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Humans sparked 84 percent of US wildfires, increased fire season over two decades

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How should we deal with the new math on forest fires?

If this article published in the February Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is not a fluke then it would seem to me that our expanding population dictates the need for more forest management not less. The less desireable alternative would be to severely restrict access to our federal forests. The main conclusion of the article is that humans sparked 84 percent of US wildfires and caused nearly half of the acreage lost to wildfire. This number excludes intentionally set controlled burns.

From the above, I would deduce that human initiated fires caused proportionally less acreage loss because they were closer to civilization and to forest access points and therefore closer to and more easily accessed by suppression resources. The fact that nearly half of the wildfire acres lost occur in these areas suggests that we would get more bang for our tax dollars if we increased and focused federal sustainable forest management around high traffic areas easily accessible to humans.

Knowing that humans who cause wildfires are, by definition, either careless or malicious, we might deduce that they are generally not inclined to put great effort into getting to their ignition set points. This would lead us to consider that human caused fires might prove to be in less difficult terrain areas with high human traffic. Fires like the Rim fire being the exception. That, if true, would suggest that forest management for risk reduction on these sites could be done at lower costs per acre than other less accessible forest acreage. Focusing forest management efforts on these high benefit to cost areas would have the biggest bang per tax dollar expended in order to lower the total cost of federal wildfire control. If my thinking is correct, this should play a large part in setting the priorities as to where we should: 1) apply controlled burns to reduce ground and other low fuels, 2) utilize commercial thinnings to reduce ladder and proximity fuels or 3) use commercial regeneration harvests to create greater variation in tree heights between stands in order to provide fire breaks for crown fires when appropriate for the site and species. The net effect would be positive for all species including endangered and threatened species. There would still be plenty of lightning caused wildfire, controlled burn hotspots/breakouts and a significantly reduced acreage of human caused fires to satisfy those who don’t mind national ashtrays. Reducing the number and size of human caused fires would also free resources to attack lightning fires earlier and harder when allowing the fire to burn was not an option.

Pertinent Quotes:

  1. “After analyzing two decades’ worth of U.S. government agency wildfire records spanning 1992-2012, the researchers found that human-ignited wildfires accounted for 84 percent of all wildfires, tripling the length of the average fire season and accounting for nearly half of the total acreage burned.” Italics added
  2. “”These findings do not discount the ongoing role of climate change, but instead suggest we should be most concerned about where it overlaps with human impact,” said Balch. “Climate change is making our fields, forests and grasslands drier and hotter for longer periods, creating a greater window of opportunity for human-related ignitions to start wildfires.”” Italics added
  3. “”Not all fire is bad, but humans are intentionally and unintentionally adding ignitions to the landscape in areas and seasons when natural ignitions are sparse,” … “We can’t easily control how dry fuels get, or lightning, but we do have some control over human started ignitions.””

Remember the “Shovel Brigade?” Court unsettles settlement.

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This was the Bundy gang of the 90s.  The Forest Service decided that it would not rebuild a washed out road along the Jarbridge River in Nevada to avoid impacting the now federally threatened bull trout.  The locals threatened to rebuild it themselves.  The issue in court became “who owns the road.”

Under the Bush Administration, the Forest Service agreed to not challenge the county’s ownership – a substantive concession that a federal district court has just reversed.  The judge said, “Without evidence that Elko County owns the right-of-way, the consent decree gives land of the United States to Elko County without following proper procedural requirements.”

This is how the discretion of federal agencies to settle lawsuits may be limited.

On the question of whether a “road” existed prior to establishment of a national forest, the court required “a demonstration of more than random or merely occasional use.”

Massive Crater Lake Wilderness Area Fantasy

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Oregon Wild has proposed a massive half million acre Wilderness Area, partly to “protect” Crater Lake. The Klamath County Commissioners are saying no, with fears that summer fires would affect public health, and that those unhealthy forests need active management.

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Here is a map of what Oregon Wild wants done.

Some better things coming from the Blues (Mtns.)

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Since I criticized the FS there in a couple of previous posts, here’s a couple of things I think they’ve done right.

It’s important that the public understand the relationship between forest planning and travel management planning, and this explanation from the Wallowa-Whitman is reasonably clear.  I think it should work about as well as it can if the Subpart A (roads analysis) precedes forest plan revision, and Subpart B (designation of roads open to motorized vehicles) follows it.

A little further back, I faulted the FS for not being honest about the legality of the local ordinance that sought to regulate the federal government.  That came up again at this Malheur meeting, and the FS set the record straight: “Our attorneys do not believe the Grant County ordinance is legal,” Beverlin said.

Beaverhead-Deerlodge Forest Plan NEPA not site-specific enough

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The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge (B-D) National Forest’s revised forest plan to designate areas for use by winter motorized vehicles. It found that the forest plan EIS failed to provide analysis that was site-specific enough to make an informed decision, as required by NEPA, and that the planning process did not comply with the “minimization” requirements of Executive Order 11644 for off-road vehicles, including evaluation of specific areas open to motorized vehicles.

This was a rare loss at the forest plan level on a NEPA issue.  While courts often accept more general NEPA analysis for programmatic decisions, this court recognized that the essence of forest plans is land allocation decisions.  Here it was important to know where winter range was in order to consider how the plan affected it or to propose alternatives for it.  The court stated that, “Without data on the location of the big game winter range, the public was severely limited in its ability to participate in the decision-making process.”  This principle should be applicable to other wildlife issues in plan revisions.

The holding on motorized use may also be precedent-setting.  It found that the plan ‘designated’ ‘areas open to snowmobile use.’  That made it subject to the executive order and to the Travel Management Rule (TMR) the FS adopted to implement the executive order.  The court stated, “What is required is that the Forest Service document how it evaluated and applied the data on an area by-area basis with the objective of minimizing impacts as specified in the TMR.”  It held that the Forest Service had instead deferred that level of analysis to subsequent travel planning.  The B-D plan had more site-specific direction for motorized use than many plans would have, but this holding could arguably apply to any forest plan components that identify areas in which motorized use would be allowed (especially where it is already occurring without prior compliance with the TMR).  This opinion blurs the distinction between forest planning and travel planning that the Forest Service has tried to maintain.

Neighbors and Idaho Rivers United File Suit on Forest Service Road Use by State

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Couldn't find a photo of the area, this is from the Johnson Bar fire which is somewhere close.
Couldn’t find a photo of the area, this is from the Johnson Bar fire which is somewhere close.

Here are some links to this lawsuit.. Idaho Rivers news release here

Here’s the AP story, below is an excerpt:

Sharla Arledge, spokeswoman for the Idaho Department of Lands, said the Selway Fire Salvage Timber Harvest was scheduled for April 24 but was postponed after the state agency couldn’t reach an agreement with the Wrights when they expressed concerns about the plan. Arledge said the department is considering its options.

Department officials estimate the sale on about 167 acres would produce nearly 7 million board feet of timber and bring in about $1.7 million to the endowment fund that supports Idaho’s public schools.

The lightning-caused Johnson Bar Fire burned more than 20 square miles last summer and fall, mostly on Forest Service land but also on state endowment land. The department said there is no Wild and Scenic easement on state lands in the area where the logging is planned.

Specifically, the lawsuit seeks to reverse the determination by District Ranger Joe Hudson that Forest Road 652 is public. If it’s not public, that means the Department of Lands would have to obtain a special use permit from the Forest Service, according to the federal agency’s regulations, the lawsuit said.

Issuing such a permit, the lawsuit noted, would require the Forest Service to conduct an analysis of impacts on the scenic river corridor as required by the National Environmental Policy Act and the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.

The lawsuit contends that the road is maintained by the Wrights to their home, but then becomes a dirt track that’s not maintained. The lawsuit also said that a 2007 road access guide for the Nez Perce National Forest doesn’t list 652 as open for motor vehicle use.

“This case is really about process,” said Laird Lucas, an attorney at Advocates for the West who is representing Idaho Rivers United. “It’s about holding the Forest Service accountable to its own laws and regulations.”

Really, it’s about process? Because it sounds like it might be about people living in WSR corridor (conceivably with some environmental impacts) that don’t want logging and log trucks around. I wonder whether the folks could just write a check to the Idaho schools for the $1.7 mill and end up saving themselves and the USG money.

The headline on Court Newshouse here is “greens fight clearcutting in Idaho.”

Usettling Forest Service settlement

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The continuing judicial story of the South Canyon Road on the Jarbridge River (where the first battle was fought with shovels).

Legal arguments center on an 1866 law that established so-called RS 2477 roads by granting states and counties the right of way to build highways on federal lands…  The government denies such a right of way exists. But under political pressure, the Forest Service signed a settlement agreement in 2003 with assurances it no longer would challenge the county’s claim.

The Wilderness Society and Great Old Broads for Wilderness sued to block the deal, saying U.S. officials lacked the authority to cede control of the road and shirked their responsibility to protect the bull trout. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed and tossed the agreement out in 2005, before the agency signed a similar deal in 2011 and conservationists sued again.

 

Merry Packers of Yesteryear

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A good friend who worked in the Forest Service before the 1964 Wilderness Act asked me if I had heard of a Merry Packer. I had not heard of them. He then described this motorized contraption that ferried equipment up trails in remote areas. The full picture is here.

My friend Tom commented about their use:

“Look!”
I looked. It was hard not to. We had just broke camp and started down the trail when the morning fog boiling up out of the canyon burst a hole a couple of miles away across the gorge, and in that hole, perfectly framed in corpuscular rays, sparkled a waterfall. It was quite a sight… and possibly my last!
 
Landers stumbled on a raised root in the trail just as he pointed with his right hand at the waterfall. His left hand on the throttle squeezed involuntarily as he struggled for balance. The little engine revved, kicking the mechanical mule in the ass just as we came out of a switchback. We came WAY out. I was up front, leaning back on the handles, supposedly steering, hopping and tiptoeing over rocks and roots, my feet on the ground only now and then.
 
We were having way too much fun again with this thing, and, way out here in the Douglas fir forests of the Wind River District above the Columbia River Gorge, no one was looking….and we were getting paid, too! Without having to carry gear, we moved fast, almost effortlessly, and we cleared a lot of trail……until Landers spotted that waterfall. I was lifted in the air about two feet before going over the edge, followed by all of our stuff – chainsaws, axes, sleeping bags, raingear, food, canteens and mosquito nets. Only a sleeping bag landed on me as I tumbled. Thank God that machine missed me. Landers fell on his face in the trail, laughing.
 
 The adults in the Forest Service had declared us the Trail Crew, showed us how to start this thing, then sent us into the wilds. Its called a Merry Packer. They’re like those deer carriers, but motorized. Are they still around?”

I hadn’t seen one in all my years in the Forest Service. I’m sure they were used a lot, in trail construction, before the restrictions on “motorized use”. On a recent trip to Zion, I saw, maybe, its replacement, in this more modern world. I’m sure that they had to fly this machine up to this strategic spot on the East Rim Trail.

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Government should return forest lands to Hispanics: Op-ed

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Here’s the link to an op-ed in the ABQ Journal.

Here is an excerpt:

The recent decision by the U.S. Forest Service to ban motorized vehicles on 100,000 acres in the Carson National Forest (mostly in Taos County) is going to hurt tens of thousands of Hispanic families in northern New Mexico who rely on cutting their firewood each winter in these same lands to keep their families warm during the cold winters.
This Forest Service ban will effectively put all this land off-limits to the Hispanic families and communities of northern New Mexico starting immediately and will make it very difficult – if not impossible – for Hispanic families to cut their firewood for next winter and all future winters, unless this decision is reversed soon.

In addition to firewood cutting, this ban will effectively make it impossible for Hispanic families in northern New Mexico to use these lands for our traditional cultural uses as we have for 400 years.
These traditional Hispano cultural uses include grazing our small cattle herds in these lands, hunting, fishing, and piñon and herb gathering, among other traditional uses.

It seems the Forest Service is now allowing the anti-Hispanic environmentalists to ban the Hispanic families from using these lands controlled by the Forest Service. The anti-Hispanic agenda of the environmentalists and their movement is well-known in northern New Mexico, where Hispanic families, individuals and communities – along with our Hispano culture – have been under attack by this anti-Hispanic movement for many years now.

These anti-Hispanic environmentalists have been running a campaign of lies for many years, falsely claiming their movement is so diverse and so helpful to the Hispanic communities. The reality is the environmentalists have a selfish, elitist and anti-Hispanic agenda whose goal seems to be the destruction of the Hispanic communities and culture in northern New Mexico

I’m assuming that the road closure is for environmental protection or to save money. If that were the case, I think it’s really hard to argue that something happening all over the country is anti-Hispanic. People of all races, and from the Native Americans to this decades’ immigrants use public lands. Note to readers: I disagree with Mr. Martinez that environmental groups are specifically anti-Hispanic. Closing roads may well have different impacts to different ethnic groups and social classes, though. Hopefully that’s addressed in the environmental justice part of the social analysis in the environmental documentation.

What is different for Native Americans, is that they have treaty rights are in a “government to government” relationship, so it’s fundamentally a legal difference compared to run-of-the-mill forest neighbors.

Considering that more than 90 percent of the lands claimed by the Carson and Santa Fe National Forests were stolen from the Hispanic land grant communities by corrupt and racist U.S. government officials, this latest ban is further proof that our government should return the land grant lands to the Hispanic land grant communities in northern New Mexico, who remain the legal owners of these lands.

Our Hispano families, communities and culture in northern New Mexico have a right to exist and a right to survive, just as the Native Americans and other group enjoys that right. Our Hispano communities’ right to exist and survive includes the return of our land grant lands.

If Mr. Martinez’s claim about the origin of the national forests in New Mexico is accurate, then Hispano families also have a unique property right to that land.

However, I hope that all “National forest neighbor” communities have some “a right to exist and a right to survive,” and their traditional uses should be respected.