The Forest Service eyes controlled burns as a treatment for beetle-killed forests. PHOTO COURTESY U.S. FOREST SERVICE.
Prescribed burns may play a role in restoring beetle-killed forests
By Bob Berwyn
SUMMIT COUNTY — Despite all the fears of a major fire raging through huge swaths of dead lodgepole forests, the U.S. Forest Service is cautiously planning to try and prevent the worst-case scenarios by starting a few fires of its own.
“We’ve been brainstorming on the White River National Forest … it will happen in Colorado. It’s just going to take some finesse,” said Cal Wettstein, incident commander for the agency’s regional bark beetle team.
According to Wettstein, the agency would like to use controlled burns to help regenerate lodgepole stands that have been killed by mountain pine beetles and also to reduce the risk unchecked fires racing into developed areas.
At some point, the Forest Service may look at treating areas as large as 10,000 to 20,000 acres with prescribed burns, but not all at one time. Those larger areas would be broken down into smaller units.
In some cases crews might set smaller ground fires in areas that were logged to help open lodgepole pine cones and reduce the fuel loading from the slash that’s left behind after mechanical treatments. In other cases, fires that start naturally may be left to burn if they are deemed not to threaten developed areas.
The agency already treats large areas with prescribed fire, but usually in more remote areas and in different vegetation types — scrub oak and brush on the west end of the White River National Forest, for example. But fire is also an ecological component of lodgepole pine forests.
Right now, there are still more questions than answers, along with huge social and political challenges related to smoke dispersal and air quality — especially in a tourism-dependent area like Summit County, where smoky skies could equate to a loss of revenue for local businesses — and where there are widespread fears about any fire, even when it’s miles from the nearest neighborhood.
But Wettstein and several other Forest Service rangers said it’s time to at least begin a dialogue, both internally and with the public, to determine if, when and how controlled burns could be used to help restore beetle-killed forests and to reduce the risk of a catastrophic wildfire. The trick is finding the right place and the right time, but if executed successfully, controlled fire could be a valuable addition to the toolbox.
As always, there are two sides to the story. Some people point to the Los Alamos disaster in 2000 as warning sign that, no matter what the intentions are, land managers simply can’t control fire.
On the other hand, some wildfire scientists point to Colorado’s Hayman blaze, where the wildfire flames actually calmed down when they hit an area that had previously been treated with a controlled burn. In one description, rangers said the Hayman fire “dropped dead in its tracks” when it hit the Polhemus burn, near Deckers.
In other parts of the country, notably the Southeast, the Forest Service commonly burns millions of acres per year, under a different weather regime and in a different political and social context.
“It’s socially acceptable down there,” Wettstein said.
The agency has to answer many technical questions about fuels by modeling fire behavior before anyone lights the first match. An area where the trees still have red needles could burn out of control, but just a year or two later, when the trees are gray, a fire could be managed to a desired intensity and coaxed to move in certain direction, he explained. External factors like wind and weather are also crucial.Even once the trees have been killed, the forest remains dynamic.
“Where in that continuum do you pull the trigger?” he said.
“We’d have to figure out what we want the fire effect to look like,” said Ross Wilmore, a fire management specialist with the Forest Service. For now, the talks are in a very early and conceptual pre-NEPA phase, he added.
“We’re thinking about areas in a couple of ways … Looking at lower-risk places where we can proof the concept and areas where there is a greater need … where there are greater risks of wildfire that don’t lend themselves to mechanical treatments,” he said.
Check back with Summit Voice to read the next installment: Jerry Chonka has been burning lodgepole pines for more than two decades in the Gunnison area. Can his experience help the Forest Service plan controlled burns on the White River forest?
