Fire and Fuels

Slanted News?

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I found an LA Times article regarding the Rim Fire, as well as the future of forest management within the Sierra Nevada. Of course, Chad Hanson re-affirms his preference to end all logging, everywhere. There’s a lot of seemingly balanced reporting but, there is no mention of the Sierra Nevada Framework, and its diameter limits. There is also the fact that any change to the SNF will take years to amend. There was also no mention that only about 20,000 Federal acres of the Rim Fire was salvaged, with some of that being in 40-year old plantations.

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-rim-fire-restoration-20180718-story.html

There might also be another ‘PictureGate“, involving Chad Hanson displaying supposed Forest Service clearcut salvage logging. His folks have already displayed their inability to locate themselves on a map. If he really had solid evidence, he SURELY would have brought it into court

Additionally, the comments are a gold mine for the misinformation and polarization of the supposedly ‘progressive’ community of readers.

Trump “demands” more logging. Really? Does he ever request, suggest or ask for information? I’m tired of hearing of Trump’s “demands.” It could be that some logging would be beneficial but the minute Trump “demands” it, it is suspect. One of his friends will be making millions on the logging and probably giving a kickback to a Trump business. Trump is the destructor of all things beautiful or sacred, the King Midas of the GOP.

A tiny increase in logging of small trees is very unlikely to generate “millions”.

You have no idea what “forest management” is. You want to clearcut all of the old growth forests and then turn them into Christmas tree lots and pine plantations. That is industrial tree farming, not forest management. That is the dumb dogma, speaking, not actual management of the forests.

Most people in southern California don’t know that Forest Service clearcutting and old growth harvesting in the Sierra Nevada has been banned since 1993. The article makes no mention of that.

Riddle me this, Lou. How did the forests manage before we spent $2.5 billion dollars a year on fire suppression? Are we the problem or the cure? Is this just another out of control bureaucracy with a life of its own?

Of course, no solution offered.

Michael Rains’ Letter to President Trump

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Thanks to Evergreen Magazine. They are having a series with an interview with Michael Rains. Michael Rains is not only both experienced, and a brilliant guy in general, but has a gift for both budget and politics, so he’s worth listening to.

Here’s a link to his letter.

Please allow me to summarize:

The management of the nation’s forests, especially the National Forests, need immediate, aggressive attention.
Years of shifting resources (skills, money and projects) from non-fire work to the fire effort has created a huge gap in the ability of the Forest Service to carryout forest management actions on the ground. Thus, wildfires are larger and more intense than ever before.
The current 2018 budget; the 2019 proposed budget; and, the latest Senate and House Action on the proposed budget do not address, in any significant way, the required forest management needs of our country, perhaps especially those on the National Forests. Thus, large, high intensity wildfires will not subside.
The so called “fire fix”, if deployed in 2020 can help slow the shift of non-fire activities for the fire effort. But, we cannot let the “fire fix” keep us from understanding that the real brass ring that the Forest Service is searching for is effective fire management resulting from aggressive forest management. That is, the fire fix is only the first step toward a forest fix.
As the 2018 fires season unfolds, it is easy to forecast another destructive fire season and $5 billion will be expended by federal, state and local sources to suppress wildfires across the country.
Funding for forest management actions, including targeted hazardous fuels treatment, is woefully inadequate. In fact, at the current funding level, forest health will continue to decline and the impacts of wildfires on the land and people’s lives will only get worse. A budget increase in the range of +$1.3 to +$2.2 billion is required. Eventually, this amount can be reduced as aggressive forest management enables fire management to take place and fire suppression costs begin to decline.

United States taxpayers are losing $70 to $350 billion a year in wildfire-related damages to infrastructure, public health, and natural resources. Wildfires are a major cause of losses to the forest-products industry and rural communities, especially, are at peril. Fuel accumulations have enhanced high-intensity wildland fires. There are more than a billion “burnable” acres across America and an estimated 120 million people in more than 46 million homes are at risk due to wildfire; 72,000 communities are directly in harm’s way. Thousands of heroic firefighters have died protecting people and property. How many more reasons does it take before we can begin to improve America’s forests so fire can be used as a conservation tool and no longer feared for their destruction. We need your Administration to act. Clearly, now is the time. Positive impacts will be immediate.

In the draft EO Rains cites the need for PB as well:

The reduction of hazardous fuel is accomplished by an aggressive forest management strategy of increased timber and other forest product harvesting, salvage logging after a wildfire, and extensive application of pre-approved and planned prescribed fire.

Rains mentions the need for more small diameter uses and products..

Earlier I stated that due to the extreme costs of fire suppression, fewer funds and resources are available to support the very programs and restoration projects that reduce the fire threat. A program that emphasizes the innovative, cost-effective use of biomass is a prime example. Some examples of uses for biomass are wood-based nanotechnology; “green” building construction, including advanced composite materials; and certain aspects of energy production, such as torrefaction, which removes moisture and volatiles from woody biomass, leaving bio-coal, an advanced, more-efficient form of wood for energy. Such uses offer pragmatic market-based solutions to help forests become more resilient to such disturbances as widespread catastrophic fire loss. Biomass uses are outcomes from restorative actions to our forests.

I’m thinking of a competition for cost effective small diameter products like this XPrize for Carbon Capture and Storage.. could even use that model. For techie readers, albeit somewhat off-topic, I recommend taking a look at some of the prizewinners if you’re interested in CCS.

How the Forest Service manages fires – examples

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A couple of recent stories provide some information about how the Forest Service is “managing fire,” and might provide some insights into the opportunity for public involvement (or not).

The Lion Point Fire is burning on the Sierra National Forest in California. Here is an article that basically incorporates the language (which may be boilerplate) from the Forest Service on its Inciweb site. (As of today, it’s burned 9 acres.)

“This lightning caused fire started approximately two weeks ago. Forest managers are determining the feasibility to manage this fire for multiple resource and protection objectives.  Desirable fire effects that are consistent with the forest plan and beneficial outcomes to the resource values at risk will be the main objectives for this incident.”

If you were the Incident Commander, and looked at the forest plan to see what it says about the desired outcomes and values at risk, you would find this in the 2004 Sierra Framework amendment ROD:

“Lightning-caused fires may be used to reduce fuel loads or to provide other resource benefits, such as conserving populations of fire-dependent species. Before wildland fires can be used, national forest managers must prepare a fire management plan that describes how prescribed fires and naturally caused wildland fires will achieve resource management objectives.”

My search for “fire management plan” did not match any documents on the Sierra website. Does anyone know if such a document exists, or what the managers of the Lion Point Fire are using?

The Sierra forest plan is currently being revised, and the 2016 draft revised plan would create four “strategic fire management zones” with different desired conditions and guidelines. (“Fire management plans” are not mentioned.)

Meanwhile, the revised forest plan for the Coconino National Forest in Arizona has just been released; it emphasizes forest health and thinning initiatives to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire. The latest “update” says “the revised management plan provides greater flexibility on the management of wildland fires and seeks to return the forest to its nature-based fire dependent ecosystem.” The Forest Supervisor says the new plan includes updated guidance in managing naturally occurring wildfires to burn dry forest fuels.

I found this ecosystem desired condition and these guidelines in the “fire management” section:”

“FW-Fire-DC

2 Wildland fires burn within the historic fire regime of the vegetation communities affected. High-severity fires occur where this is part of the historical fire regime and do not burn at the landscape scale.

FW-Fire-G

1 WUI areas should be a high priority for fuels reduction and maintenance to reduce the fire hazard.

2 Fire management activities should be designed to be consistent with maintaining or moving toward desired conditions for other resources.”

The Coconino forest plan describes the decision process for managing fires as follows:

“Site-specific analysis is conducted for prescribed fires and for any wildfire that extends beyond initial attack. For prescribed burns, the decision document is the signed National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) decision. For wildfires, an analysis is performed using a tool like the Wildland Fire Decision Support System, and signed by the appropriate line officer.”

Which is not a “decision document” subject to NEPA.  And this language does not appear to address how to make a decision whether there would be an “initial attack” in the first place.

My take-away?  Forest plan desired conditions relevant to fires are even more important than for most projects if there is no later opportunity to influence a decision, so it is important for them to be specific and for them to vary in the forest plan based on the ecosystem and values at risk.  (While I didn’t look for them here, there should also be forest plan standards or guidelines applicable to suppression activities.)

Western Govs Talk to EPA About Prescribed Fire

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The fire seen here was conducted in 2016 near Naches, Yakima County. (Jason Emhoff/US Forest Service)

Mostly everyone agrees that prescribed fire can play an important role in Living With Fire. Without getting into debates about “naturalness”, prescribed burns can move the window for burning to sometime less scary than the hottest, driest time of the year, and burned areas can help provide points for suppression folks to work. Based on these two factors, PB could reduce smoke and/or move it to times of the year when it is more likely to get washed out of the air. So you might think that PB is generally good for air quality. As a regulatory agency, though, EPA is focused on what it can regulate (PB) and not what it can’t (Wildfires, though I’m not so sure about WFU).

Western Governors wrote a letter to EPA in January of this year..below are excerpts

We are especially focused on improving communications among EPA, federal and state land managers and foresters, and state air quality agencies to address wildfire in the West. Prescribed fire is an essential active management tool to mitigate the threat of catastrophic wildfires. Obstacles to prescribed fire are putting communities and western lands at unnecessary risk. When uncontrolled wildfire does occur, EPA should provide an expedited process to reduce the bureaucratic burden of and efficiently approve exceptional events demonstrations. We ask you to consider how the Agency can promote the responsible use of prescribed fire and implement the other recommendations outlined below.

Wildfire and Prescribed Fire
• More frequent and intense wildfires are steadily reducing the West’s gains in air quality improvement. Smoke from wildfires can cause air quality to exceed the NAAQS for particulate matter and ozone, impacting public health, safety and transportation. Prescribed fire, which is managed according to state SIPs and smoke management programs, can reduce these impacts, but is currently underutilized.
• Western Governors support the use of prescribed fire to reduce the air quality impacts from uncharacteristic wildfire in the West. Federal and state land managers should have the ability to use prescribed fires when weather and site conditions are appropriate and air quality impacts are minimized.
• Prescribed fire practices should include smoke management planning coordinated among state land managers, state air agencies, state health departments, EPA, other federal agencies, and federal land managers. State or regional prescribed fire councils can help facilitate this coordination.
• Western Governors call on EPA and federal land managers to improve existing tools and create additional tools for states to encourage prescribed fire. These should include an exceptional events guidance for prescribed fire, and tools to address the air quality impacts from wildfire in the West.

Wildfires and Climate Change: A Media Campaign?

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13 years after Hayman Fire

You don’t have to read too many papers or online sources to see that funders of various ilks influencing people through media campaigns is a topic of some discussion.
What would we see if we were looking for that fingerprint in our own topic area?
We’ve seen the Gazette article from yesterday. It carefully laid out a variety of reasons for fires but ended on a climate change note.
The same topic could be coordinated. For example the Denver Post published this op-ed last Sunday. The theme is the New Normal.

Here in the West, we can respond to the predicted drastic increase in wildfires by adopting policies that limit further development in the “wildland-urban interface.” Such developments will require huge expenditures to defend from fire, and they will likely ultimately burn no matter what we do.

And yesterday the AP weighed in with this piece.

“Far more wildfires rage.”

And then there’s the effect on wildfires. Veteran Salida firefighter Mike Sugaski used to think a fire of 10,000 acres was big. Now he fights fires 10 times as large. “You kind of keep saying ‘How can they get much worse?’ But they do,” said Sugaski, who was riding his mountain bike on what usually are ski trails in January this year. In fact, wildfires in the United States now consume more than twice the acreage they did 30 years ago.

Which scientists are quoted in this article? Climate scientists.. and they know about trends in other explanatory factors.. how?

Now all of us who have been following this know that there are several ways of thinking about “bad fires” but that those are all human constructs. Acres? Acres including burn intensity above x? Houses and infrastructure? Numbers of individual fires regardless of acreage? If you use acres, it seems like it could be influenced by fire policy changes in terms of WFU. Numbers of fires could be a function of more people in the woods not being careful. Here’s what a piece in the Daily Caller says..

2. Wildfires

The AP reports that “wildfires in the United States now consume more than twice the acreage they did 30 years ago.”

While this is true, the AP’s narrowing of its analysis to just the past 30 years leaves presents a misleading picture. Wildfires may be burning more acreage today than the 1980s, but that pales in comparison to the great fires of the early 20th Century.

The scale of U.S. wildfires has decreased dramatically since 1930, according to government estimates. That year, wildfires burned more than four times the amount of acreage burned in 2012.

In 1930, for example, wildfires consumed more than 50 million acres of land, but in 2012 wildfires only burnt up 9.2 million acres.

Roger Pielke also wrote in the same piece about hurricanes, and it’s pretty simple. You can look at landfalls or costs of destruction. But wildfires can’t work the same way because people suppress them, they change how they suppress them through time and they didn’t used to suppress them at all..prior to 100 years ago. Remember the piece here when we looked at Leiburg’s forest condition reports from the early 1900s. So there’s almost complete overlap between when we would expect to see the signal for climate change and suppression which leads to more fuels and so on..

Here’s another thought from where I sit in Colorado. In dry western forests, fires can’t keep getting worse and increasing acres through time, because at some point they are already burned and don’t have time to grow back to a point where fuel loadings are enough to have a serious out of control fire. See the photo above 13 years after the Hayman. Certainly this is not true in parts of the old timber basket country, but as a person who used to spend time measuring seedling growth in south-Central Oregon, I think it will take a while. Plus the fact that burned areas can provide handy points for suppression efforts. In fact, they may grow more slowly due to climate change, or trees may not come back at all (due to lack of seed? changes in soil characteristics? competition from shrubs? or climate change?) and future fires may be less of a problem. My point is that regardless of climate attribution, we all agree on a solution (better county planning, prescribed burning, living with fire) so why wouldn’t we focus on something we know how to do (and is a heavy lift)? Even if we stopped climate change now tomorrow, we would still have wildfires and pretty much the same conditions We don’t know how or if conditions will stabilize or reverse, and they can’t really reverse- time’s arrow goes in one direction.

Does Attribution Matter? Climate, Houses, Historic Fire Suppression and Wildfires

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Bystander looks at Buffalo Fire (photo courtesy of CBS Denver)

It’s unlikely that we can attribute damage from wildfires to climate change without including previous suppression and fuel buildup, more houses, changing suppression policies, more human-caused ignitions and so on in the mix of proximate causes. But it’s interesting when people bring it up.

Let’s take a look at this article…from the Colorado Springs Gazette.

Wildfires highlight ‘new norm’

Though different, blazes in Summit and La Plata counties deliver same message about how Colorado must act

The start of the 416 fire north of Durango, as seen from the Glacier Club on U.S. 550.

On the morning of June 12, the sky over Summit County filled with glowing clouds of black smoke in just minutes. Summit County Fire & EMS received hundreds of 911 calls. By midday, thousands had been told to evacuate.

But what seemed like a certain catastrophe was halted by fire breaks built in the years after the pine beetle epidemic. These clear-cuts, which stretch about 500 feet from the subdivisions into the national forest, kept the Buffalo fire at 91 acres. Within five days of the fire starting, containment was at 75 percent.

It has been a different story in La Plata County.

Nine hours after the 416 fire started June 1 north of Durango, it had consumed 1,100 acres. By that Saturday morning, officials reported it had grown to 8,691 acres. Overnight, it exploded, doubling in size to 16,766 acres.

Just 20 percent contained nearly three weeks after it started, the 416 fire is at 32,959 acres. Another wildfire in the area — the Burro fire — has threatened to merge with the 416 fire, growing to 3,484 acres since it started June 11. It remains only 10 percent contained.

While different, the fires in Summit and La Plata counties have the same message for Colorado and the West: there’s no time to waste dealing with climate change and the wildfires it’s fueling.

and

The new norm’

Once the fire is out, the danger doesn’t end. Denuded burn scars are vulnerable to flash flooding and severe sedimentation, which threaten homes, watersheds and other infrastructure.

While most people rejoiced Saturday when a light rain began to fall in La Plata County, Office of Emergency Management Director Butch Knowlton warned residents not to let their guard down.

“We have totally exposed soils right now with no water retention capability,” he said. “When that water comes, it picks up debris, ash and other floatable material like rocks and branches and dumps it into the lower-lying areas. Those areas are private properties.”

He continued: “It’s critical people be alert and understand that you might not be near the fire perimeter but are still in danger. It’s not a time to be complacent.”

The Forest Service is in contact with emergency rehabilitation specialists and is “ready to ramp up mitigation,” Hooley said.

Beyond the summer, many fear that the pairing of a low snowpack winter and high fire danger summer that is exacerbated by climate change is becoming the new norm.

“If this is an anomalous year, it’s not too big of a concern,” said Stevens-Rumann. “But based on climate projections, this is the new norm.”

Blake said, “We’re absolutely concerned about how climate change will impact Colorado tourism industries. We need to get out in front of it.”

The article also mentions the difficulties of fighting fires in wilderness and roadless areas. Could this be another one of the many causes of large problematic fires.. more Wilderness and roadless?

With exactly the same facts, someone could have written the story without climate change as a cause “to protect the recreation industry we need to get better control of fires in the summer.” The only way to do that is to do fuel breaks a la Summit County and prescribed burning. If the answer is the same in terms of what to do, what difference does it make in this case, what percentage is due to climate change versus the other causes?

Does a Fire-Ravaged Forest Need Human Help to Recover?

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That’s the title of this article.  It starts out with Chad Hanson walking the Rim Fire in California, so I thought there would be some interest here.  Like so many things, the answer I get from this is “it depends.”  It first depends on what the desired condition is.

Several months after the Rim Fire was extinguished, Eric Holst, a vice president of the Environmental Defense Fund, penned a blog stating that “letting nature heal itself” after a high-intensity fire is likely to result in a forest dominated by shrubs for many decades.”

As if that result is inherently wrong.  Whether that is a desired outcome or not is the kind of issue that should be addressed strategically through forest planning.  It may be fine from an ecological standpoint.  If the plan determines that speedier regeneration is needed for old growth species or economic reasons, that should be debated and decided at the plan level.

Then there is the science question of whether that would really be the outcome.  That depends on the nature of the site and the fire.  Regeneration problems seem to be the exception rather than the rule in the Bob Marshall Wilderness in Montana:

“The exception, he says, is in areas that have reburned in less than 20 years, too soon to allow for a seed crop to mature, especially on the west- and south-facing slopes that are hotter and drier.”

The key question to me then seems to be whether salvage logging in susceptible areas reduces the chance of reburns.  That is a determination that could be required at the project level by a forest plan standard (for those areas with a desired condition for rapid revegetation).

The site-specific effects of each salvage project would also need to be determined (and could provide reasons to not log despite the authority in the forest plan to do so), because …

“The scientific literature on post-salvage logging is contradictory. Some studies argue that the practice is beneficial because it churns up the ground, softening hard, water-repellant soils that sometimes form after an intense fire. Proponents also insist that the detritus left behind after logging inhibits erosion.  Critics such as Hanson say that the logging skidders decrease natural forest regeneration, kill seedlings, and compact the soil in a way that increases runoff and erosion, harming aquatic life in streams and rivers.”

Of course, maybe salvage logging is just as simple as how this reporter characterized the latest salvage efforts on the Lolo National Forest:

“The Lolo National Forest wants make the best of last year’s 160,000-acre Rice Ridge fire by logging some trees…  If they can get the chief of the Forest Service to grant an Emergency Situation Determination, the public will not be allowed to object to the project once Mayben makes her final decision.”

 

 

Should dry forests be considered suitable for timber production?

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Recent research is showing that lower elevation forests are not regenerating after fires as they have historically.  From the abstract of the research cited in this article:

“Results highlight significant decreases in tree regeneration in the 21st century. Annual moisture deficits were significantly greater from 2000 to 2015 as compared to 1985–1999, suggesting increasingly unfavourable post‐fire growing conditions, corresponding to significantly lower seedling densities and increased regeneration failure. Dry forests that already occur at the edge of their climatic tolerance are most prone to conversion to non‐forests after wildfires. Major climate‐induced reduction in forest density and extent has important consequences for a myriad of ecosystem services now and in the future.”

One of those consequences should flow from NFMA requirements for sustainability and ecological integrity.  To put that in simplistic terms, if the land “wants” to be non-forest in the future climate, we have to let it be non-forest.  And non-forested lands are not suitable for timber production, regardless of whether we could plant and maintain a plantation there.  I don’t recall seeing any discussion of this in forest plan revision material I have reviewed recently.  There is also requirement to use the best available scientific information, so a suitability evaluation of low-elevation forests should go beyond what is currently growing there to address what would be expected there in the future.  Many national forests could end up with fewer suitable acres.

Experts Talk How to Keep People Safe From Wildfires- At the County Level

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From Colorado Roadless presentations (2007)

It’s interesting to look at the scale of counties and see what they are doing about living with fire. Here’s a link to the story from the Summit Daily News.

A couple of things to notice in this local coverage, the key seems to be listening to experts about what they can do. They are not attributing causes (which takes up a lot of academic time, as we have seen, and may well be impossible to tease out). They are also not saying people should move out, nor not build in the WUI. They are more dealing with the situation as it is, is projected and what can be done within their state and local capabilities. Also there is not timber industry to speak of, so that level of controversy isn’t on the table. Realistically people aren’t moving out, and we can’t afford to do fuel treatments everywhere and concern about wildfire isn’t going to change climate polices. So we’re stuck with each other and this situation, and work with each other to try to make things better. It seems to me that local press reflects this worldview more than national press (wildfires due to climate change! Too many people living in rural areas! the evil timber industry (not Calfire) wants to do fuel treatments!). Maybe because they are not funded by clicks due to fear-mongering nor appealing to particular narratives. Just a thought.

Their experts are not academics, but state and local people who are responsible for wildfire mitigation.

Moderated by Summit County Commissioner Karn Stiegelmeier, the panel included Logan Sand, recovery and resilience planner for the Colorado Department of Local Affairs; Molly Mowery, owner of Wildfire Planning International, a company that specializes in wildfire mitigation planning; and Jim Curnutte, Summit County’s director of community development. Each gave a presentation on a different aspect of wildfire mitigation planning.

They accept that growth is occurring in the WUI and explore ways to deal with it, and live with fire.

Mowery said that poor planning and lack of resources may mean subdivisions are at risk from day one.

“In certain communities, the fastest response time from a local fire department might be an hour,” Mowery said. “Developments that need to account for wildfire, but don’t have resources to do so, are a major problem.”

Mowery suggested new subdivisions are designed with fire protection standards in mind so that they do not have to rely exclusively on first responders. She also suggested communities adopt WUI codes specific to areas that would affect existing development.

Subdivision standards may require neighborhoods to be designed with easy water access, proper evacuation routes and signage, minimum fuel setbacks and protection of critical infrastructure and utilities in mind.

WUI codes would go further, with local authorities proactively engaging with homeowners to take care of hazards on their property, such as asking them to store firewood away from decks or clearing dry brush near their homes.

Public radio asks,”How Much Of The Chetco Bar Burn Should Be Salvage Logged?”

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The Forest Service says it will salvage log 4,000 out of the 170,000 acres burned.

Smith heads Health Forests Healthy Communities, a timber industry-affiliated non-profit that advocates for active forest management. He says the relatively small post-fire logging project the Forest Service is planning is not only economically inadequate …

“ … but also a missed opportunity to reforest more of the landscape for the future.”

Smith says that salvage logging — followed by replanting — helps restore forest health. He says it’s important for fire safety, too.

“Less salvage means more dead and dying trees and snags that not only fuel the next big fire but also put firefighters in danger the next time they need to go in there and put out a fire,” he says.

The Oregon Society of American Foresters says post-fire logging can foster “timely development of desirable forest conditions.”

Still, in the Environmental Assessment for the Chetco Bar salvage project, Forest Service officials don’t claim any forest health or fire safety benefits. According to project coordinator Jessie Berner

“… We are trying to capture the value of those trees to try to recoup some of the economic value of that timber in support of our local communities.”

Salvage logging can definitely have economic benefit. But the scientific evidence that it leads to healthier forests is thin … Jerry Franklin is professor emeritus of ecosystem analysis at the University of Washington.

“I’m not aware of any science that supports the notion that salvage logging contributes significantly to ecological values, ecological recovery,” he says

“The best thing to do generally is to allow it to develop following the kind of natural processes that have been going on for thousands of years,” he says.

One point of disagreement might be whether that desired “landscape of the future” or “desirable forest conditions” constitutes “ecological recovery.”  Ecological sustainability and integrity are required for national forest lands.