Wildland Fire
From The New West Blog
What is “Wise” When Managing Wildfire?
Mark Finney, a scientist with the Forest Service's Fire Science Lab in Missoula put it pretty clearly when talking to Matthew Frank at NewWest.Net:
"It's the paradox of fire: the more you suppress them, the worse they get," Finney says. By fighting every fire, "we end up destroying the very thing we're trying to protect."
As fire season begins in the Rockies, the relative quietness of the season has given reporters a breather from chasing evacuation numbers and allowed them to focus more on policy in their stories and the latest from the Idaho Statesman's Rocky Barker and Heath Druzin is a perfect example. The story, in Sunday's paper, is a detailed report on how we manage fire and what the costs of that -- financially and ecologically -- are.
Barker and Druzin found some just fascinating numbers to back up what Finney was talking about when explaining the need for scientific modeling to help fire managers figure out what to fight and what to let burn. Here's just one set:
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guest commentary
Severely Burned Forests: One of Nature’s Best-Kept Secrets
As summer wildfire season begins in earnest throughout much of the West, it's important for the public and policymakers to recognize the important role that severely burned forests play in maintaining wildlife populations and healthy forests. Severely burned forests are neither "destroyed" nor "lifeless."
From my perspective as an ecologist, I have become aware of one of nature's best-kept secrets -- there are some plant and animal species that one is hard-pressed to see anywhere outside a severely burned forest.
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wildfires
The New Crystal Ball for Firefighters
Mark Finney mouses around a computer screen and up pops an elaborate map of where the Carey Fire in Northern California is burning. Overlaid in splotches of color, he sees, more importantly, where it's likely to grow.
"What we can do here and what it'll show you is mind-blowing," he says. The map is the product of the Forest Service's innovative computer-modeling program called Fire Spread Probability (or FSPro), a program Finney began developing in 2005 "to take a more strategic look at fire management." Today, its predictions are informing fire managers on how -- if at all -- to suppress hundreds of blazes around the country.
Tools like Finney's are becoming increasingly important for fire managers dealing with two big shifts in firefighting that can seem contradictory: The first being the recognition that some fires are good for the forest ecosystem and therefore, not every fire should be actively controlled. The second being the push to aggressively suppress fires to protect the ever-increasing number of homes sprouting up in the Wildland-Urban Interface.
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Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter
Wildfires: House Passes Proactive (Really?) FLAME Act
It's been 20 years since the devastating Yellowstone fire, the cataclysmic event that pushed wildfire into the national psyche. In those 20 years, sustained drought, shifting weather patterns, diseased forests, and decades of forest mismanagement have combined to give us one horrific fire season after another. The costs of fighting these fires has been compounded not only because of the volume of them, but because more and more people are moving into wooded areas forcing agencies to protect life and property. Already this year, the National Interagency Fire Center reports more than 2.1 million acres have burned in nearly 37,000 separate wildland fires--that's as of June 30.
Fire has eaten up more than just acreage. Fully 48 percent of the Forest Service budget in recent years has been consumed by fire. Last year, the Forest Service spent $741 million more than budgeted and Interior spent $249 million more than budgeted for emergency wildfire suppression, or a total of nearly $1 billion
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mopping up
Mount Sentinel Fire Snuffed Out
The throngs of gawkers are gone, but crews remain on Missoula's blackened Mount Sentinel, mopping up a 390-acre blaze that eclipsed the city's 4th of July fireworks.
The fire is now 100 percent contained, said Cindy Super, the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation's fire prevention coordinator. "It didn't do much overnight, even with really strong winds on it" -- 30 to 40 mph.
It was the first headline blaze in this young summer in western Montana. "We were able to put all of our systems through a test, a real life test," Super said. "Everything went well."
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guest commentary
Logging Industry Misleads on Climate and Forest Fires
Recent editorials by timber industry spokespersons are a wildly misleading attempt to promote increased logging of western U.S. forests under the guise of reducing wildland fires and mitigating climate change. The timber industry fails to mention, however, that logging is one of the major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. A recent scientific study found that completely protecting our national forests from all commercial logging would significantly increase carbon sequestration and reduce greenhouse gases (forests "breath in" CO2 and incorporate the carbon into new growth), while increasing logging on our public lands would have the opposite effect.
The logging industry also makes numerous scientifically-inaccurate assumptions about fire. For example, the industry would have us believe that little or no natural growth of forest will occur after wildland fire. In fact, some of the most vigorous and productive forest growth occurs after burns, including in high severity fire areas in which most or all of the trees were killed.
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firewater film company
Video: Missoula’s Mt. Sentinel BurnsBrothers Damon and Eric Ristau of Missoula's nascent Firewater Film Company sent us this great two-minute film of the fire that singed more than 300 acres of Mount Sentinel Wednesday evening. Enjoy.
Update
Missoula’s Mt. Sentinel Fire Quelled, Mapped at 390 AcresUpdate - 6:00 p.m.
The fire that blackened the west slope of Missoula's Mount Sentinel after flaring up at its base Wednesday night is now mapped at 390 acres, down from the estimate of 450, said Cindy Super of the DNRC early this evening.
She said the fire is now between 90 and 95 percent contained with only a few hotspots remaining. It should be wrapped up tonight.
The fire will be monitored overnight and, Super said, "We'll just have to see what tomorrow looks like. We want to make sure everyone stays safe and stays away from the crews working on it."
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breaking news
Fire Scorches 300-Plus Acres on Missoula’s Mt. SentinelFor a Thursday morning update click here.
UPDATE - 10:45 p.m.: The fire is now estimate at 300-350 acres, according to Cindy Super. Officials have not yet estimated the containment percentage.
Thirty people -- from the city, DNRC and Lolo NF -- will be fighting the fire through the night. The goal, Super said, is to lock down the flanks before Thursday's expected wind. "That will be a concern," she said.
By morning, three helicopters should be available to continue water drops.
Super confirmed that two children were involved in igniting the fire, but what was used to do so is still under investigation. She said the city will release more information Thursday.
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From The New West Blog
The WUI and The Western Fire Season
Laura Zuckerman has a pretty comprehensive story today for Reuters that looks at the overall outlook of this summer's Western fire season, with a primer on how more homes in the Wildland Urban Interface (know as the WUI) and the effects of global warming are changing the regional and national, approach to firefighting.
That's not really news to most of us in the West who have watched tactics evolve first from the warfare-like 10 a.m. rule to a realization in the 60s and 70s that fires are natural and in some cases, should be managed, not suppressed. Now though, fire managers stuck trying to balance managing fires for natural benefit and protecting property (and in some cases lives) as more and more homes creep closer to the wildland interface. Throw global warming into the mix and you're also weighing which fires are natural and beneficial to the ecosystem, and which can turn into catastrophic ones that can actually do more harm than good -- in the remote wildlands or in the interface.
Oh, and then there's the question of how to fund all of this.
Zuckerman's story doesn't fully address all the issues hanging out there, but it does raise some of the more important ones and gives some good fodder to think about and discuss as we head into another fire season.
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