Gil DeHuff

In Search of Common Ground II – It Takes Two: Forest Management and Social Management

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Here are two current articles that get some things wrong but if we ignore those items and focus on the big picture that they present rather than on the details, I believe that we will find that we have more in common than we thought.

Between the two articles we see the full picture for PRIORITIZED actions to begin the long battle ahead to recover from national ashtrays, lost lives, lost homes and infrastructure, significantly decreased health of both humans and forests. It is a two pronged battle that includes both sound forest management and social management.

A) Using Forests to Fight Climate Change – California takes a small step in the right direction.

“The state’s proposed Forest Carbon Plan aims to double efforts to thin out young trees and clear brush in parts of the forest, including by controlled burning. This temporarily lowers carbon-carrying capacity. But the remaining trees draw a greater share of the available moisture, so they grow and thrive, restoring the forest’s capacity to pull carbon from the air. Healthy trees are also better able to fend off bark beetles. The landscape is rendered less combustible. Even in the event of a fire, fewer trees are consumed.

The need for such planning is increasingly urgent. Already, since 2010, drought and beetles have killed more than 100 million trees in California, most of them in 2016 alone, and wildfires have scorched hundreds of thousands of acres.

California’s plan envisions treating 35,000 acres of forest a year by 2020, and 60,000 by 2030 — financed from the proceeds of the state’s emissions-permit auctions. That’s only a small share of the total acreage that could benefit, an estimated half a million acres in all, so it will be important to prioritize areas at greatest risk of fire or drought.

The strategy also aims to ensure that carbon in woody material removed from the forests is locked away in the form of solid lumber, burned as biofuel in vehicles that would otherwise run on fossil fuels, or used in compost or animal feed.”

B) Why are California’s homes burning? It isn’t natural disaster it’s bad planning

This Op-ed by Richard Halsey (director of the California Chaparral Institute who sometimes posts on NCFP) is well written and, though I would disagree on some statements in his post, I present those that I do agree on in an attempt to show that there are specific components that are middle ground that we all should be able to agree on and focus on rather than focusing on what won’t work. Once we change our emphasis, hostility between opposing sides should decrease and progress should increase.

“Large, high-intensity wildfires are an inevitable and natural part of life in California. The destruction of our communities is not. But many of the political leaders we elect and planning agencies we depend upon to create safe communities have failed us. They have allowed developers to build in harm’s way, and left firefighters holding the bag. ”

“others blame firefighters for creating dense stands of chaparral in fire suppression efforts—when that’s the only way chaparral naturally grows, dense and impenetrable.”

“”we need to recognize that fire disasters aren’t natural, they’re social. And they require social solutions.”” (quote from University of Colorado geographer Gregory Simon)
–> Pay attention to the statement “fire disasters aren’t natural, they’re social”. My first reaction was “not true” but in the context of the Op Ed, I think that the author is making an appropriate distinction between the words “Catastrophic” and “Disaster” by reserving “Disaster” for those situations where the catastrophe falls mainly on humans.

“We also need to examine the best practices of other fire-prone regions. Communities in Australia often install external, under-eave/rooftop sprinklers, which have proven quite effective in protecting structures during wildfires. (Australians understand that wet homes do not ignite.) Such systems should be standard in all new developments in high fire hazard zones. It is likely they would have protected many of the homes consumed in Ventura’s Thomas fire this week.”

“As we do with earthquakes and floods, our goal should be to reduce the damage when wildfires arrive, not pretend we can prevent them from happening at all. That mindset starts at the planning department, not the fire station.”

C) Relevant Prior Posts with included references:

1) Finding Common Ground
IN SEARCH OF COMMON GROUND
Frustration: Will It Lead to Change?

2) Wildfire
Fuels management can be a big help in dealing with wildfires
Air Pollution from Wildfires compared to that from Prescribed burns
Inside the Firestorm
The Impact of Sound Forest Management Practices on Wildfire Smoke and Human Health
Humans sparked 84 percent of US wildfires, increased fire season over two decades
More on Wildfire and Sound Forest Management
Scientific Basis for Changing Forest Structure to Modify Wildfire Behavior and Severity
Articles of Interest on Fire
The Role of Sound Forest Management in Reducing Wildfire Risk
15 Minute TED Talk: “Forest Service ecologist proposes ways to help curb rising ‘Era of Megafires’”

15 Minute TED Talk: “Forest Service ecologist proposes ways to help curb rising ‘Era of Megafires’”

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“Dr. Paul Hessburg, a research ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service, has traveled across the West to share the result of 30 years of research into wildfires and what might be done to prevent them.”
–> My thought: Err! Reduce them – preventing any from occurring is impossible. Other opportunities for disagreement but well worth watching none the less.

Good video presentation of how we got here and the need for changes to be “made in how national forests are managed and the how the public views certain preventative measures”

The 15 minute TEDx Talk video is about half way down in this link

Fuels management can be a big help in dealing with wildfires

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Dr. Daniel M. Leavell has extensive experience in regard to wildfires that, I imagine, few with a doctorate could claim. His qualifications to speak on this subject are summarized in this quote from his 2017 CV: “I have been involved with fire behavior and disturbance ecology since March of 1973. My experience with wildland firefighting from 1978 to 2012 included being qualified and having had experience as firefighter, squadboss, crewboss, helitac support crewmember, division group supervisor, safety officer, situation unit leader, infrared interpreter, field observer, Incident Commander Type 3, and Operations Section Chief for Type 1 and 2 incident management teams. I have been a member of several Type 1 and Type 2 incident management teams (including wildland fire use teams) for the Northern Rockies. I was responsible for all operations, tactics (short – and long – term), and personnel on fire incidents. I directly supervised all ground and air personnel, information (including advanced fire behavior predictions), and resources. I ordered and directed these resources to meet objectives in a safe and cost effective manner. I have had 30+ years of firefighting experience in complex and diverse fuel types and terrain throughout the Pacific Northwest, Rocky Mountains, Southwest, Southeast, and Alaska and have been cited for excellent leadership and the ability to strategize and direct all resources for immediate, efficient, and effective attainment of objectives. I have served on fires ranging in size from 5 to over 100,000 acres, and have managed and been directly responsible for thousands of human and mechanical resources. And after serving on over 300 fires (including several hurricane relief efforts), only two people I have been responsible for have had minor reported injuries and no fatalities. I am very glad and proud of that and have worked hard to achieve that claim.” (Italics added)

Here are some of the points he makes in regard to the value of forest management in dealing with wildfires:

1) “Dead forest vegetation has been accumulating, drying and remaining cured longer”
2) “The size of forest fuels also greatly influences fire behavior. A quarter-inch diameter twig dries sooner, ignites faster and burns quicker than a 30-inch diameter log because small-diameter wood has more surface area than larger material.”
–> Clarification: “small-diameter wood has more surface area than larger material.” should read: ‘small-diameter wood has more surface area per unit of volume than larger material.’. All else being equal, the higher the surface area per unit of volume the greater the chance of an explosive ignition from a spark (i.e. needles versus logs, shavings vs. lumber and flour vs. seed). In addition, such down wind high surface area per unit of volume materials will dry out more quickly from the heat produced by advancing flames especially if the fuel is above the ground rather than resting on or in the ground.
3) “The drier the wood with more oxygen applied (wind), the hotter it will burn”
4) “Hazards have dramatically increased and exposed our firefighters to more risks. Firefighter safety is always the primary objective and no fire is worth risking a life. For that reason, there is less direct attack on fires than before.”
5) “It has always been easier and safer to suppress fires in responsibly managed forests, where ecosystem health, fuels reduction, wildlife habitat and overall diversity are the primary objectives. This is true today.”
6) “Firefighters use the term red flag conditions to describe when lower humidity, and higher temperatures and winds reduce fuel moisture content. Anything organic can then burn hot if an ignition source starts a fire. Will removing the biomass of live and dead woody fuel affect fire intensity and severity? Of course, it can. The less fuel to burn, the lower fire intensity”
7) “Fuels management is one of the few things we can do along with suppressing fires. We are good at both. Terrain is normally out of our control, as is weather. But, we can manage forest fuels.”
8) “Managing fuels through responsible forest management reduces wildland fire risks, hazards, intensity and severity. It also improves overall forest health and wildlife habitat.”
9) “We have opportunities and choices to make. We can manage our forests responsibly by easing fire back into fire-adapted ecosystems through careful harvests, controlled burns, and various tools in our management toolboxes. Fire and resource management agencies across the West are examining various suppression strategies as an over-abundance of forest vegetation, climate change and more homes (which are fuels, too) in fire-prone areas make massive fires increasingly common and dangerous to residents and firefighters”
10) “We can use science to manage fires to increase firefighter and public safety, foster forest health, promote fire resiliency and nurture wildlife habitat — while improving economic opportunities that will bring jobs. Or, we can let it burn hot and let it go up in smoke”
11) “We can never stop all wildland fires through responsible forest management or otherwise.”
12) “responsible forest management reduces wildland fire risks and hazards. It also reduces fire intensity and severity when they burn in fire-adapted, fire-prone environments.”
–> Clarification: reduced fire intensity and severity make a fire easier/quicker/less costly to extinguish.

Can we all agree that this expert is correct in stating that these are facts (well established fire/forest science) as supported by many other posts and comments on this blog site and elsewhere which have been drawn from scientific journals of old to modern day on-line publications/reports?
If so, can we move on to a discussion of how this should drive our forest policy?

Note: The two –> clarifications are mine.

Frustration: Will It Lead to Change?

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In Eastern Oregon some have the impression that “a breath of fresh air is blowing across the landscape of forestry issues in Eastern Oregon”

Some Key Points from the Wallowa County Chieftain:

1) ““I don’t think Oregonians want their forests destroyed by runaway fires every summer and their air-sheds choked to the point that they can’t breathe,” Walden said. “I think we have real momentum to do good public policy.””

2) “Commissioners have long been frustrated when agreements reached with the U.S. Forest Service are discarded by other agencies that were not present when discussions took place.”

3) “the last few weeks have seen an abrupt change in the attitude of forest managers. Commissioners reported that in August, Penya was uninterested in their issues and let them know that conversations were over and USFS was moving forward with forest plans re-written by agencies.
Just two weeks later, commissioners reported, Penya seemed in the mood to negotiate.
“He called me and asked me about my opinion on how to do things,” said McClure. “He asked me — that’s a real change in status. He is really concerned about moving this thing forward. I brought up the issue on grazing. I was going to ask him for half a billion board feet for Boise Cascade before it was over … he was pushing hard to see that something got done.””

4) USFS Chief ““Tooke is all about getting in after these fires and all about trying make these systems work,””

5) ““It’s a different attitude now (with agencies, such as USFS, NIMS, U.S. Fish and Wildlife). It’s about how can we help. I feel like for the first time there is a new opportunity to really have an impact with these agencies.””

Only time will tell.

Conservation Triage – How a Math Formula Could Decide Fate of Endangered U.S. Species

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The title says it all. Considering that US citizens pay more in taxes than they do for food and clothing, is it any surprise that a lot of us want lower taxes. Here are some selected quotes from an article titled “How a Math Formula Could Decide Fate of Endangered U.S. Species“

It’s all about the 80/20 rule or, to put it another way, picking the low hanging fruit.

1) “Arizona State University ecologist Leah Gerber presented a plan to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials that would use a mathematical formula to direct government money away from endangered and threatened species she calls “over-funded failures” and toward plants and animals that can more easily be saved.”

2) “Gavin Shire, a spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said in an email to Reuters that the agency is examining the controversial proposal.

“We have worked closely with this group of scientists as they developed this new conservation tool, and while we have not made any determinations yet, are impressed with its potential,” Shire said. “We will be exploring further if and how we may best use it to improve the effectiveness of our recovery efforts.””

3) “The Endangered Species Act bars the government from deciding which animals and plants become extinct. But funding one species over another could let some decline or die out.

“I just don’t think it’s possible to save all species even though I would like to,” said Gerber, a self-described Democrat and environmentalist. “That’s an uncomfortable thing to say and I don’t like it but that’s the reality.”

Gerber said as many as 200 additional species could be saved by directing funds away from species such as the iconic northern spotted owl – whose numbers have declined despite millions of dollars spent on conservation efforts – and toward those with a better chance of survival.”

4) “So-called conservation triage is already being used in New Zealand and the Australian state of New South Wales, but Gerber has developed a specific algorithm for the United States that considers the expense and needs of local species as well as rules laid out by the Endangered Species Act.”

5) “Gerber came up with the idea for a U.S. model while Democratic former President Barack Obama was in office, pitching the concept to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials before her algorithm was developed. Given the proposed budget cuts, some proponents say it may have a better chance of adoption under the Trump administration.”

6) “Despite protected habitat and about $4.5 million, adjusted for inflation, that Gerber calculates has been spent annually between 1989 and 2011 to help the owl recover, federal statistics show its numbers have declined by about 4 percent per year. About 4,800 northern spotted owls are left in North America, according to the environmental group Defenders of Wildlife.”

7) “One proponent is Hugh Possingham, an Australian scientist and an architect of the policy in that country. Now the chief scientist for U.S. environmental group The Nature Conservancy, Possingham wants to see similar policies adopted in the United States.

“I’m always amazed that this is a contentious issue. I’ve had people discuss it with me and end up with a fit,” he said. “But the mathematics and the economics of doing the best you can with the resources you have – I don’t know why that’s contentious at all.”

The Australian state of New South Wales, which in 2013 adopted a strategic prioritization algorithm, decided to keep funding recovery efforts for some species that the model ranked as low priorities, said James Brazill-Boast, senior project officer with the New South Wales Office of Environment and Heritage.

For example, he said, the koala would be ranked low, but Australians would never support letting the beloved creatures, listed as vulnerable by law, become extinct.

Gerber said U.S. officials could similarly decide to continue supporting species that her algorithm might reject – or non-profits could step in to help.

“I don’t think the agency wants to let things go extinct,” Gerber said. “I don’t want to let things go extinct. … But we can actually achieve better outcomes by being strategic.””

Air Pollution from Wildfires compared to that from Prescribed burns

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New research has taken an exponential leap forward in measuring air pollution from forest fires. It confirms the importance of sound forest management in terms of health. To summarize: prescribed burns are significantly more desirable than wildfires. “Researchers associated with a total of more than a dozen universities and organizations participated in data collection or analysis. The scientists published their peer-reviewed results on June 14 in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.” Georgia Institute of Technology was cited as the lead university and Bob Yokelson, a professor of atmospheric chemistry at the University of Montana were specifically mentioned in this article from ScienceDaily.

Some quotes from the article include:

1) “For the first time, researchers have flown an orchestra of modern instruments through brutishly turbulent wildfire plumes to measure their emissions in real time. They have also exposed other never before measured toxins.”

2) “Naturally burning timber and brush launch what are called fine particles into the air at a rate three times as high as levels noted in emissions inventories at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, according to a new study. The microscopic specks that form aerosols are a hazard to human health, particularly to the lungs and heart.”

3) “Particulate matter, some of which contains oxidants that cause genetic damage, are in the resulting aerosols. They can drift over long distances into populated areas.

People are exposed to harmful aerosols from industrial sources, too, but fires produce more aerosol per amount of fuel burned. “Cars and power plants with pollution controls burn things much more cleanly,””

4) “”A prescribed fire might burn five tons of biomass fuel per acre, whereas a wildfire might burn 30,” said Yokelson, who has dedicated decades of research to biomass fires. “This study shows that wildfires also emit three times more aerosol per ton of fuel burned than prescribed fires.”

While still more needs to be known about professional prescribed burnings’ emissions, this new research makes clear that wildfires burn much more and pollute much more. The data will also help improve overall estimates of wildfire emissions.”

I feel that the previously expressed concerns by many of us about the impact of wild fires on human populations for a thousand or more miles from a catastrophic fire have been reinforced, once again, by this landmark research. It matters not whether you are for or against human intervention to minimize the risk of catastrophic fires; sound, sustainable, science based forest management to accommodate human health and other needs in harmony with the needs of forests and their dependent species (as a whole system) is in the process of restoring some balance to piecemeal, emotionally driven, faux science and wishful thinking. Save the planet – save our forests – use statistically sound, replicated research validated by extensive operational trials over time and place to make sound environmental decisions.

Wildlife in Managed Forests

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In a previous post titled “The response of the forest to drought” the questions led to the opportunity to bring us up to date on the current state of elk and the role that sound forest management can play. Here are some quotes from various sources some of which contradict what we have heard on this site regarding the need for dense cover:

A) “Wildlife in Managed Forests” – Elk and Deer – 2013, Oregon Forest Resources Institute
1) Page 2 – “Preferred forest habitat age: All forest ages, but most heavily associated with young stands where food is most abundant.”
2) Page 10 – “These results suggest that current commercial forestry practices are compatible with maintenance of ungulate forage species.”
3) Page 11 – ““For land managers who are interested in increasing healthy elk populations, their focus would be better spent on providing forage opportunities rather than cover.””
4) Page 13 – “Forage quality in late spring and summer is key to successful reproduction.” … “Elk prefer and will select certain highly nutritious and palatable plant species when they can get them.
These species, mostly in the forage classes of grasses, sedges, annual forbs and deciduous shrubs, provide a more concentrated source of energy than the less-preferred ferns, evergreen shrubs and conifers”
5) Page 14 – “Limited timber harvest on USFS lands since the implementation of the NW Forest Plan and social, political and legal mandates associated with late successional species have resulted in less early seral habitat on large contiguous tracts of USFS lands.”
6) Page 15 – “Where the objective is to provide landscapes with mosaics of early and advanced seral stages for elk, the effort will have to be ongoing in perpetuity and thus will be most effective if integrated in long-term management plans where habitat needs of elk are tied to forest manipulations”
7) “Land managers whose objectives include providing habitat and forage for deer and elk may want to consider the following silvicultural treatments:
• Where thinning is prescribed, thin timber stands to or below 50 percent crown closure to allow sufficient sunlight to reach the ground surface for early seral vegetation to become established.
• Retain any natural meadows and openings and remove encroaching conifers from these open areas. Note that power-line easements make great openings and often provide habitat for deer and elk.
• In thinned stands, create gaps of 1 to 5 acres on sites with east, south or west solar aspect and slopes less than 30 percent and away from open roads.
• In created gaps, plant a few native shrubs that provide fruit, nuts, berries or browse for wildlife.
• Seed all disturbed soil including skid trails, yarding corridors, landings and decommissioned roads with a seed mix of native grass and forb species that will provide high forage value for deer, elk and other species. These management prescriptions may not make sense for all landowners or all landscapes, but they will work in some areas to help provide habitat for deer and elk.”

B) From the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation we have 13 Bizarre Elk Facts That Most Hunters Don’t Know:
• “old trees are actually hurting elk populations.
“Our forest lands, whether on public or private land, are overstuffed with trees,” he told me over the phone. “The American public just loves trees, but in the forest where the elk live, too many trees block sunlight from getting to the forest floor. We’re not growing grasses and forbs, which are key to elk nutrition.”
What is needed are young forests, also known as early-successional habitats, that allow elk herds to thrive. Opening up tree-choked landscapes promotes the growth of low-lying vegetation, which are beneficial to elk and other wildlife.
“We’d like to see a lot more biodiversity out there so we’re really trying to encourage more thinning and more prescribed burning,” Tom said. “It’s not just for elk. There are a wide variety of bird species, small animal species, and big game animals that really benefit from the habitat work we do for elk.””

C) From the Forestry Source by Steve Wilent – Page 2 May 2014 “Embracing the Young Forest”:
1) “The Northwest Forest Plan’s was to secure late successional stands for the spotted owl … Now the battle is being waged … for … the inhabitants of the youngest forests.”
2) “In the Northeast and upper Midwest we documented 65 species … that were declining because of the loss of young forest habitat.”

To conclude this post let me repeat, one more time, that Single Species Management such as for the NSO and the 14 million acres set aside to “preserve” its habitat is having a far ranging negative impact on countless other species including elk. Single Species Management isn’t even working for the NSO as mentioned many times before (more details to come at a later date in response to a question from Jon Haber in a previous discussion thread on this blog site). Contrary to the opinion expressed by some on this blog site, sound forest management in the form of more small (~40 to ~200 acres) early seral regeneration openings and thinnings with included similar sized patches of stands near the maximum target density more evenly distributed throughout the forest would improve forage while providing cover from prey. Extensive contiguous acreages of dense conifers are counter productive to increasing or sustaining elk populations. Which is to say that those who focus on single species management and especially on late successional habitat (i.e. old growth) have forgotten about the importance of edge effect in wildlife management and the importance of maintaining a balanced age distribution of stands to replace the old growth which, no matter how hard you try, can’t be “preserved” in its current state over the long term. Heterogeneity/diversity is preferable to large contiguous acreages of homogeneity for all species in the long run.

The response of the forest to drought

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This post provides some on the ground research and consistent but separate modeling results that demonstrate the importance of stand density in coping with climate change and therefore the importance of sustainable forest management. Hopefully this will change some minds on the importance of strategically managing density.

A) The response of the forest to drought: the role of stand density and species diversity This article is an attempt to quantify previously established science.

1) “Droughts affect wood formation through the reduction in photosynthetic rates due to stomatal closure, reducing the amount of carbohydrates available for building new cells.”

2) “used tree-ring data from long-term forest plots of two pine species, ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) and red pine (Pinus resinosa). The experiments were distributed in different geographical areas in the USA and they covered a large aridity gradient. They quantified growth responses at the population level to express both resistance and resilience to drought in relation to the relative tree population density, finding out that reducing densities would enhance both growth responses to drought. Trees growing in denser populations were more negatively impacted by drought and this has been shown in all three biogeographical areas.”
NOTE from “Climate Change Research Focuses on Great Lakes Forests”: “ASCC is monitoring the growth, health and survival rates of the trees in these forests, and focusing on three key qualities: resistance, resilience and transition. Resistance measures a species’ ability to remain stable and productive in a drought situation, resilience is a tree’s ability to return to normal productivity after experiencing an environmental change and transition refers to circumstances that encourage ecosystems to adapt to changing conditions.”

3) “This study confirms once more that the vulnerability of monospecific coniferous forests to increasing drought can be reduced through thinning interventions, which represent a viable adaptation strategy under climate change.”

4) “investigated the drought response of 16 individual tree species in different regions of Europe and evaluated if this was related to species diversity and stand density. Based on previous findings indicating that combining species with complementary characteristics is more important than simply increasing species diversity to cope with drought, their results indicate that species growing in a mixture are not always less water stressed than those growing in monoculture.”
See also: a) “Species composition determines resistance to drought in dry forests of the Great Lakes – St. Lawrence forest region of central Ontario” b) “SPECIES RICHNESS AND STAND STABILITY IN CONIFER FORESTS OF THE SIERRA NEVADA” c) “Functional diversity enhances silver fir growth resilience to an extreme drought”

5) “Investigating these effects at the level of species identity (i.e., different combinations of species) is more advisable than doing it at the level of species richness (i.e., abundance of species), because different mixtures respond differently depending on the region. If we consider that different provenances of the same species can show different adaptation strategies to cope with drought, the situation may be even more complex.”

B) Ecosystem services, mountain forests and climate change
Note: This modeling effort passes the #1 smell test in that it agrees with already established scientific principles while adding quantitative measures that support the previously known trend but shouldn’t be taken as absolutes.

1) “it is estimated that about half of the global human population depends – directly or indirectly – on services delivered by mountain forests. It is therefore essential to assess whether multiple ecosystem services can be provided to human societies in the future. Given that climate is changing fast, the consideration of climate change in scientific assessments is a must! Let’s not forget that European forests are managed since centuries (check out this nice book about the history of European forests). Thus, changes in management regimes must be considered as well.”

2) “in the Iberian Mountains their simulation results indicate that forest management, rather than climate change, is responsible for a reduction in carbon storage and biodiversity. On the contrary, in Western Alps changes in climatic regimes could induces large alterations in the supply of several ecosystem services, particularly under the most pessimistic future climate scenarios. In other areas (e.g., in the Slovenian Dinaric Mountains) climate change would strongly affect ecosystem services, albeit differently depending on elevation and stand conditions.”

3) “This confirms that management is a strong driver of forest dynamics in European mountains, and it can highly modify the future provision of ecosystem services (i.e., more than the direct effects of climate change!).”

Inside the Firestorm

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This is for those who insist that we don’t need to use forest management to reduce the risk of catastrophic loss to wildfire. Several people have expressed unscientific views on this site to the effect that ‘Wildfire is climate driven and no amount of controlled burns and or thinning can have any impact on total acreage burned since it is all due to global warming (drought and high winds)’ Hopefully this will bring them to their senses and open their minds to the possibility that they are flat out wrong.

Several of us have tried to explain that global warming only makes the need for managing stand density even more important. We have also tried to explain that what many see as climate driven firestorms are instead micro climate created by the fire. Hence the need to use the appropriate forest management tools to reduce the risk of an ignition spreading at a rate that will create its own weather and to provide opportunities for crown fires to return to the ground in order to allow the fire to be controlled as is appropriate for the specific situation.

I have rightly or wrongly gotten the impression that some here don’t really respect the research done on wildfire for at least the last 80 years. My reason for saying this is the applause they afford to people who come up with conclusions contrary to the science but don’t bother to reconcile their suppositions/theories, based on cherry picked incidents, with the established and well replicated science.

So here is an article that should give you a better understanding of and respect for the work behind the real science and how it corroborates what some of us have repeatedly stated here and elsewhere so, obviously, the principles described here are not new – They are just getting a whole lot more attention as technology has advanced to the point where tools are now available to make precise measurements on what has only been repeatedly observed before. This is a pretty intense read and well worth reading in its entirety.

1) ‘“It looked,” says Kingsmill, “like a nuclear bomb.”
Undaunted, Kingsmill and the pilot decided to do what no research aircraft had done: Fly directly through the plume.’

2) ‘For decades, scientists have focused on the ways that topography and fuels, such as the trees, grass or houses consumed by flames, shape fire behavior, in part because these things can be studied even when a fire isn’t burning. But this line of inquiry has offered only partial answers to why certain blazes, like the Pioneer Fire, lash out in dangerous and unexpected ways — a problem magnified by severe drought, heat and decades of fire suppression.’

3) ‘“The plume is orders of magnitude harder to study than the stuff on the ground,” says Brian Potter, a meteorologist with the Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Laboratory in Seattle who sometimes works with Clements. Indeed, it took a global conflagration much darker than any forest fire to even begin laying the foundations of this work. Kingsmill’s observation about the bomb, it turns out, isn’t far off.’
–> Here the article dives off into the beginning of fire study as it began in the early ’40’s in preparation for the British bombing of Hamburg, Germany on July 27, 1943 when ‘42,000 people died, and another 37,000 were injured’

4) ‘these old experiments, finished by 1970, are still a key source of knowledge about extreme fire behaviors. Until recently, technology was simply too limited to reveal much more about the specific mechanisms by which a fire plume might feed a firestorm, let alone how beasts like fire tornadoes and fireballs form.’

5) ‘His instrument towers, deployed in carefully controlled fires, provided yet more unprecedented and precise measurements: how winds accelerate and draft into an advancing flame front, the heat and turbulence above the flames, and the speed of the rising hot air.’

6) ‘Clements wanted to capture the whole phenomenon — to look inside the opaque mass of an entire fire plume from a distance, and see all of its parts swirling at once. In 2011, he found his lens: a technology called Doppler lidar.’

7) ‘The team’s insight about the Bald and Eiler fires has implications for predicting smoke and air quality — a constant concern for communities near large fires. It also impacted the fires themselves. Even though both fires existed in the same atmospheric environment of pressures and winds, and burned across similar terrain, they were spreading in opposite directions that day — Bald to the south, and Eiler to the north. This denser current of cold air and smoke was actually pulling the Bald Fire in the opposite direction of what was predicted based on wind alone.’

8) ‘Coen works at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, where she studies fire’s inner workings. In September 1998, she spent several hours aboard a Hercules C-130 aircraft as it circled over Glacier National Park. The McDonald Creek Fire was marching up a steep slope at roughly three feet per second. Its smoke obscured the advancing flames, but infrared video cameras mounted outside the plane recorded what was happening underneath. It was only later, as Coen looked through individual frames of that video, that she noticed something strange: At one point, a jet of flame seemed to shoot ahead of the fire. It lasted only a second or two, but left a trail of newly ignited vegetation in front of the fire. Not until Coen calculated the size of the pixels and the time between frames could she appreciate its true significance.
The jet had surged 100 yards ahead of the fire’s front, advancing 100 mph — “like a flamethrower,” she says. It was 10 times faster than the local wind — generated, somehow, by the fire’s own internal tumult.
Coen called it the “finger of death,” and for her it brought to mind the unconfirmed reports of fireballs that occasionally circulated among firefighters.
She had never seen such a thing, but as she examined footage of other fires, she was surprised to find fire jets again and again.’

9) ‘Finney’s slow-motion videos show that these rolling eddies exist in pairs within the fire. They roll in opposite directions, coupled like interlocking gears. Their combined motion periodically pushes down on the advancing front of the fire, causing flames to lick downward and forward, ahead of the fire.
Finney believes that these forward flame-licks are scaled-down versions of the “fingers of death” that Coen has seen in wildfires — possibly even related to the fireballs said to have shot out of buildings during the 1943 Hamburg firestorm.
Coen has actually documented similar flame-rollers in real wildfires using infrared video. But she believes that the finger of death also requires another factor. As bushes and trees are heated by an approaching fire, their decomposing cellulose releases hydrogen, methane, carbon monoxide and other flammable gases in a process called pyrolysis.
Coen and Shankar Mahalingam, a fluid-dynamics engineer at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, believe that rolling currents can mix these flammable gases with oxygen-rich air. “The dangerous situation is when the fire is going up on a hill,” says Mahalingam. “Maybe there are pyrolysis products that have accumulated” in front of the fire and mixed with fire-boosting oxygen. As the flame licks forward into this invisible tinderbox, it ignites a blowtorch. … These same buoyant gases also supply the momentum that drives a fire whirl to spin once it is triggered. And on a much larger scale, they are what pushes a fire plume ever higher in the sky, powering the in-drafts that keep the fire burning below.’

10) ‘what drew Potter’s interest was the water. Concentrations of water vapor rose 10 to 20 times higher than the surrounding air.
Water is a major product of combustion, second only to carbon dioxide. It forms as oxygen binds to the hydrogen atoms in wood, gasoline or just about any other fuel — creating hydrogen oxide, otherwise known as H2O. Burning four pounds of perfectly dry wood releases a pound or two of water. …
And yet water vapor fuels the strongest updrafts in nature, says Potter, from thunderstorms to tornadoes to hurricanes. As moist air rises during these storms, the water vapor condenses into cloud droplets, releasing a small amount of heat that keeps the air slightly warmer than its surroundings, so it continues to rise. “Water,” he says, “is the difference between a weak updraft and a really powerful updraft.”’

11) ‘He believes that water was pivotal in fueling the firestorm that swept through the suburbs of Canberra, the Australian capital, on Jan. 18, 2003.
The fire consumed 200,000 acres of drought-stricken territory that day, isolating the city under a glowing haze of Halloween orange. Remote infrared scans suggest that during a single 10-minute period, it released heat equivalent to 22,000 tons of TNT — 50 percent more than the energy unleashed by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.’

12) ‘When N2UW flew through the plume of the Pioneer Fire in 2016, its instruments registered updrafts of 80 to 100 miles per hour. Yet at that elevation, 8,000 feet above the flames, the interior of the plume was only 3 to 6 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the surrounding air, meaning that its buoyant stampede through the atmosphere was powered by a density difference of just about 1 percent.
In other words, given the right atmospheric conditions, a few degrees of warmth and extra buoyancy could spell the difference between a plume that pushes 40,000 feet up, into the stratosphere, powering a vicious blaze on the ground — as Pioneer did — and one whose smoke never escapes the top of the boundary layer at 3,000 feet, leaving the fire stunted, like a weather-beaten dwarf tree gasping for life at timberline.’

13) ‘Clements’s trained eye began to pick out some basic structures: a 40 mph downdraft next to a 60 mph updraft signified a turbulent eddy on the edge of the plume. Hot air pushing up past cooler, stationary air had set in motion a tumbling, horizontal vortex — the sort of thing that could easily have accounted for the plane’s brief freefall. Those blotchy radar pictures may finally allow us to see through wildfire’s impulsive, chaotic veneer’

Yes, professional wildfire researchers, the in air observations of pilots of spotters and retardant dropping planes and the on the ground observations of fire crews that point the researchers in various directions all deserve our respect. They actually put their lives on the line as opposed to those who disdain their commitment and repeatedly validated science.

Contact the author if you want references or check back in some previous postings on this site for some related references. I post this without references because it jives with the known and validated science that I have critically studied since I first started my forestry education in 1963.