We’re All In This Together
Research
Humans sparked 84 percent of US wildfires, increased fire season over two decades
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:
- “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
- “”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
- “”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.””
Resilient forests require change in “default” response to fire
Here is the key conclusion in an article published by the Ecological Society of America (the article specifically addresses “dry forests”):
One of the most important and fundamental challenges to revising forest fire policy is the fact that agency organizations and decision making processes are not structured in ways to ensure that fire management is thoroughly considered in management decisions. There are insufficient bureaucratic or political incentives for agency leaders to manage for long-term forest resilience; thus, fire suppression continues to be the main management paradigm. Current resource-specific policies and procedures are so focused on individual concerns that they may be missing the fact that there are “endangered landscapes” that are threatened by changing climate and fire…. Without forest resilience, all other ecosystem components and values are not sustainable, at least over the long-term. It is therefore necessary to create incentives and agency structures that facilitate restoration of wildland fire and ecologically based fuel treatment to forest landscapes.
The authors have recognized the problem that fire planning is not well-integrated with planning for other resources on national forest lands. A key recommendation is to, “Make forest resilience a stand-alone, top land management priority and connect it to managing long-term for endangered species.” It criticizes the continued emphasis on fire suppression, including the strategy of suppressing fires to protect at-risk species. The article strangely omits any specific references to the 2012 Planning Rule’s ecological sustainability requirements, which I think has incorporated resilience, and its relationship to species diversity, as a policy about as well as we could expect. The question is what will forest plans actually do to avoid the alleged “tunnel vision.” The authors credit the southern Sierra revision forests as “pioneering some of these efforts.”
The authors do offer one recommendation that I think should receive more attention in the planning process: “analyze long-term impacts of continued suppression.” I would expand the recommendation to more clearly recognize that forest plans are the place where overall fire management strategies will be adopted, including identification of resources and areas deemed in need of protection from fire. Desired ecological conditions based in these needs must then be a consideration in fire management decisions, which must by law be consistent with the forest plan. Decisions in a forest plan about or affecting fire management, including those that promote fire suppression, will have effects on ecosystems that must be evaluated and disclosed during the planning process.
Throwback Thursday, Yosemite-style
I’ve found my hoard of old A-Rock Fire photos, from 1990! I will be preparing a bigger repeat photography article, after I finish selecting and scanning. Like several other fires this summer, the A-Rock Fire started in the Merced River canyon, burning northward. I really believe that this is the model of what will happen to the Rim Fire, if we do nothing to reduce those dead and dying fuels. Active management opponents never want to talk about the devastation of re-burns, as an aspect of their “natural and beneficial” wildfires. Most of those snags have “vaporized” since this 1989 wildfire. Indeed, this example should be considered when deciding post-fire treatments for both the Rim Fire and the King Fire, too.
It should be relatively easy to find this spot, to do some repeat photography, along the Big Oak Flat Road.
Scientific Basis for Changing Forest Structure to Modify Wildfire Behavior and Severity
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.“
Dr. Law: Role of Forest Ecosystems in Climate Change Mitigation
Dr. Beverly Law recently gave a presentation titled, “Role of Forest Ecosystems in Climate Change Mitigation.” Here’s some information on Dr. Law’s background, education and area of expertise, via Dr. Law’s website at Oregon State University:
Dr. Beverly Law is Professor of Global Change Forest Science in the College of Forestry, and an Adjunct Professor in the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University. She is an Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellow. Her research focuses on the role of forests, woodlands and shrublands in the global carbon cycle. Her approach is interdisciplinary, involving in situ and remote sensing observations, and models to study the effects of climate and climate related disturbances (wildfire), land-use change and management that influence carbon and water cycling across a region over seasons to decades. She currently serves as the Chair of the Global Terrestrial Observing System – Terrestrial Carbon Observations (supported by UNEP, UNESCO, WMO), and on the Science/Technology Committee of the Oregon Global Warming Commission.
You can view a PDF copy of Dr. Law’s presentation right here. Below, the text-only version of Dr. Law’s presentation does a nice job of summarizing the myth and reality regarding “thinning,” bioenergy/biomass and climate.
Role of Forest Ecosystems in Climate Change Mitigation
B.E. Law – Oregon State University, February 23, 2014
Key Points:
Activities that promote carbon storage and accumulation are allowing existing forests to accumulate carbon, and reforestation of lands that once carried forests.
Natural disturbance has little impact on forest carbon stores compared to an intensive harvest regime.
Harvest and thinning do not reduce carbon emissions. Full accounting shows that thinning increases carbon emissions to the atmosphere for at least many decades.
Carbon returns to atmosphere more quickly when removed from forest and put in product chain.
1. Role of forest ecosystems in mitigating climate change – Carbon storage and accumulation
Allowing existing forests to accumulate carbon is likely to have a positive effect on forest carbon in vegetation and soils, and on atmospheric carbon. Wet forests in the PNW and Alaska have some of the highest carbon stocks and productivity in the world. Fires are infrequent in these forests, occurring at intervals of one to many centuries. Old forests store more carbon than young forests. Old forests store as much as 10 times the biomass carbon of young forests (Law et al. 2001, Hudiburg et al. 2009). The low hanging fruit is to allow these forests to continue to store and accumulate carbon.
A key objective is to reduce GHG emissions. Changes in management should consider the current forest carbon sink and losses in the product chain when evaluating management options.
2. Role of natural disturbance in forest carbon budgets
Natural disturbance from fire and insects has little impact on forest carbon and emissions compared with intensive harvest.
Although wildfire smoke looks impressive, less carbon is emitted than previously thought (Campbell et al. 2007). In PNW forests, less than 5% of tree bole carbon combusts in low and high severity fires (Campbell et al. 2007, Meigs et al. 2009). Most of what burns is fine fuels in low and high severity fires, making actual carbon loss much less than one might expect. For example, from 1987-2007, carbon emissions from fire were the equivalent of ~6% of fossil fuel emissions in the Northwest Forest Plan area (Turner et al. 2011). If fire hasn’t significantly reduced total carbon stored in forests, it isn’t going to materially worsen climate change.
In the western states, 5-20% of the burn area has been high severity fire and the remaining burn area has been low and moderate severity (MTBS; www.mtbs.gov). In the PNW, 50-75% of live biomass survived low and moderate severity fires combined, which account for 80% of the burn area (Meigs et al. 2009). Physiology measurements show that current methods used to determine if trees are likely to die post-fire lead to overestimation of mortality and removal of healthy trees (Irvine et al. 2007, Waring data in Oregon District Court summary). Removal of surviving trees from a burned area will reduce carbon storage, and in many cases regeneration.
The release of carbon through decomposition after fire occurs over a period of decades to centuries. About half of carbon produced by fires remains in soil for ~90 years, whereas the other half persists in soil for more than 1,000 years (Singh et al. 2012). Similarly, after insect attack and tree die-off, there isno large change in carbon stocks. Carbon stocks are dominated by soil and wood, and wood in trees that are killed transfers to dead pools that decompose over decades to centuries.
3. How do forest management strategies such as thinning affect carbon budgets on federal lands?
Forest carbon density could be enhanced by decreasing harvest intensity and increasing the intervals between harvests. For example, biomass carbon stocks in Oregon and N California could be theoretically twice as high if they were allowed to continue to accumulate carbon (Hudiburg et al. 2009). Even if current harvest rates were lengthened just 50 years, the biomass stocks could increase by 15%.
Harvest intensity – The Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) was enacted to conserve species that had been put at risk from extensive harvesting of old forests. Prior to enactment, the public forests were a source of carbon to the atmosphere. Harvest rates were reduced by ~80% on public lands, which led to a large carbon sink (increase in net ecosystem carbon balance, NECB) in the following decades. Direct losses of carbon from fire emissions were generally small relative to harvest (Turner et al. 2011, Krankina et al. 2012).
Thinning forests – Landscape and regional studies show that large-scale thinning to reduce the probability of crown fires and provide biomass for energy production does not reduce carbon emissions under current and future climate conditions (Hudiburg et al. 2011, Hudiburg et al. 2013; Law & Harmon 2011; Mitchell et al. 2009, 2012; Schulze et al. 2012; Mika & Keeton 2012). If implemented, it would result in long-term carbon emission to the atmosphere because many areas that are thinned won’t experience fire during the period of treatment effectiveness (10-20 yrs), and removals from areas that later burn may exceed the carbon ‘saved’ by reducing fire intensity (Law & Harmon 2011; Campbell et al 2012; Rhodes & Baker 2009). Thinning does not necessarily reduce fire occurrence, particularly in extreme weather conditions (drought, wind).
Slow in and fast out – opportunity cost. Today’s harvest is carbon that took decades to centuries to accumulate, and it returns to the atmosphere quickly through bioenergy use. Increased GHG emissions from bioenergy use are primarily due to consumption of the current forest carbon and from long-term reduction of the forest carbon stock that could have been sustained into the future. The general assumption that bioenergy combustion is carbon-neutral is not valid because it ignores emissions due to decreasing standing biomass that can last for centuries.
Bioenergy still puts carbon dioxide in the atmosphere when a key objective is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The global warming effect of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does not depend on its source. Per unit of energy, the amount of carbon dioxide released from biomass combustion is about as high as that of coal and substantially larger than that of oil and natural gas (Haberl et al. 2012).
Summary
Comprehensive assessments are needed to understand the carbon consequences of land use actions, and should include a full accounting of the land-based carbon balance as well as carbon losses through the products chain. In mature forests, harvest for wood product removes ~75% of the wood carbon, and 30-50% of that is lost to the atmosphere in the manufacturing process, including the use of some of that carbon for biomass energy. The remainder ends up back in the atmosphere within ~90-150 years, and there are losses over time, not just at the end of the product use). These loss rates are much higher than that of forests. Full accounting of all carbon benefits, including crown fire risk reduction, storage in long- and short-term wood products, substitution for fossil fuel, and displacement of fossil fuel energy, shows that thinning results in increased atmospheric carbon emissions for at least many decades.
Study: Is fire severity increasing in the Sierra Nevada?
A new study published in the International Journal of Wildland Fire found that, contrary to what has been claimed in some of the news coverage of recent forest fires, there is not a trend toward increasing fire severity in the Sierra Nevada. Previously, those who claimed that fire severity was increasing relied primarily on two publications by Jay Miller of the Forest Service (Miller et. al 2009, Miller and Stafford 2012).
However, Dr. Chad Hanson and Dr. Dennis Odion found that the Miller studies left out hundreds of thousands of acres of fire data from their analysis. In contrast, Hanson and Odion used all of the available fire severity data for the Sierra Nevada, and that data showed no trend toward increasing fire severity.
Furthermore, they found that rate of high severity fire since 1984 has been lower than it was historically. These results refute some of the main claims we see on this blog and elsewhere.
Abstract
Research in the Sierra Nevada range of California, USA, has provided conflicting results about current trends of high-severity fire. Previous studies have used only a portion of available fire severity data, or considered only a portion of the Sierra Nevada. Our goal was to investigate whether a trend in fire severity is occurring in Sierra Nevada conifer forests currently, using satellite imagery. We analysed all available fire severity data, 1984–2010, over the whole ecoregion and found no trend in proportion, area or patch size of high-severity fire. The rate of high-severity fire has been lower since 1984 than the estimated historical rate. Responses of fire behaviour to climate change and fire suppression may be more complex than assumed. A better understanding of spatiotemporal patterns in fire regimes is needed to predict future fire regimes and their biological effects. Mechanisms underlying the lack of an expected climate- and time since fire-related trend in high-severity fire need to be identified to help calibrate projections of future fire. The effects of climate change on high-severity fire extent may remain small compared with fire suppression. Management could shift from a focus on reducing extent or severity of fire in wildlands to protecting human communities from fire.
If not at Maroon Bells, Then Where? Or Predicting Poopy Trailheads
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As I go about my outdoor recreation, I go to Jefferson County Open Space (free bathrooms). when it gets warmer I go up to the local State Park ($7 per day or Park Pass for $70 a year). When it gets hotter, I may have to go to Brainerd Lake (host program, mildly ratty,pay to enter the site on National Forest) or to Rocky Mountain National Park (first class, good bathrooms but no dogs).
I’ve been to the Bells many times with out of town guests. Like Mt. Evans, I’ve never heard “we shouldn’t pay ” from folks. Both places have a nice (not second-class recreation) feel to them. I bet many folks (social scientists, want to do a survey?) don’t even know they’re in a National Forest and not a National Park.
And if it was a National Park, we would probably pay more, but not be able to take our dogs..less desirable on both counts.
But this bathroom stuff is quite silly, in my opinion. See this article from the Aspen Times
Benzar and the Forest Service have different interpretations about the application of the fee at Maroon Lake, 10 miles southwest of Aspen. The No-Fee Coalition contends that those who want to hike Buckskin Pass or West Maroon Pass and want to park a vehicle at Maroon Lake shouldn’t have to pay the $10 fee if they have no intention of hitting the bathroom before they hit the trail. Likewise, sightseers in cars shouldn’t have to pay the fee if they don’t use the bathroom or other facilities at any of the six developed recreation sites, she said.
Here’s the deal to me..yes, folks could install “pay to poop” card readers at the outhouses, but that contributes to the Forest Service “ratty second-class recreation” vibe. Not to speak of all the folks who won’t pay $10 and leave the nearby forest looking and smelling like a giant outhouse (not to speak of the ecosystem integrity when all that extra nitrogen is applied!)
Which is part of the reason people want to transfer FS land to the Park Service- because somehow the Parkies appear to not allow rattiness. It seems like that is the obvious trail we’re going down, any area with lots of folks gets transferred because then there can be money to take care of them. Try “I am just driving through and not using Park facilities” at a National Park.
Since we’re all about following the law, and the recreation fee legislation is up before Congress, let’s see how many different ideas there are about alterations to the legislation to make it more common-sensical.
Here are some other excerpts from the story:
Officials at the Aspen Ranger District and the White River National Forest Supervisor’s Office have countered over the years that collecting the fee is vital to operating the necessary facilities at Maroon Lake. Without the fee, the Maroon Bells would soak up all the recreation funds available through the regular budget process. Instead, funds collected don’t go back to the treasury. They are used at Maroon Bells for operations and maintenance.
The Forest Service and the predecessor to the Roaring Fork Transportation Authority started bus service to the Maroon Bells 35 years ago. The federal agency also worked with Pitkin County to limit traffic on Maroon Creek Road, a county route. When the fee was adopted formally through federal legislation, cyclists fought the Forest Service for an exemption. Bikes and pedestrians get free passage past the entrance station.
The federal agency’s total collection from Maroon Valley visitors was $231,364 last year. That is a 50 percent increase from the collections in 2008, according to Forest Service figures.
Without the fee, Maroon Creek Road would be overwhelmed with traffic and the agency wouldn’t have adequate funds for operations, officials have said.
“Having that fee collection keeps it world-class,” said Martha Moran, a longtime veteran of the Aspen-Sopris Ranger District who helps oversee recreation programs. “If you want trash picked up and toilets cleaned, you can’t use volunteers.”
Maybe with the current legislation, this recreation is “unsustainable” based on the planning directives definition of within budget. I wonder what Aspen folks would think of the FS shutting it down when their plan is revised?
Large-scale bioenergy from additional harvest of forest biomass is neither sustainable nor greenhouse gas neutral
I’ve been down and out with the crud this week, so some items I’ve been meaning to post have been stacking up. Researchers from Europe and the United States have ‘collaborated’ on a new study titled, “Large-scale bioenergy from additional harvest of forest biomass is neither sustainable nor greenhouse gas neutral.” Below is the abstract and a snipped portion from the study.
Abstract
Owing to the peculiarities of forest net primary production humans would appropriate ca. 60% of the global increment of woody biomass if forest biomass were to produce 20% of current global primary energy supply. We argue that such an increase in biomass harvest would result in younger forests, lower biomass pools, depleted soil nutrient stocks and a loss of other ecosystem functions. The proposed strategy is likely to miss its main objective, i.e. to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, because it would result in a reduction of biomass pools that may take decades to centuries to be paid back by fossil fuel substitution, if paid back at all. Eventually, depleted soil fertility will make the production unsustainable and require fertilization, which in turn increases GHG emissions due to N2O emissions. Hence, large-scale production of bioenergy from forest biomass is neither sustainable nor GHG neutral.Environmental consequences
Homogeneous young stands with a low biomass resulting from bioenergy harvest are less likely to serve as habitat for species that depend on structural complexity. It is possible that succession following disturbance can lead to young stands that have functional complexity analogous to that of old forests; however, this successional pathway would likely occur only under natural succession. A lower structural complexity, and removal of understory species, is expected to result in a loss of forest biodiversity and function. It would reverse the trend towards higher biomass of dead wood (i.e. the Northwest Forest Plan in the United States) to maintain the diversity of xylobiontic species.Cumulative impacts of bioenergy-related management activities that modify vegetation, soil and hydro- logic conditions are likely to influence erosion rates and flooding and lead to increased annual runoff and fish habitat degradation of streams. Young uniform stands with low compared to high standing biomass have less aesthetic value for recreation and are less efficient in avalanche control and slope stabilization in mountains owing to larger and more frequent cutting. A potential advantage is that younger forests with shorter rotations offer opportunities for assisted migration, although there is great uncertainty in winners and losers (species, provenances, genotypes) in a future climate. Plantations, however, largely contribute to pathogen spread, such as rust disease.
Forests offer several important ecosystem services in addition to biomass and some would be jeopardized by the bioenergy-associated transition from high to low standing biomass. Agriculture provides a visible example for abandoning most ecosystem services except biomass production; communities in intensive agricultural regions often rely on (nearby) forested water sheds for drinking water, recreation and offsetting GHG emissions from intensive agriculture.
New Breakthrough in Tree Genetic Manipulation
The Forest Service’s Institute of Forest Genetics, in Placerville, California, has announced an important development to provide future nest trees, for imperiled birds on the Endangered Species List. Dr. Marie Shelley says that a twelve year effort has produced sapling trees, which exhibit the branching characteristics needed by birds, for nest trees which protect their young from predators like the Great Grey Owl. After eight years of finding seed trees, and cone collecting, the Forest Service’s Placerville Nursery is now producing saplings that will grow into the limby, short trees that nesting birds prefer. The efforts have been met with opposition from anti-GMO groups, claiming that such “experiments” could lead to “Frankenstein Forests”, breeding with the native species and putting forests at unacceptable risk. Dr. Shelley says that those genetics already naturally exist, and there is simply no danger to current gene pools.
The Forest Service has provided this picture of their first “Mother Tree”, found on the Black Hills National Forest, showing the increased branch growth that foresters have always called “Wolfy Trees”. Often, in the past, these trees were cut down and left in the forests, without any commercial value. The revolution in forest science during the 90’s has led to using such trees as “Wildlife Trees”, considered a much better use of these kinds of trees. Researchers say that these “Wolfy Trees” have accelerated growth rates, if they have open sun. The Black Hills National Forest has implemented the pilot program and is now interplanting their site-specific special trees in areas impacted by bark beetles and wildfires.