible. Serious mistakes were made. Do we now say no more prescribed and managed fires anywhere in the West due to these fires or do we double down and make sure those mistakes don’t happen again? Do we remove fire as a management tool in ecosystems that evolved with fire or do we learn how to use it right? What other management options should we be pursuing on steep slopes and in areas where roads are prohibited?
Lastly, as a probably not so interesting side note. I had many opportunities to move up in the organization, but I sought out a lifestyle whereby I put deep roots down in the community and land. I have hiked and photographed every major tributary to the Rio Grande past Del Norte as well as much of the South San Juans that empty into the Conejos and then the Rio Grande. Whereas I have read most of the Acts that guide the USFS, I’m not even close to being a scholar, but I know this landscape and the people who live here pretty damned well.
Mike, I know you, somewhat anyway. But, some folks find that “right” place and make a career, right there! Thank God! The FS could not operate without those souls who find that niche in work/life balance and care enough to continue caring for Americas gift of National Forests!
I’ve thought about this many times in our many career moves and certainly could have stayed about anywhere! How could the FS even operate without that corporate knowledge of local conditions that you and so many more carry forward.
Hats off to you, my friend, for such a distinguished service!
Thank you for the kind words, Jim. An upwardly moving individual at our office once questioned my lack of ambition. I responded that my ambition is to provide the very best service I can for the land and people I love.
We’ve had this discussion before (but the search algorithm can’t find it). The question is basically whether the Organic Act language obligating the Secretary of Agriculture to “make provisions for the protection against destruction by fire and depredations” allows the agency to use fire as a management tool. It doesn’t seem like a stretch to argue that “protection” could include fuel reduction using fire in some situations, with deference given to the science behind that. To the extent that Organic Act is viewed as narrow, the scope of agency authority was broadened by the Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act.
Mike —
Sounds like your career choices were the best for you and the forest that you were assigned to steward. As a more itinerant forester, having served in Region 8, Northeastern FIA, Region 6, Region 4, and Region 3 before the National Office, I would be happy for a person of your caliber to share local knowledge, customs, and culture with me. Thanks for your stewardship of the Rio Grande. You are experiencing career rewards and enjoying them in your retirement!
Fire in all its euphemisms is the current zeitgeist of ecosystem management. And the science may be there, but science is never settled. Aside from the legal compliance aspects for which Courts can decide, the application and control of open fire in the atmosphere remains elusive, like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. When a “controlled burn” is ignited and stays within the puny parameters of a prescription, the line officer and the burn boss are at best lucky in whistling by the graveyard. The incongruous logic stream that humans use to adjust the fire triangle by “controlled burning” actually completes the fire triangle under conditions of excess fuel loading by adding the kinetic energy.
The Las Dispensas “controlled burn,” an act of arson on a grand scale, became the Hermits Peak Fire. When the Calf Canyon pile burn erupted, it combined with the Hermits Peak Fire, and it is not the last of the fire debacles under the paradigm of returning fire to fire-deprived ecosystems.
To name just a few more:
Mack Lake – Mio Ranger District, Huron-Manistee NF (1980). The National Wildland Coordinating Group (NWCG) characterized this fire as releasing the energy equivalent of 9 Hiroshima bombs to create habitat for the Kirtland’s Warbler. It burned down the resort town of Mack Lake, Michigan.
The Upper Frijoles “controlled burn” ignited by the late Paul Gleason (RIP) in Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico, became the Cerro Grande Fire (2000), burning down the Los Alamos Nuclear Lab and the city of Los Alamos. Lacking an irony gene or self-awareness, NWCG bestows annually two awards named after Paul Gleason.
Repeating a risky policy of “controlled burning” and other than complete suppression on a wildfire, which is managed fire over and over again, is an example of the popular culture definition of insanity. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.
The track record for doubling down with fire, controlled or managed, is not optimistic. As you ask, humans cannot learn to use fire properly because the physical force in the open atmosphere defies control. Fortunately, the Roadless Area Conservation Rule is being rescinded, and once finalized, it will provide much more management flexibility for using other fuels and forest management treatments in the Rio Grande.
I don’t think a person needs to be a scholar or a lawyer to understand legislative text, so go with your understanding as you read it.
A unique interpretation of protection, which is commonly defined as keeping something safe. Fire use, a polite term for burning, is not an enumerated use in the Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act (MUSYA).
Invoking the MUSA as a de facto amendment to the Organic Administration Act of 1897 turns New Mexico v United States on its head. The case law established that the Organic Administration Act of 1897 imposes a clear duty on the Secretary of Agriculture to protect national forests from destruction by fire. The Supreme Court’s decision in New Mexico v. United States (1978) reaffirms that this duty is central to the primary purposes of national forests and takes precedence over secondary uses enumerated in the MUSYA while affirming that those uses were still subordinate to the primary purposes of forest protection (from fire), watershed protection, and timber sustainability established under the OAA.
Not a unique interpretation of “protection” at all – causing slight injury now to protect from greater injury later is the principle behind vaccinations.
U. S. v. New Mexico (a case I happened to work with at that time while in grad school) was about federal reserved water rights and the “purposes” of reserving federal lands. The opinion is confined to the narrow issue of whether the water was being used to achieve the purposes for which national forests were established (“to improve and protect the forest within the boundaries, or for the purpose of securing favorable conditions of water flows, and to furnish a continuous supply of timber”).
The Supreme Court was clear in distinguishing the Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act’s authorization of national forest “administration” from the “purposes” for which national forests were established: “While we conclude that the Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act of 1960 was intended to broaden the purposes for which national forests had previously been administered, we agree that Congress did not intend to thereby expand the reserved rights of the United States.” Otherwise, the case is not relevant to use of fire for management (use of fire would obviously not turn this case “on its head.”)
Thank you Sharon!
with best regards,