Cold Consequences of Warming

The wildfire issue is really starting to heat up now that the flames are cooling off. The major push from the political front is to log it, log it, log it. Especially the beetle wood. The argument that dry, dead beetle trees pose the most extreme fire hazard seems logical until the other side of the story is examined.

Logging has not controlled beetles. Capacity, market conditions and scale of the beetle problem is beyond any serious possibility of control by logging; during the last few years the beetle attack grew and grew and continues to grow, rolling over our feeble attempts to control it in spite of all the talk of containment by logging. Federal dollars, mobilization, short-circuiting of regulations and media profile to allow for increased logging have not controlled beetles. In spite of this, the logging tool is seen by some as the way to solve the much larger problem of wildfire risk.

Ignoring the physical impossibility of using large scale logging to fireproof beetle stands, what about the theory behind this "common sense" approach? Are beetle attacked forests really the problem they are made out to be? On a hot dry August day, after several weeks of no rain, the forest is tinder dry. A local thunderstorm or a careless back country driver ignites a small fire. Once started the fire needs fuel to get going and grow in size. Standing dead timber would seem to be the best fuel. After all, those of us who heat with wood want dry firewood, so the assumption is that a wildfire will have the same requirement.

This is where the "common sense" view is at odds with reality. Even in the one or two seasons where beetle attacked trees are in the "red attack" stage with their needles still on, they are less of a fire hazard than healthy, fully green trees.

Although this is counterintuitive, the reasons for this are two-fold. First, the oils, resins and sap in the needles and fine branches on healthy trees literally explode when high heat is applied. Just like a chemical incendiary bomb, these oils, resins and other flammables create the fire storms you see on television as the trees disintegrate sending branches, firebrands and firestorms high into the air. Once started these chemicals fires create the crown-jumping scenarios that are the most destructive elements of a wildfire.

Second, the beetle trees have dry needles that do not contain nearly as much of these oils and resins. Red attack trees are usually full of moisture, not sap, so they do not burn as well. Fire experts confirm that healthy, green forests are much higher risk for high temperature crown fires than beetle attacked forests, especially the Grey attack. The difference is in the high temperatures reached, the speed of fire transmission and the severity of the fire storm all fed by the chemicals in the living trees. Think of pine pitch or turpentine, highly flammable substances found in living needles and twigs.

We do need fire plans. We need them for the 5% of provincial forest that is in Parks and the 90% of provincial forest that is available for timber harvest. These plans include traditional fall and burn, prescribed burning and "let it burn" scenarios in the protected areas. On the other 90 percent of the land base fire suppression needs to be selective, with small fires allowed to clean out the understory. Prescribed burning, thinning, interface management and most importantly, proper building codes and bylaws need to be enacted, applied and enforced.

In 1999 Flagstaff, Arizona in cooperation with the Ponderosa Fire Advisory Council produced a report called the "Flagstaff Area Wildfire Risk Assessment". The Flagstaff urban interface consists of about 180,00 acres of national forest, the state of Arizona, military, national park, Flagstaff city and privately owned lands all in a Ponderosa pine forest not unlike the Okanagan Mountain Park ecosystem.

Essentially the report found that the greater the fire suppression, the greater the occurrence of more destructive catastrophic fires, "Characterized by active crown fire, one that spreads through the green needles and tops of trees independently or at the same time as a ground level fire. Most of the trees burned are killed."

The report summarizes that a combination of thinning, manual fuel removal, and prescribed burning are required to restore Ponderosa pine ecosystems to more natural conditions.

Most interestingly the report states that logging can be of benefit to lowering fire risk "IF the slash is removed and /or burned, the large, old growth trees are retained, but smaller, more flammable young trees are removed and the stand is effectively thinned removing fuel ladders and dense tree conditions."

Traditional logging methods that leave chunks of forest with full canopy between clear cutting were actually found to increase fire risk. The report also notes that the cost of interface management, where human living space meets the wild forest, far exceeds the market return for the small trees removed.

In the end, even on this small piece of ground, (81,800 hectares), the best prevention is the application of building codes, firebreaks, and vegetation management of up to 1.3 miles from residential sites. For example, a distance of 200 feet from each structure needs to be fuel free to prevent the ignition of flammable siding. Metal roofs, understory management, a combination of local wild land and private property management is the most effective means of protecting the forest and the homes of the people who live in it

Much larger than the beetle problem, which we cannot contain or log into submission, the fire problem is destructive to our homes, our families, our children. We cannot begin to have the resources to thin, remove ladder fuels, to manicure the hundreds of thousands of square kilometers forest in B.C.

The strategies to deal with this must not be knee jerk, using ill informed "common sense" or sacrificing effectiveness to achieve other agendas because we act in an irrational fashion. Now more than ever we must take a deep breath, learn from and communicate with those who have worked on the fire ecosystem /human interaction issue and work together to put measures in place to provide a safer future.

For more information about this study contact: Chair for Ponderosa Fire Advisory Council, e-mail, psummerfelt@ci.flagstaff.az.us, or go on the web and search for wildfire management, you will get hundreds of references. The knowledge is out there, let's use it.

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The Other Side of the Story

- a series of articles by Dave Neads on conservation-related topics

Fighting Wildfire - Next Steps

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