This piece is from Sarah Hyden. The Wildfire the Forest Service Ignited with some excerpts below. She has more maps and photos in the piece.
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In the early summer of last year, a fire escaped control in the Jemez Mountains of the Santa Fe National Forest (SFNF) near the rural village of Gallinas, New Mexico, and west of the Chama River Canyon Wilderness. The escape occurred during “management” of a small lightning-strike wildfire, first reported on June 25 when it was a tenth of an acre in size. It was named the Laguna Fire.
By June 30, the lightning-strike fire had only grown to 176 acres and appeared to be burning out against cliffs known as the Rincon Colorado – steep, largely barren stone cliffs. The prevailing northeast winds blew the fire up against the edge of the cliffs, which created a natural fire break. At that point, the U.S. Forest Service made the decision to “contain” the fire within a 13,000-acre planned containment perimeter. This meant that they would expand the small 176-acre fire to fill an area 74 times larger. The burn would be intentionally ignited over a dry landscape of oak brush, ponderosa pine, and pinyon-juniper.
The Forest Service announced in their June 30th press release – “Fire managers will start firing operations as early as this week with the aim of restoring the ecological process of fire across approximately 13,000 acres of forest land.” They further explained, “We manage fire-adapted landscapes, and the Laguna Wildfire is an opportunity to create a resilient ecosystem that reduces the future risk of catastrophic severe wildfire to communities.” In other words, the agency was implementing a burn for landscape resource benefit — which is by definition an intentional burn, not a wildfire. That is, until it went out of control and became a real wildfire. This follows a history of escaped prescribed burns in the SFNF, including New Mexico’s largest wildfire, the 341,000 acre Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire of 2022, ignited by two escaped prescribed burns. The Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire burned out entire communities, changing locals’ lives forever. In the past 25 years, more acres have been burned in the SFNF due to land management agency escaped intentional burns than by any other cause.
In the same press release, the Forest Service described firing operations – “To conduct a firing operation, firefighters cut away vegetation to make a line of bare soil ahead of a fire and then using aerial and hand ignitions burn the vegetation between that line and the actively burning fire front.” On July 1, the Forest Service commenced firing operations precisely along the planned containment perimeter of the fire. By July 4, the Forest Service had ignited a large area of the southeast section of the planned perimeter, over two miles south of the original fire, which was cooling off at that point. This burn was so far away from the original lightning-strike fire that it was effectively a separate fire ignited by the Forest Service.
A few small spot fires developed to the east of the planned perimeter due to increasing winds, but the agency continued carrying out its firing operations. The July 6 Laguna Fire briefing weather report warned that over the next few days – “There may be downburst winds, with gusts potentially exceeding 40 mph.” The agency continued lighting along the containment perimeter to the north of the original lightning-strike fire. On the eastern side of the planned perimeter, crews began connecting the original fire footprint to the north with the newly ignited fire to the south. Then they expanded the fire from east to west, against the prevailing winds, steadily filling the 13,000-acre perimeter.
On July 12, the Forest Service announced that a major spot fire was developing to the east of the Laguna Fire planned perimeter near Laguna Peak. In their press release, the Forest Service stated, “Fire crews are actively engaged in full suppression efforts using hotshot crews, engines, and helicopters to drop water.” At this point, the fire began to be managed as an actual wildfire.
The fire grew much further out of the planned perimeter to the east and northeast, due to intense downdraft winds from a storm. Such weather is relatively common in the area during the July and August monsoon season. Thunderstorms were forecast for the next week, increasing the chances of the fire entering into the Chama River Canyon Wilderness.
Two firefighters were entrapped due to the rapid fire growth and had to deploy their emergency shelters. They were fortunate to make it out without serious injuries. Rio Arriba County issued a potential evacuation status of “set” for the Monastery of Christ in the Desert and a status of “go”for Gallinas Ranch. A number of cows in a forest grazing allotment were killed by the fire, and others were injured. Some of the surviving cows had burned hooves and udders. The family who owned the cows claimed to a local news source that they found fire accelerant balls that the Forest Service had dropped from aircraft in the forest while they were looking for their missing cows. A family member stated, “This was not a wildfire. It doesn’t matter what they say. This was not a wildfire. This was intentionally spread by them.”
The Forest Service repeatedly stated that “the health and safety of firefighters and the public are always the highest priority.” However, converting a small lightning-strike wildfire into a large intentional burn during potentially dry, windy and unpredictable weather exposed both firefighters and the public to increased risk.
A Region 3 Complex Incident Management Team (CIMT) arrived on July 13. Up to this point, the progress on managing the fire had been quantified as percent completed – that’s how much of the planned firing operations the Forest Service had completed. After this point, fire management was quantified as percent contained, because they were now attempting to genuinely contain and suppress an actual wildfire. Despite igniting up to 99% of the fire themselves, the Forest Service still classifies the entire incident as a wildfire.
During a July 16 briefing, a CIMT operations section officer acknowledged that their efforts were limited by a shortage of Type 1 firefighting resources, particularly hotshot crews. Local sentiment became a combination of appreciation for the CIMT’s challenging work, and outrage that the fire had been mostly ignited by the Forest Service. One post on the SFNF Facebook page, under a CIMT Laguna Fire briefing, summarized the mixed local perspective well:
“I am grateful for the men and women who are fighting this fire, risking their lives for a fire that could have been put out or controlled rather than fueled. What was once under 200 acres around June 25 has grown to over 16,000 acres, how much wildlife and cattle have been killed? You are not showing pictures of the land burned beyond recognition, stripped of any vegetation nor the livestock burned to death that couldn’t escape. The command decision made by you to fuel a fire during a drought and windy season, just blows my mind.”
Another post summed up the impacts on the local population, landscape and economy:
“The impacts of this fire are widespread. Ranchers lost livestock, and still continue to do so. Grazing allotments have mostly been reduced to ash. Wildlife, including elk calves and deer fawns, were caught during their most vulnerable season. Smoke settled into the valleys for days, worsening health issues for people who had no way to escape the air or cool their homes with air conditioning. Some families were stuck indoors during the hottest part of the year.
Water used to fight the fire was pulled from the Rio Chama and Abiquiu Lake at a time when farmers in the Abiquiu Valley were already under water curtailment.Tourism has taken a hit. Outdoor recreation was shut down. And the insurance consequences are just beginning. Classifying this as a wildfire instead of a fuels treatment opens the door for cancellations and premium increases, with long-term effects on our local economy.”
We’ve discussed the MF issue many times, but I had never heard of the difference for insurance purposes.
Is there a forest-wide fire management amendment? According to Sarah:
The SFNF justifies converting small lightning-strike fires into large intentional burns with this guideline from the SFNF Land Management Plan — “Naturally occurring fires should be allowed to perform their natural ecological role to meet multiple resource objectives and facilitate progress toward desired conditions.” But this guideline does not instruct, nor does it allow, for the Forest Service to greatly expand wildfires with large-scale firing operations. Fire management policy must be developed in a national process, and analyzed through a comprehensive NEPA process.
As I’ve said before, I think the FS should stand down plan revisions for a time and focus on wildfire use and management amendments on those forests where people want to use MF.
Hermits Peak-CalfCanyon. 2022. $3.95 Billion appropriated by House Democrats Speaker Pelosi direction and added to the Dept of Defense Emergency Aid to Ukraine appropriations that drove the Biden deficits that blew up inflation. So it only got better: NM District Court accepted a case where ash fall and stress brought about by the HP-CC escaped “prescribed fire” from the Pecos Wilderness
(untrammeled by the hand of man) eventually burning across 340,000+ acres became a class action and the court awarded “non economic damages” of $1.5 Billion to all under the 2200 square mile of HP-CC fire smoke and ash cloud. Became a $5.45 Billion windfall distributed by FEMA under open borders Sec of Homeland Security (oxymoron begat by a moron) who neither he nor the agency had any infrastructure or path, direction to vet and distribute the billions. BUT! (nothing ever counts that came before “but”) FEMA pays ITSELF its costs “off the top of the award $5.45 Billion.
I copied a story in Source New Mexico a story by Patrick Lohmann that had a graph that was the “accounting” of FEMA spending (real and end of FY 2025 estimate) that FEMA’s expenses for FY 2023 (POTUS Biden OR his doppelgänger Otto Penn) signed the appropriation bill on Sept 20, 2022), FY 2024, and FY 2025. Wednesday next is the last day of 1st quarter FY 2026.
I had trouble nailing down the FY 2025 end total of the award distributed. I am using $2.3 Billion. We are almost a full quarter more of FEMA spending and damage awards. But FEMA reports, according to the data Mr Lohmann had
found, taken $377,492,581. Claims and amounts are scattered and I’m too far away to look harder. Desert scrub ranch lands, timber stands at elevation but the “victims” are private and tribal, state, county and city. Much of the burn was on federal land. I saw references to ash cleanup costs pushing $100,000. FEMA hired an actuarial consulting firm from Maryland to provide “comparable” and attest to values. LMAO. From a my experiences of building 3 wire Top two barbed and bottom slick fence, with H braces about every 5 chains. Or rock jacks. Somewhere around 200,000 feet.
Most single wide trailers and double wides cost money to dispose of as they cannot be moved as they no longer meet building codes. Blue States do make regulations each time they meet. Each new one comes with added cost. And added personnel to enforce the new rules. Much fence likely was make do, repaired and re-repaired. Now, out “west,” the federal permit land proposals are for electronic ear tags with satellite GPS location transponders. No fence. Cow gets to allotment designation line, it gets zapped. They learn the real life allotment boundaries.
So FEMA has distributed a pile of dough Not without criticism from victims, real or in their minds. The shoe I will drop is from the Source New Mexico graph of where FEMA spent money. Usual categories like land, equipment, travel, salaries and then “Miscellaneous.” You know, paper clips, small contracts, non capital buying. For the HP-CC fire victims fund, FEMA took off the top $292,361,836 to pay for “miscellaneous.” 77.45% of spending was credited to the “Miscellaneous” account. If “credited” is the correct word. Which begs the question today: Did FEMA contract with an accounting firm working under a Dept of Commerce edited 8a?
Seriously. I have read a bunch of news reported by P. Lohmann. Source New Mexico. It is unbiased yet originates in a very biased Richardson once governed State. Congresswoman Teresa Leger Fernandez (D) NM was a freshman replacing Deb Haaland who Biden had appointed SEC of the Interior. Haaland hired Tracey Stone Manning to head BLM. Rarified air for the former ceramic tree spiker leader for EarthFirst!!, now President of The Wilderness Society. If Mr Lohmann has poor sources, and is wrong and biased, there has been no alternative media reports I have found that repute Lohmann’s writing.
The “untraceable” path for federal spending is when an agency pays an NGO. “Non Governmental Organizations.” No mandatory accounting for the money and who got what from whom. NGOs are the black out dark side of federal spending. NGOs are run by suspect persons in my opinion. I have no tangible evidence in my hands. I did read this 77.45 % spending with no metes or bounds described accounted for as “Miscellaneous.” Try that with deductions for a 1040 IRS form. Explain that to a partner: Oh, that was for miscellaneous small stuff. Is FEMA running a federal agency or stocking a “Five and Dime Store” in New Mexico?
It seems pretty obvious that the decision on this fire to “greatly expand wildfires with large-scale firing operations” is a violation of the policy in the forest plan (the guideline literally, and the intent of the guideline). Under the Federal Tort Claims Act, the discretionary function exception protects the government from lawsuits about implementation of policies. Could they (or individuals) be liable for damage caused by violation of a policy? (Not my area of expertise, but I think we’ve discussed this before.) Would it matter if they had a NEPA-processed project decision for prescribed fire in this area?
I’m not thinking of litigation per se, I’m thinking the different with a project decision is that there might be clearer sideboards and people would have been involved. I don’t know whether that would change anything legally, if there had been sideboards in the decision that weren’t used in this specific case.
My friend Sarah has hit the nail on-the-head with her excellent account of the Laguna Fire. The Santa Fe, a forest with a shoddy reputation that continues to immolate the landscape after the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon conflagration, needs to be converted to private land posthaste. Let’s call it the Santa Fe Homestead Act. Under private ownership, these preventable infernos would not occur, nor would they devastate people. And there would still be an intact, green forest with all of its attendant ecosystem services.
Sarah is an impeccable researcher and a very deliberate writer who has spent months asking questions and drawing up information to tell the factual story of the Laguna Fire. Thanks for the post!
John Thomas draws a compelling narrative of the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon (HPCC) arson, but first, a few facts. The majority of the HPCC arson impacted non-industrial private forest (NIPF) land at 171,000 acres out of the 340,00 acres of the immolation. The last ember died in the moist cold October of 2022, nearly 18 miles north of the Santa Fe boundary. Member of Congress Teresa Leger-Fernandez did not replace the former Secretary of the Interior Deb Holland as the New Mexico 3rd District House Member. Melanie Stansbury is the replacement. Holland was the House Member from the 1st District. While Mr. Thomas’s post is mainly about the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), it really should be directed at the Forest Service. In April of 2024, through my consulting firm, I took clients from the HPCC arson to DC. We visited FEMA headquarters located on C Street SW, not far from the Yates Building. Our appointment was with the Deputy Assistant Administrator. FEMA leadership was generally clueless and could not answer basic questions about how they would address the reparations they were charged with making on behalf of the “florestas” to the “Norteños.” The most remarkable take-a-way that my clients and I had from the meeting with FEMA was the policy guy’s remark that, of all of the inglorious missions that FEMA has had, the HPCC arson people from San Miguel County were the first and only folks to visit their C Street SW HQ. How remarkable?
The Santa Fe NF Land and Resource Management Plan Record of Decision was approved by acting Forest Supervisor James Duran (full time job – forest supervisor for the Carson NF) in July of 2022, after Debbie Cress, the recently promoted forest supervisor and the main culprit of the HPCC arson, was air-lifted to the fourth floor of the Yates Building, to continue her career ladder climbing as the deputy chief of staff for the Forest Service. Her boss, Randy Moore, thought the HPCC fire was caused by “global warming” rather than by his staff.
The 2022 forest plan (https://www.fs.usda.gov/sites/nfs/files/legacy-media/santafe/Final%20Land%20Management%20Plan.pdf) illegally promotes all kinds of fires starting at page 11, while disregarding the Organic Administration Act (OAA) of 1987, (https://www.publiclandsforthepeople.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/ORGANIC-ACT-OF-1897.pdf), the Multiple Use/Sustained Yield Act of 1960 ( https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/COMPS-1125/pdf/COMPS-1125.pdf), the Resources Planning Act of 1974, (https://www.congress.gov/93/statute/STATUTE-88/STATUTE-88-Pg476.pdf) and its amendment, the National Forest Management Act of 1976 (https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/COMPS-1126/pdf/COMPS-1126.pdf). None of these acts specifically authorizes fire, and the OAA actually requires protection from fire. Indeed, the 2025 Interior Appropriations Act explicitly requires suppression of all wildfires. Here is what Google AI says about the issue. (It took many iterations to get to the following.)
The strict legal reality in 2025 is as follows:
• The Organic Administration Act of 1897 (16 U.S.C. § 551): This is the standing “order” from Congress. It mandates that the Secretary “shall make provisions for the protection against destruction by fire.” It contains no authorization for “fire use,” “prescribed fire,” or “confining or achieving forest plan goals and/or objectives.”
• The 2025 Appropriations Act: This act provides funding specifically for “Wildfire Suppression Operations.” The text says suppression, not confining.
• The Legal Authority: Because the appropriation is titled “Emergency Wildfire Suppression,” the Executive Branch is legally bound to use those funds for suppression to fulfill the 1897 mandate of protection.
Using “suppression” funds for anything other than active suppression—such as “managing” a fire for resource benefits or “confining” it to let it burn—is a deviation from the literal text of the 1897 Act and the 2025 Appropriation. Without a “notwithstanding” clause or a specific amendment to the 1897 Act, the Secretary’s legal duty remains the protection of the forest from fire destruction through suppression.
So, the SFNF 2022 plan was drafted and approved by individuals and agency officials who are operating outside of the law. The lawlessness is bountiful. Parties affected by the Laguna fire would and should be able to make claims under the Federal Tort Claims Act because the veil of “discretionary function exception” would not apply since the United States is legally bound to use those funds for suppression activity as authorized by the OAA and the 2025 Appropriations Act, and in the Laguna Fire, it did not. It was relying on the deeply illegal Santa Fe National Forest Plan.
Since 1905, notwithstanding the lofty writing of John Fedkiw (https://foresthistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Fedkiw_National-Forsets-and-the-Performance-of-the-Organic-Act-of-1897.pdf), the Forest Service has treated the OAA of 1897 as merely a suggestion and to be trifled with. This scofflaw approach was challenged in court in 1973, when the Isaak Walton League of West Virginia sued the then-Secretary of Agriculture, Earl Butz, under the OAA of 1897 over timber harvesting in the Monongahela National Forest (https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/367/422/1425532/). The Forest was clear-cutting, intermediate-aged trees, and only marking sale boundaries. However, the OAA of 1897 allowed discretionary timber harvesting with the following requirements: large growth, dead, or mature trees, and individually marked trees may be sold. Of course, to the Forest Service, this was merely a suggestion; there was this new and more economical approach to timber harvest, the clear-cut. Well, how did that work out?
To say that all is OK with the Laguna Fire in this blog is to ignore the obvious. The agency instructed in the 1900-01 course that all alternatives must be compatible with law, regulation, and policy. The Santa Fe’s new plan fails on the legal requirement and scoffs at both the OAA and the Annual Appropriations. Plain and simple, the Santa Fe is at risk for a district court nullification.
Thanks, Joe. I did put some effort into that article, which was published in a few different places.
I do strongly disagree with privatizing national forests. They belong to all of us. I don’t believe private owners would steward them well, but instead would mostly turn them into timber production lands. Our forests are needed intact and as natural as possible. They provide so many benefits to us, including economic benefits, support air and water quality, and help to balance our psyches in an increasingly unbalanced world. Forests have deep and critical importance in their own right. In the end, my purpose is to protect forests’ right to exist as functional, natural (as much as possible) and intact ecosystems.
A good start would be for the USFS to follow existing law, and to not keep pushing to jettison the environmental protections that get in their way of misguided stewardship of our forests. I have long advocated for applying a rational cost/benefit analysis to any fuels treatment projects or other forest interventions. The USFS simply does not balance the potential benefits with the potential harms of treatments. If they had, they would not have ignited the prescribed burns that precipitated the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire during a dry and windy spring, or expanded the Laguna Fire when there were unpredictable winds from thunderstorms forecast on a dry landscape, as they did during the Laguna Fire.
To me, this all adds up to any fuels treatments, especially fire, must be applied extremely carefully and only during optimal burn windows, and in a limited and light-handed way. They need to be strategically targeted and site-specific, and the dangers to communities of burn escapes must be taken much more seriously. There needs to be a thorough rethinking of our forest management policies that focuses on conservation.
The Organic Act authorizes the Forest Service to “regulate their occupancy and use and to preserve the forests thereon from destruction.” For fires, there is not the same kind of specific authorization that was included in the Organic Act for timber harvest and was deemed exceeded in the Monongahela case. The question of whether prescribed fires are “authorized” would be a factual one of whether prescribed fires “preserve the forests from destruction.”
What about expanding wildfires for “resource benefit objectives?” I suppose the USFS could argue that such wildfire expansions “preserve the forests from destruction.” But in the end, expanded and ignited wildfires are not called intentional burns, the acres burned are categorized as wildfire acres burned. The Wikipedia definition of a wildfire: “A wildfire is an unplanned, uncontrolled fire burning vegetation in wildland or rural areas like forests, grasslands, and brushlands, often spreading rapidly and threatening communities, ignited by natural causes (lightning) or human activity, and influenced by weather, fuel, and topography.” So if they are igniting and expanding wildfires, which are by definition unplanned and uncontrolled fires, they are potentially doing the opposite of preserving a forest from destruction, even if wildfires can be beneficial under optimal circumstances. They may need to at least correctly label what they are doing. Wildfire expansions are intentional burns, not wildfires, so they should be catagorized as such, and the costs and benefits evaluated as intentional burns (usually implemented without NEPA analysis.) Using double-speak obscures the issue, but I don’t believe it makes associated actions any more legal. The alternative is to have a national dialogue about wildfire and create a new set of rules regarding utilizing wildfire for resource benefit — with clear limits — like perhaps going back to allowing natural wildfires to burn when safe to do so, and just protecting values.
Having a “national dialogue” about “natural wildfires” is a ridiculous exercise, in today’s America. At one end is people who push for political doublespeak, and at the other is scientific ignorance, both entrenched in their confident positions. Neither of those understand the complexity of the science, much less knowing how to apply it.
Tom… why is dialogue “ridiculous”? Who among us here, for example, is “pushing” for “political doublespeak” or is “scientifically ignorant?”. And I bet that no one at all really understand the “complexity of the science” as if there were One Science and not many disciplines with different tools. The point of scientific inquiry is for people to ask questions of Nature in a structured manner and get better at understanding how it (and our tweaks to it) work.
So what would you do instead? Is current management OK with you?
Have you seen the voices on social media?!? If we’re talking about a “national dialogue”, those on the extremes are going to have loud voices and plenty of intolerance. Of course, we also have the ‘bot farms’, seeking to tell Americans what to think. Now that we’ve seen politics and science openly clashing, we need continued resistance to “Administration Goals” to want to make science into a ‘minor consideration’.
Maybe if we tried the current management (last 5 years) for the next 30 years, we’d start to see the desired effects. You cannot reverse the effects of a century of mismanagement in just a handful of years.
No matter what we do, there will always be big destructive fires (in the west). Perhaps we should make sure that people know this certainty, when making vegetation management plans?
Tom, I spend a great deal of time on social media finding interesting things for TSW.
Sarah didn’t describe what form a “national dialogue” should take.. it could be elected officials (loud voices and plenty of intolerance!). We could have a FACA committee with different representatives develop recommendations… we could have some NGO convene a national dialogue to give recommendations, then finally perhaps a rulemaking with public comment. There are probably dozens of pathways to having that kind of dialogue.
I think all Sarah is saying is that the current decision-making process is a bit fuzzy. For me, there’s the Coconino, with (apparently) decisions made using NEPA for fuel reduction and then encouraging MFs that enter the preplanned area, or doing firing ops in nearby planned areas. (I think that’s what it sounds like they’re doing). There are forests with wildfire use specifically in their forest plans. It seems like a bit of a patchwork.. with potential holes. Then there are where the bucks come from, and how the burned area is counted (and rehabbed).
I think most of us would prefer PF to MF.. MF also holds onto fire folks who might be able to do initial attack where it’s needed and may tie up other resources during fire season. The counterargument is that PF can’t get us “there” on its own. OK then, let’s use MF judiciously. But firing ops 2 miles from the fire… I don’t know. Maybe that’s something that a national dialogue would help with.. what is judicious and careful? Is the definition the same for everyone? What’s the role of the public and forests in outlining sidebars?
I meant the kind of national dialogue that leads to a reconsideration and restructuring of national fire policy, and then analyzed by an EIS. I was not thinking of social media, I was thinking more of scientists and all the various agencies and organizations involved with forest management working out an improved fire and forest management strategy — but discussing and debating it on social media is fine too I understand Tom’s skepticism, but it’s our only option at this point. Things are not going well in our forests right now.
The restructuring of national fire policy should occur through changes in law, regulation and agency directives. All would involve the public in some way. But maybe you are suggesting that the public needs to be involved prior to these decision-making processes to lay out what needs to be addressed by them and ideas for “using managed fire judiciously.” It’s hard to believe that isn’t happening in some form somewhere, but then again, I’ve always thought that the Forest Service wanted to minimize the public participation in fire policy (in forest plans and otherwise).
i envision, highly optimistically, that the Forest Service acknowledge that current fire policy is not working, call together forest management agencies and orgs., scientists (with a variety of ecological perspectives), and conservation orgs., to honestly and pragmatically evaluate the situation and issues, including the collateral damages from current treatment strategies — along with seriously considering changing forest conditions due to the warming and drying climate. And then to begin to work out a rather radically revamped national fire policy. The public would be asked to weigh in, if nothing else, through the process of an EIS. But I mean a legit EIS.
“they are potentially doing the opposite of preserving a forest from destruction, even if wildfires can be beneficial under optimal circumstances.”
Maybe this is a specific rather than a general authorization in the Organic Act – the Forest Service is authorized to manage fires in ways that “preserve the forest from destruction.” Any fire that does not conform to a prescription designed to do that (scientifically supported, and hopefully NEPA-vetted, is not authorized by law).
It’s hard to decide on the fly whether a particular wildfire conforms to prior prescribed burn prescriptions. Expanding wildfires is not the same thing as implementing prescribed burns, so I am not even sure that it matters if such activities conform to existing prescribed burn prescriptions. I would like to see some natural lightning strike fires being allowed to burn when safe to do so, and judiciously protecting values as needed, but not expanding wildfires and starting new ones miles away under the auspices of wildfire management. I would like to see actual wlldfire designated as such, and intentional burns put into a separate category, for the sake of transparency and to provide valid data for ecological research.
Happy New Year Jon! Thanks for making my case for the Organic Administration Act of 1897. It specifically requires the Secretary to provide protections against destruction by fire, using the imperative command “shall” (https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/shall). The act covers all National Forests and Grasslands, and the phrase in question authorizes fire suppression, not fire use. Your use of quotes around the phrase “preserve the forests from destruction” is within the same run-on sentence of the OAA’s paragraph commanding the Secretary to [shall] provide protections against destruction by fire. So, preserving the forests from destruction is redundant for emphasis. I appreciate your concurrence and emphasis.
Although the timber harvest authorization is discretionary, the Secretary shall establish rules for it, so there is a mandatory component as well. Upon the rules established by the Secretary, the OAA text for timber harvest is clearly discretionary “…may cause to be designated and appraised…” The use of the permissive may (https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/may) would determine the question of factualness. The question of fact under a permissive provision is whether the prescribed process was followed.
See my reply to Sarah.
Setting aside the issues related to weather, NEPA, NFMA, and should they have managed it?… According to the RAVG output, all acres burned were USFS, no private land burned, and approximately 16% of the evergreen forest burned at high severity. The fire effects are very different from Hermit’s, which was 20 times larger in size, had 33% high severity in evergreen forests, and half the fire burned private ownership. After watching most of three entire ranger districts around my house burn at around 50% high severity, I am jealous to see fire effects like the ones in the Laguna Fire and would consider it a restoration treatment that provides for resilience and limits the probability of a megafire over the next 20 years. Alas, it’s deeply saddening to read this same story repeated over and over on TWS.
Just because the Laguna Fire was able to be contained without it turning into an inferno, doesn’t mean the next expanded “wildfire” won’t become one. At best, the Laguna Fire was a very close call, even though for the cows burned to death during the firing operations, it was much worse than a close call — and also for their human keepers, who were heartbroken to see their cows burned and suffering.
We have seen from the Cerro Grande escaped prescribed burn wildfire, the Hermits Peak and Calf Canyon escaped prescribed burn wildfires, and the Cerro Pelado escaped prescribed burn wildfire, all in the Santa Fe National Forest, that close calls can become infernos. So to note that the Laguna Fire did not become a major wildfire outside of this context is a bit disingenuous, IMO.
It is possible that there will be a long-term benefit from the Laguna Fire, but the increasing tendency of the USFS to just burn at will outside of environmental regulations and laws is dangerous, and that has been well proven in the SFNF. And much more careful analysis is required to determine when the costs of treatments may outweigh the benefits.
Since the majority of acres burned in and around the SFNF in the past 25 years were due to escaped prescribed burns, I don’t believe that overall in the SFNF fuels treatments are having the positive effects you are extolling. The SFNF is the “canary in the coal mine” of forests, and adverse impacts show up here first due to the dry climate and vegetation. I believe these issues will expand to other forests unless they are confronted and better strategies are developed. https://www.theforestadvocate.org/santa-fe-national-forest-25-year-wildfire-history/
I wonder whether some units are better are better than others about warning permittees that they need to evacuate cattle.. whether true wildfires or enlarged semi-prescribed wildfires. Seems like there would be some kind of standard communication protocol.
The Forest Service did warn the permitees about nearby firing operations, but the Forest Service fired on a different location than they had indicated they would, likely an error. The Forest Service claims that they did not fire directly onto the cows, but the permitees said they found ping pong balls in the area where the cows were killed. There were clearly crossed lines of communication, and I believe that is from an intentional burn being planned and implemented on the fly.
Domestic livestock on the Forest is ecocide and those of us who actually live here are seeing the aspen bowl above Santa Fe holding the snowpack that the ponderosa pine sheds so that means prescribed burns work. Remanding portions of the Santa Fe National Forest to the Indigenous Americans including the Jicarilla Apache can’t happen soon enough.
Since you encourage “returning” land to Indians – public land – perhaps I can persuade you to act accordingly with your personal real estate holdings. Finds a deserving native family and return the land you’ve “stolen” from them … sign over the title to them! Once you’ve done this, I’ll consider supporting your proposal.
Fuel treatments on the Santa Fe National Forest helped contain the Medio Fire in 2020 and were accelerated after President Joe Biden took the oath of office. But it’s probably a straight line from the Trump Organization’s Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue and crashes in morale within the US Forest Service to current conditions on the SFNF and others in the National Forest System. Extreme wildfire conditions caused embers from the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire to create spot fires some four miles from the main burn. Replanting aquifer-sucking ponderosa pine in habitats that are historically dominated by aspen clones is certainly a failure of the SFNF, for sure.
Northern New Mexico doesn’t really have a viable timber industry and to this interested party the Calf Canyon/ Hermits Peak Fire was a blessing in disguise for hardwood release despite the estimated 62 million trees burned, the lawsuits and misery in its aftermath. A recent study revealed that heavy metals in the suppressants and retardants that the Forest Service and other agencies use against wildfires leach into waterways. Prescribed fire is used extensively by the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service with few pushbacks from sawmills. But, take fire off the the Forest then listen to extractive industry guys like Frank Carroll saying public land management is broken is pure madness.
??? “to this interested party the Calf Canyon/ Hermits Peak Fire was a blessing in disguise for hardwood release despite the estimated 62 million trees burned.” Seriously??…..have you seen some of the fire scars from decades ago in that area that have virtually no conifer regeneration — including large areas of the Viveash Fire scar? Hard to see that as a blessing in disguise. What is there instead is mostly shrubland.
You must be from California – the only place I know where they use tree counts. The failed President Joe Biden is the official responsible for the HP/CC and Cerro Pelado immolations ignited by his lackeys, Tom Vilsack and Randy Moore, who vowed in 2022 to burn 20 million acres of national forests and grassland and 30 million acres of state, private, and family lands and tribal lands. (https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/news/press-releases/2022/01/18/secretary-vilsack-announces-new-10-year-strategy-confront-wildfire-crisis)
People, not sawmills, are pushing back on the fire-use agenda. Only a misanthrope would think that the very natural human response to the wrath of fire use would come from sawmills!
Professor Friedman, please remind your other readers that this interested party doesn’t respond to trolling.
Hilarious. How do we keep the trolls from commenting, Mr. Trol…er…Kurtz?
Return the forests to the Jicarilla? They arrived around 1492 at Gobernador, New Mexico. Their interest in forests were limited to subsistence, lighting them on fire to fight enemies and improve habitat for hunting, and were otherwise limited to the bottom rungs of Maslow’s Pyramid.
Hardwoods are the preferred successional species? You could read a book on forest succession. I grew up in the old growth, open-grown stands of ponderosa pine in Arizona and New Mexico. They were the most desirable forest successional stage. How do we know? They thrived and dominated the landscape.
Sarah is correct. She offers science and investigative facts. You offer ad hominems.
I agree that Sharon should cull the curious fantasists. I don’t know your background, but it must have been in air conditioning technology or the William School of Wild Horse History.
I’m sure Turtle Island is right around the corner. Have a Happy New Year.
I had to look up “trolling.” It’s “deliberately posting inflammatory, offensive, or off-topic comments online to provoke arguments, disrupt communities, or upset people for personal amusement or malicious intent, often using anonymity to avoid accountability.” I had no intention of being inflammatory or offensive, and my reaction was certainly not for personal amusement or malicious intent. It was because I found the statement that the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon fire was any kind of blessing in disguise very shocking and dismaying. There are vast areas that were burned to a crisp, and in the warming climate conifer regeneration appears to be highly compromised. In the areas where the HP/CC Fire crossed the Viveash Fire scar, it looks like a grey brown moonscape. Local traditional communities have been changed forever, much of their means of livelihood virtually extinguished, and some still living in temporary quarters. Post-fire flooding is rampant. Wells are contaminated with heavy metals. It’s so painful to even contemplate, so it was hard to hear that catastrophe simply being brushed off — as a blessing in disguise.