Threats to Forests - People - Forests - Fire

People - Forests - Fire

Fire has been a companion to settlement from the first, both as a controlled tool and out of control terror.  Through the years we’ve learned a lot about controlling fires: fire science, more forest roads, trained fire crews, smokejumpers, better vehicles, bulldozers, air attack with fire retardant, helicopters, pumpers and hose lines, infrared photos that see through smoke to show where the fire is, better planning, better food, showers for fire fighters are all in the fire fighting arsenal these days.  These and other improvements in fire science and technology allowed settlement to move further into the forest.  People thought, it was finally safe to live among the trees.  Firearms had taken care of animal threats and now fires were stopped - we thought.  Local governments saw no need for zoning against developments in forested areas so houses and forests began to coexist.  People bought forested lots and built their dream home and thought it was great.  Then in the fire season of 1988 people began to learn the assumption that wild fires could be stopped was wrong.

Do we really want this
next our dream home?

With the onset of the “forested subdivision” there was more happening in the forest than house building. Natural fuels were allowed to build up on forest floors, small trees (ladder fuels) were planted, or saved, close to buildings, whole subdivisions of houses were gradually becoming at risk of burning and it was hard to notice in day-to-day life.   Since the summer of ’88 thousands of homes in forests have burned and scores of fire fighters have lost their lives and millions and millions of dollars have been spent trying to save buildings that were not savable as raging wildfire approaches. 

In J. R. R. Tolkien’s Hobbit, he says, “It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.”  Good advice - and, Fire is a dragon.  We have not calculated all the fire problems associated with houses in forests.  We have not been aware enough of fuels building-up throughout the forests and where we’ve been aware of it, there hasn’t seemed to be much we could do about fuels.  Controlled fires to reduce fuels are not an answer, they could get out of control and burn houses, that wouldn’t do.  There has been no money to use manpower and machines to remove dead wood and small trees from forest subdivisions.  Unstoppable fires continued to happen and a new fuel type had come to the forest, houses, they burn very hot. 

What can be done?  Controlling hot, fast moving, crown fires that overwhelm forest and homes has to begin before the fire starts.  For years Smokey Bear told us to be careful with fire.  Smoky’s message has not been enough. Fuels continued to build throughout most forested areas under the policy of never letting fire in the woods.  With an abundance of fuels, including houses, wildfires are going to happen when weather conditions are ripe for an inferno.  Maybe not here, maybe not this year, but certainly, here and everywhere, some year.  All fire starts simply can’t be prevented, there is too much lightning, too many people and it only takes a small careless, or vicious, act.  And all fire starts can’t be put out while they are small, sometimes the fuel and weather conditions are simply too explosive (and that’s the right term).  One thing that can be done is reduce fuels on the ground so when a fire-start happens it will be a low intensity fire that can be controlled.

Reducing fuels is expensive and someone has to pay for it.  Where houses already exist in the forest, homeowners can make the area around their buildings more resistant to a wild fire consuming their home.  They can clean all the small fuels and cut and remove small trees that would be ladder fuels.  They can thin out the medium and larger trees so tree crowns are not touching one another, or any buildings.  These things should be done for as many hundreds of feet around buildings as is possible.  Buildings should have metal roofs and flammable materials near buildings should be removed.   

Local governments have the responsibility and authority to zone private lands to prevent housing subdivisions in forested areas that someday will burn. Where forested subdivisions presently exist, local governments and insurance companies need to require that all homeowners create “fire-wise” space within and around every home and subdivision lot.  This is necessary because it doesn’t help much for one home owner within a subdivision to make their property fire-wise and those around them to do nothing.  Everyone has to participate and that takes local government to make it happen.

Logging for profit can reduce fuels in general forest areas and within subdivisions, but it takes agreement and cooperation.  Logging has helped with fuels reduction for many decades in commercial timber management areas.  Treatment of the slash and ladder fuels has been paid for by the value of the big logs removed.  It reduces the profit margin, but it can and must be done to reduce the chance of destructive fires.   However, in very dry conditions even well done fuels reduction projects, will not prevent destructive fires. 

There are millions and millions of acres of forest that do not have enough commercial size trees to pay for making the forest resistant to mega fires (the big ones that destroy all trees, burn homes, cook the soil, burn wild animals, result in erosion that pollutes streams and rivers and kills fish).  These millions of acres also need fuels reduced.  Tax dollars are about the only alternative for doing work in these stands.