Gil DeHuff

The Discovery of the Ponderosa Pines and their Current Taxonomy

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There may only be a few of us interested in skimming the verbiage but Figure 1 on the report page 2 (.pdf page 6) is a wonderful picture of the complexity and adaptability of a single forest species and therefore a good example of why one size does not fit all. To me it also shows the inherent processes already at work to naturally deal with climate change through the process of evolution driven by survival of the fittest. See also Figure 2 on page 18 (.pdf page 22). The detailed discussion of the five currently accepted subspecies begins on page 25 (.pdf page 29).

“The first published allusion to Pinus ponderosa is in the journal of Lewis and Clark, who, in ascending the Missouri River in September, 1804, at the outset of their transcontinental journey, found the cones of this tree,brought down from the pineries of northwestern Nebraska, floating onWhite River, and heard of the pine forest on the Black Hills of Dakota.” The taxonomic history of Ponderosa Pine begins on page 1 (.pdf page 5).

I look forward to hearing from others as to any ramifications of these subspecies on silvicultural practices in regard to minimizing the impact of fire and insect damages and other policy related issues. I’m pretty sure that we have at least 2 regular blog posters who can shed more light on this very important keystone species in certain forest ecosystems.

Scientific Basis for Changing Forest Structure to Modify Wildfire Behavior and Severity

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For those opposed to sound forest managements here are some more research and empirical highlights to hopefully cause you to rethink your position:

1) Science Basis for Changing Forest Structure to Modify Wildfire Behavior and Severity “General Technical Report RMRS-GTR-120” 2004 – some quotes include:
– “More than 80 years of fire research have shown that physical setting, fuels, and weather combine to determine wildfire intensity (the rate at which it consumes fuel) and severity (the effect fire has on vegetation, soils, buildings, watersheds, and so forth).”
– “Models, field observations, and experiments indicate that for a given set of weather conditions, fire behavior is strongly influenced by fuel structure and composition.” I and others have repeatedly tried to explain this to certain members of this blog
– “Models and observations of landscape scale fire behavior and the impacts of fuel treatments clearly suggest that a landscape approach is more likely to have significant overall impacts on fire spread, intensity, perimeters, and suppression capability than an approach that treats individual stands in isolation.” –> This knowledge regarding the need for a landscape approach supports my frequent statements to the effect that a matrix of stands in various forest types and age classes representative of some loose form of forest regulation will be impacted less by fire than a more homogenous forest. I also maintain that the science supports matrix management as being crucial to minimizing the risk of catastrophic losses from beetles while having less long term impact on endangered species than out of balance age class distributions.
– Echoing what BobZ says frequently on this blog, the article says: “Before Euro-American settlement, cultural burning practices of Native Americans augmented or even dominated fire regimes in many vegetation types” –> Which is the basis for Bob’s constant reminder to those opposed to sound forest management that they are greatly mistaken when they want forests returned to some state untouched by mankind.
– Please note the graph on page 5 of Report RMRS-GTR-120 agrees with my interpretation of the graphs in this NCFP Post based on an article that Sharon found in the Denver Post in spite of those who claimed that there was no cause and effect scientific basis.
– You will also find a lot of support for what LarryH, BobZ Mac, BobS, John Thomas jr., Dave Skinner  and others have reported in many comments in various posts. Unfortunately these scientific basis are often given a perfunctory dismissal by those without knowledge of the science and with an agenda opposed to sound forest management.

2) This abstract of an article titled: “Carbon protection and fire risk reduction: toward a full accounting of forest carbon offsets” from the Ecological Society of America points out that “Examining four of the largest wildfires in the US in 2002, we found that, for forest land that experienced catastrophic stand-replacing fire, prior thinning would have reduced CO2 release from live tree biomass by as much as 98%“.

3) This abstract of an article titled: “Basic principles of forest fuel reduction treatments” clearly states:
– “drier forests are in need of active management to mitigate fire hazard”
– “We summarize a set of simple principles important to address in fuel reduction treatments: reduction of surface fuels, increasing the height to live crown, decreasing crown density, and retaining large trees of fire-resistant species. Thinning and prescribed fire can be useful tools to achieve these objectives.”
– “Applying treatments at an appropriate landscape scale will be critical to the success of fuel reduction treatments in reducing wildfire losses in Western forests.“

Articles of Interest on Fire

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Here are three articles that I came across recently that should be of interest to most of us:

1) April 7-10 – Bend, Or. – Open to the Public but registration is required – “In what organizers have dubbed a “Week of Fire,” forest scientists and fire managers will meet in Bend April 7-10 to discuss the latest research on fire ecology and its implications for forest management.” See Here for more info.

2) “Fire ecologists say it will take decades for forests to recover from the Rim Fire in Yosemite National Park, given the extent of the high-severity burn. Now they’re adding another concern to that list: California’s dry weather.” See Here for more info. Especially, note the first photo and the extremely erodible scorched soils shown and the inference that global warming / drought only increases the need for sound forest management to compensate.

3) Can California Burn its Way Out of its Wildfire Problem? Some interesting quotes include:
a) “People who fight and study fire generally agree that one of the best tools for preventing massive wildfires is prescribed burning: intentionally setting smaller fires before the big ones hit. But there are major challenges to fighting fire with fire.”
b) “In California alone, about 15 million acres of forest are in need of some kind of treatment.
“We’re in a huge deficit,” says Scott Stephens, a fire scientist at University of California, Berkeley. Before the year 1800, he says, 4.5 million acres burned in California every year. Fires started either by Native Americans or by lightning were generally smaller and less intense, but much more frequent. Many areas burned every ten years or so. But because of aggressive fire suppression policies that managers followed for decades, many places haven’t burned in a century or more. Some forests are so overgrown, they have ten times the number of trees as they had historically. That’s the difference between running through the trees, arms outstretched, maybe with a couple of friends by your side, and not being able to crawl through. Forests like these are more susceptible to giant wildfires, because there’s more fuel to burn and it burns hotter. “We’re carrying these forests that are incredibly vulnerable forward into climate change,” says Stephens. “It’s a disaster really.” Because, he explains, California’s changing climate will make the fire season longer, and the prescribed-burn season shorter.”
c) ““Where I started my division assignment on the Rim Fire, was in areas where the Forest Service had recently completed some prescribed burns,” says Tom Garcia, the fire manager at Whiskeytown National Recreation Area. “And we were able to stall that fire out in that particular area and buy some decision space and some time.” With that extra time, Garcia says, they were able to get ahead of the fire, and save some nearby homes.”

Item C-6 is an item that I have repeatedly tried to explain to many on this site to no avail – Hopefully this will help some to see the need for fuels reduction and provide but one more example of how sound forest management can bring even a catastrophic fire to the ground and thereby reduce the extent of a catastrophic fire and by logical deduction and many studies also keep some fires small so that they can be controlled quickly as soon as there is danger that they could explode into a catastrophic fire.

Logical Inconsistencies in Some Selected Positions Taken by those Who Oppose Sound Forest Management

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Position 1: Management by foresters has a consistently negative impact on the global environment and is therefore an unacceptable alternative to letting nature take its course.

Logical Inconsistencies:

– Management of endangered/threatened species by biologists is necessary to save them in spite of the evolutionary process of survival of the fittest.

– Management of non endangered/threatened wildlife through hunting and fishing is perfectly acceptable as is the use of formerly forested areas for managing the production of most food sources.

– Destruction of seed source, destruction of endangered species, sterilization and increased erosion potential from baked soil; all resulting from catastrophic wildfires is preferable to scientifically sound forest management activities that can significantly reduce the risk and extent of such catastrophic wildfires.

 

Position 2: Corporate greed and lust is destroying our nations forests.

Logical Inconsistency: ‘The total forest area in the US is within one percent of what it was 100 years ago. During the last 60 years, per acre production of forest resources have increased by more than 50% in the US and 94% in the Southeast’

– Page 5 – http://www.watreefarm.org/Dovetail2012.pdf as cited in – http://www.envivabiomass.com/faq-wood-pellet-demand-in-europe/

 

Position 3: Alternative Energy sources like solar and windfarms are far superior to fossil fuels including nuclear energy. Even non-renewable fossil fuels that introduce new carbon into the atmosphere are superior to renewable biofuels which simply recycle the existing above ground carbon.

Logical Inconsistencies:

– Forest clearcuts are unacceptable even though they mimic the natural process of death and regeneration but it’s ok to permanently clear the large acreages required to produce significant quantities of wind and solar energy.

– Don’t place wind and solar energy farms anywhere that they would interfere with aesthetics like they would if they were placed on ridges along the west coast where sufficient wind power is fairly common and especially not in any forests in my favorite recreation area like a state park or national forest.

– Don’t sweat the loss of endangered/threatened raptors, migratory and other birds and bats due to windfarms but one dead skink in a clearcut is a national tragedy. Windfarms supply only 3% of US grid electricity yet they already kill a significant but arguable quantity of birds and bats. What will the mortality be and what will the aesthetics look like when 20 to 30% of our energy comes from windfarms? What will the aesthetics look like when Solar Power production rises to a significant level from its current 0.1% of production? What environmental impact will occur in providing all of the rare earth elements necessary for a significant portion of our energy production to come from solar power?

—- http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-many-birds-do-wind-turbines-really-kill-180948154/?no-ist

—- http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/01/birds-bats-wind-turbines-deadly-collisions

—- http://www.windenergyfoundation.org/about-wind-energy/faqs

—- http://www.c2es.org/technology/factsheet/solar

 

Beware of logical inconsistencies (AKA think before you leap).

The Role of Sound Forest Management in Reducing Wildfire Risk

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There are many here on the NCFP blog that don’t believe that there is any scientific basis for Sound Forest Management in reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfire. For those with an open mind and a desire to do what is right for our National Forests and the environment, here are two articles that will provide some food for thought. I have added some bolding and italics for emphasis and some “Notes:” for clarification.

 

1) The Arizona Daily Star reports that:

– “the Southwest Fire Science Consortium, which held a three-day meeting in Tucson this week to address forest resiliency in the face of climate change and megafires.

More than 100 scientists, land managers and firefighters from government, academic and nongovernmental agencies gathered to brainstorm strategies for making forests resilient as big, hot fires threaten their very existence.

“More fire, not less” is one answer, the researchers said.”.

– “Treating and burning the landscape regularly, and using natural fire to accomplish those same ends will allow those changes to occur gradually.

The alternatives, said fire ecologist Don Falk, are more megafires and more abrupt changes.” Note: The use of “treating” includes logging to reduce excessive stand density and other fuel reduction efforts.

– “Falk, in his keynote address to the group, showed a photo of an entire watershed burned to ash in the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico during the Las Conchas Fire in 2011. No mature trees survived, no seed source remains and the soil is washing away. That change, he said, “is essentially irreversible.”” Note: This doesn’t mean that nothing can be done to ameliorate the losses.

Note: In regard to these findings above, there is nothing here that hasn’t been known to foresters for over a half century but maybe this reaffirmation will help some to understand the need for sound forest management and the consequences of excluding sound forest management.”

 

2) The News Herald in North Carolina in an article entitled “Prescribed burns reduce wildfire threat” gives us quick overview of what all goes into preparing for and carrying out a prescribed burn. The article doesn’t give enough detail regarding the weather planning and restrictions imposed before executing control burns by the states. To my best knowledge, states have to approve all burn plans before they can be carried out so there is a strong checks and balances system in-place to minimize adverse weather risk, ignorance and carelessness in fire plans. Here are some quotes:

– “Some plant communities and animal species rely on periodic fire for their existence. The prescribed burns also reduce the amount of potential wildfire fuel and protect a parks’ resources and neighboring areas if lightning, arson or carelessness sparks a wildfire.”

– ““The point of this fire was to reduce the threat of wildfire. We’re burning it on our terms so a wildfire can’t burn on its terms,” Walker said Tuesday. “Our goal is to reduce small fuels by consuming them with fire. There will also be some benefits by reducing hardwood competition and making a more park-life appearance with general aesthetic quality.”

Before the fire can be lit, the rangers create a strict burn plan that factors in temperature, humidity, wind and more.

“We have certain weather parameters that the burning plan dictates. You don’t want the ground too wet or too dry because it takes a lot of effort to put the fire out,” Walker told. “We are really fortunate that a lot of the land that we have to patrol on a prescribed burn is bordered by the lake.”

Personnel began a test burn to make sure the winds were going to cooperate. The N.C. Forest Service and park rangers were ready to pull the plug if weather was going to be an issue. A burn line was constructed from the parking lot to the lake, and fire personnel proceeded to burn 61 acres of the Fox Den Loop.”

– “N.C. State Parks’ mission is to help promote natural forests. Historically, this area and statewide has burned more frequently,” said Bischoff. “Prior to settlement, several hundred years ago, this area had wildfires that burned very frequent in this area. Fire in general usually has a lot of negative connotation, but fortunately the community for the most part has been really supportive.”

– “The N.C. Forest Service also stated there is a program to fund burns on private lands”

Study finds transatlantic pellet trade results in SIGNIFICANT GHG REDUDUCTIONS over fossil fuels

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Selected quotes from Biomass Magazine article summarizing a joint study conducted by U. Ga., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Yale:

– “A new study … has determined that the greenhouse gas (GHG) intensity of a unit of electricity generated in the U.K. using imported wood pellets is at least 50 percent lower than the GHG intensity of grid electricity derived from fossil fuels”

This study addresses the shortcoming of previous studies as follows: “those studies have typically assumed the feedstocks for pellet production were sourced from either nearby forest for from a wood processing facility located at a fixed distance to the pellet plant. The researchers also stressed that existing studies have considered only one harvest cycle when determining GHG savings, which has raised concerns among environmentalists and others.”

– “the researchers determined relative GHG emissions savings for electricity generated in the U.K. using imported wood pellets under 930 different scenarios. The analysis considered three types of woody feedstocks, two forest management choices, 31 plantation rotation ages and five power plant capacities. Depending on the power plant capacity and the rotation age, the results found relative per unit GHG savings in the range of 50 percent to 68 percen”

– “According to the information published in the study, the results of the analysis contradict the general belief that the use of wood pellets from 10 to 15 year old pine plantations in the southern U.S. do not provide GHG savings in Europe. Rather, GHG savings were found to be at least 50 percent, even at lower rotation ages.”

The full study can be found on IOP Science/Research Letters

Logging to Conserve a Conservation Easement

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Logic and an open mind shows a conservationist with a strict conservation easement and the land trust Montana Land Reliance the need for modifying their agreement to save a forest through sound forest management. This is an example of tailoring sound forest management to accommodate strong conservationist viewpoints while recognizing the shortsightedness of their original “blinders on” “no harvest and no logging” agreement in order to reduce the risk of loss and improve aesthetics. Where there is a common goal and a true love for the forest, blinders come off and the environment wins. See the Bitterroot Star.

Some quotes include:

– “The sixty-acre tract of land, located up the Tin Cup Creek drainage west of Darby, is owned by Stewart Brandborg, a longtime conservationist. A conservation easement was placed on the land to preserve it in its forested state. “It was a pretty strict easement,” said Brandborg, “to the extent of no harvest and no logging.” So why are they in there logging now, you might ask. To preserve the forest would be the short answer.”

– “The Brandborgs went to the Montana Land Reliance, the company that holds the easement on the property, and worked out a solution that was satisfactory to all concerned. It would allow some light-on-the-land forest thinning to take out the bug killed trees. A prescription was designed by John Wells, a professional forester, that would make for a healthier stand of trees and lessen the fire hazard while preserving the values which the conservation easement was designed to maintain. It was not designed for profit.” –> Note: Profit here is “Landowner Profit”

– “Two small landing areas were cleared where the down trees were hauled to be de-limbed, cut to length and sorted. There was a pile that would go to a small sawmill in Corvallis, a couple of other piles of #1 and #2 house logs, a pile to go to Porterbilt for posts and rails, a pile for Pyramid Lumber, a pile of firewood, and a pile of slash that could be chipped or burned on the spot when the job was done. Stoker said that keeping the destination of the product as close to the logging site as possible was the key to making the small operation profitable.” –> Note: Profit here is “Logger Profit” to keep his business going.

– ““The big thing we try to do is to see what we want it to look like in the long term,” said Stoker. “Then, like Michelangelo and the rock, we take out everything that doesn’t look like that picture.”

All the big yellow pines and the big fir trees were left. In fact, almost all the larger living trees on the place were left untouched. Lots of dead snags were also left for the benefit of wildlife. Big patches of thick growth were also left scattered through the area as refuge and bedding spots for big game and other animals.

“What I like is that you can see a lot of individual trees now,” said Stoker. He pointed to one large 400-year-old pine and said that close to 50 small Douglas fir trees from 15 to 30 feet tall were removed from around the base of the big pine. It not only gets more air and light, it might even survive a fire now that the “fire ladder” surrounding it has been removed.

Stoker said that the woods were so thick on this piece of land that it was hard to see anything.

“We also opened up some views,” said Stoker. “Now you can see some of those big yellow pines on the cliff and see the cliffs themselves. Before, the canopy was so thick that you couldn’t see anything from down here. I think it’s cool seeing the ice coming off the cliff like that. It’s beautiful.”

Stewart Brandborg remains an ardent conservationist. But he also believes that local loggers can still be put to work doing sound management for the health and well-being of the forest, and, with the right machinery, at the right time, and with the right amount of care, they can do it without destroying the landscape.”

Oregon gauges health impact of Pole Creek Fire

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This is from The Bulletin

“state foresters reviewed maps and data showing how severe the fire charred the soil and how intensely it burned along creeks”

“forest managers should continue efforts to lower the likelihood of big, intense fires through forest thinning and prescribed fire efforts”

One more example of the fact that Sound Forest Management is a Force for Good.

Here’s a link to the report.

Been There, Done That, Survived and Got the Patch – California and Drought

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My take – Nature’s Past reveals that Nature’s natural cycles in California in the first millennium, unaffected by significant man made pollution were worse than our greatest fears about man made global warming. To me, these two articles are an example of the problems with an environmental viewpoint that doesn’t consider all of the tradeoffs when setting forest policy.

1) Scientists: Past California droughts have lasted 200 years – From MSN News

Some selected Quotes:

“Through studies of tree rings, sediment and other natural evidence, researchers have documented multiple droughts in California that lasted 10 or 20 years in a row during the past 1,000 years — compared to the mere three-year duration of the current dry spell. The two most severe megadroughts make the Dust Bowl of the 1930s look tame: a 240-year-long drought that started in 850 and, 50 years after the conclusion of that one, another that stretched at least 180 years.” AND “The longest droughts of the 20th century, what Californians think of as severe, occurred from 1987 to 1992 and from 1928 to 1934. Both, Stine said, are minor compared to the ancient droughts of 850 to 1090 and 1140 to 1320.”

“”We continue to run California as if the longest drought we are ever going to encounter is about seven years,” said Scott Stine, a professor of geography and environmental studies at Cal State East Bay. “We’re living in a dream world.””

“the past century has been among the wettest of the last 7,000 years”

“Although many Californians think that population growth is the main driver of water demand statewide, it actually is agriculture”

“”I don’t think we’ll ever get to a point here where you turn on the tap and air comes out,” he said.”

2) An interesting post on the California drought and the need for better forest management in the form of reducing fuels – from the San Jose Mercury News

Some selected Quotes:

“In contrast, better forest management can reduce wildfire intensity and help to safeguard water quality. Ecologically based forest management may also increase water yield by thinning overly dense forests, thereby reducing the utilization of water by small trees and allowing more snow (and snowmelt) to reach the ground.”

“we must address the importance of California’s forested headwaters in securing and enhancing California’s water supply.

This includes the need to increase the pace and scale of fuels reduction in these forests as an important part of the state’s water strategy.”

Progress in slowing the Mountain Pine Beetle in the Black Hill – What Works

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Here is testimony to some effective steps that can be taken to reduce the impact of Mountain Pine Beetles. This is an example of what sound forest management based on a fundamental scientific principle from plant physiology can do to improve our forests. That principle is that stand density impacts tree vigor/health which impacts the susceptibility of trees to insects and disease. Warmer temperatures and drought only make the need to apply this principle more critical. Contrary to the opinion of some on this blog site, Sound Science Based Forest Management can improve the forest ecosystem and all of the living components of the ecosystem (both endangered and not). It is a repeatedly proven fact explained by unquestionable science. Ignoring this information by excluding sound forest management is a very large part of why our national forests are being eaten up and burning up at an exponentially increasing rate in the last two decades since national forest harvests were cut by 80% out of fear and viewshed greed.

Prevention – Thinning

Control – “Cut-and-Chunk” – a variation of the process used very effectively in the south to stop Southern Pine Beetle hot spots before they break out. It requires frequent aerial observation to catch hot spots when they are small and then aggressively get the infested timber on the ground ASAP before the beetles can spread to the surrounding trees.

Key observations include: “Other than the tree-thinning, Weutke said a “cut-and-chunk” approach has helped stem the beetle infestation, especially at Custer State Park. Infested trees are cut into about two-foot lengths, which cause them to dry out and starve the beetles.

“These initial signs of growth of the population tapering are hopeful,” Wuetke said. But “it’s a lot like taking antibiotics. If you stop now, it can come back in spades.””