NEWS ABOUT SAN JUAN COUNTY FIRE DISTRICT NO. 3
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Does San Juan County need prescribed fires?
Bill McLaughlin
posted 05/30/01
Before the arrival of European settlers, the landscape of the San Juan Islands was quite different from what we see now. Stands of fir and madrona were interspersed amidst grasslands and oak woodlands. Canopies of mature fir, cedar and hemlock forests stood over mostly open understories.
The land was shaped in part by the natural succession of forests. As the firs and cedars grew to maturity, the canopies blocked sunlight from reaching the ground below. In part, though, the landscape was also shaped by fire.
Native Americans across North America viewed fire as a tool that could shape the world around them. Native Americans burned the prairies to improve grazing. They lit fires in the forest to reduce undergrowth and improve game hunting.
Here in the Pacific Northwest, Native Americans used fire to improve and maintain certain plant habitats. Garry Oaks were prized for their acorns. Camas bulbs were another staple food that was cultivated by fire. Evidence points as well to the use of fire to maintain the habitat of the prickly pear, which was valued for its spines as well as its food value.
Native Americans also pioneered the use of fire to create a safer environment. Fires were set around villages to reduce the risk to the village from wildfires. This practice is now known as "prescribed fire.".
When Europeans first came to the New World, they brought with them a fear of fire that had been cultivated by 15 centuries of fire suppression. To them, fire was a tool that needed to be kept under the tightest control possible. Europeans had a long history of fire catastrophes, starting with the Roman fires during Nero’s rule. By strictly limiting where fire was allowed, they hoped to prevent future losses.
Following the European tradition, foresters and firefighters adopted a policy of aggressively suppressing any and all fires as the Country grew westward. While this policy had only minor unwanted effects in the east, it proved disastrous as it reached the western states.
Decades of fire suppression coupled with drastic changes in the forests caused by logging have led to conditions that dramatically increase the severity of fires that do occur. Unlike mature forests which have few, widely spaced canopy trees, second growth forests often have many smaller trees closely packed. As the forest grows, many of these second growth trees die, creating large volumes of fuel for fires.
Fire suppression also allows the proliferation of shrubs. These shrubs and smaller trees become what firefighters call "ladder fuels." They allow ground fires to climb into the canopy, dramatically increasing the severity of a wildfire.
Even though fire has a reputation for being a destructive force, it can be used in a controlled manner to benefit humans. Controlled burns can remove accumulated underbrush, alleviating dangerous fuel buildups. These type of controlled burns create a mosaic of partly burned ground while the tree canopies are untouched. Future wildfires find less fuel and burn with less intensity, making them easier to control.
Other controlled fires are used to create and maintain habitats that could not otherwise exist without fire. The Garry Oak savannah is a good example of this. San Juan Island supports a fair number of oaks currently, but the number is diminishing slowly. In part, the shrubs and conifers are choking them out. The oaks are fire resistant; pines, firs and shrubs are not. If we want to see future generations to see oaks on San Juan Island, we will have to reintroduce fire in a controlled setting.
In the past few years, forest managers across the country have been vociferous in their recommendations for more prescribed fires. While in one quite notable case, the fire caused considerably more damage than it was intended to prevent, most of these fires have been successful. In the case of the Cerro Grande Fire in Los Alamos, it was not that the Park Service did the wrong things, but that they did things wrong. Quite simply, the project was too large and the crew too small. When the burn boss made a drastic error in reading the weather conditions, the fire jumped the fire breaks. Had the Park Service been adequately staffed, the fire crews would have been able to catch the escaped fire before it got out of hand.
From 1970 through 1999, all of the wildland firefighting agencies were repeatedly downsized. By 2000, all of the Federal agencies were understaffed both for prescribed fires and wildfires. The manpower shortages, forest fuel buildups and dry weather can together to create the worst wildfire season since the 1940’s.
Now, fire managers are bracing for another high-risk year. This season has started just like last year, with major fires in Florida, California, the Southeast and the upper Midwest. Soon, weather conditions will swing the fire season into the Rockies and Pacific Northwest.
The Federal Government has changed their attitude about wildfires since last season. As part of the National Fire Plan, Federal agencies have been given funding to add thousands of firefighters. Other elements of the plan provide grants to threatened communities to develop local wildland firefighting capabilities. The US Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management have been given the go-ahead to increase the use of prescribed fire for fuel reduction.
Prescribed fire is the most efficient and effective means to reduce fire risk in the Western US. It is far cheaper and safer than fighting accidental wildfires. It is also more effective and cheaper than removing the vegetation by hand. It is less disruptive environmentally than logging or using heavy machinery.
Can we afford to light prescribed fires locally? Can we afford to hire fuel management crews to cut the brush by hand? Or can we live with the increasing risk of wildfires?
