The Associated Press, in an article written by Tracie Cone, quotes Jay Miller, a U.S. Forest Service “Fire ecologist”, as saying the area burned by the Rim Fire in California has been “nuked” and “everything is dead”.
…The fire has consumed about 400 square miles, and within that footprint are a solid 60 square miles that burned so intensely that everything is dead, researchers said.
“In other words, it’s nuked,” said Jay Miller, senior wildland fire ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service. “If you asked most of the fire ecologists working in the Sierra Nevada, they would call this unprecedented.”
Smaller pockets inside the fire’s footprint also burned hot enough to wipe out trees and other vegetation.
In total, Miller estimates that almost 40 percent of the area inside the fire’s boundary is nothing but charred land. Other areas that burned left trees scarred but alive.
The excerpt below was written by the Rim Fire Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) team which paints a very different picture than the one above from the Associated Press and Mr. Miller.
SONORA CA (September 16, 2013) – The BAER team completed the soil burn severity map for the Rim Fire. The map using burned acres as of September 13 shows that approximately 56% of the 254 926 acres within the Rim fire perimeter are either unburned or received a low-severity burn 37% sustained a burn of a moderate severity and approximately 7% burned at a high severity.
BAER specialists concluded that the amount of high severity burn is fairly low given time of year and comparison to other fires. The moderate and low severity burned areas are fairly high for similar reasons. These values are for the entire burn area of the Rim Fire. The soil burn severity BAER map can be downloaded at the “Rim Post-Fire BAER” InciWeb site as JPEG or PDF.
Near the end of the AP article there is a different point of view from Mr. Miller’s”
“It really burned here much like a prescribed fire would to a large degree because of land management practices,” Holbeck said. “Fire plays a natural part of that system. It can’t all be old growth forests, though Yosemite holds some of the oldest trees in the Sierra.”
The Rim Fire, which started August 17, has burned 256,895 acres in and near Yosemite National Park in California and is listed at 84 percent contained. It still has 1,371 personnel assigned.
Our take on the Associated Press article
We don’t know if Tracie Cone accurately quoted USFS “Fire Ecologist” Jay Miller, but if so, it is inconceivable that Mr. Miller’s description of the burn severity would appear so starkly in contrast to that presented by the BAER team. It would also be interesting to know if Mr. Miller was on the BAER team or if he has been on the ground at the Rim Fire. We are not aware of any reputable, experienced wildland fire manager or fire scientist who would ever use the terms “nuked” or “everything is dead” to describe the effects found on a very large fire that burned for weeks in various weather, topography, and vegetation conditions.
Based on the AP article and the reports from the BAER team, we have little confidence in the accuracy of the information attributed to Mr. Miller that was presented by the Associated Press.
A call to Mr. Miller, who is listed in the USFS directory as a Remote Sensing Specialist, was not immediately returned. We also called the Rim Fire incident Management Team for a comment on the article, and spokesperson Sean Collins told us it was their policy to not comment on the “opinions” of others in regard to the burn severity.
(UPDATE September 23, 2013: more information about different kinds of maps showing vegetation and soil severity.)
Most of the back and forth here misses the point entirely–call those areas “nuked” or whatever you want. Severely burned areas are amazing biological wonderlands long before “recovery” of forests, which everyone seems so hung up on having around. Learn something about disturbance ecology, and you’ll discover that early stages of succession harboring standing-dead trees are way cool!
I agree that if the official used the term “nuked,” as he likely did, the reporter has to run with it. The problem is, it’s already now being used online by “scaremongers” who scream about what a bad fire year it’s been, and how the only solution is more federal money. That language is highly emotional and therefore plays very well for this type of scare tactic. Also see the reference to the “scarred but alive” trees — you mean, with fire scars like those so many of the trees already also have from past fires?
That “nuked” landscape will be critical habitat for all sorts of species that are part of forest succession. Obviously portions of that fire were hot. We can have a “war on fire” to prevent “nuked landscapes” and “scarred” trees…there was even an attempt by one person to weave the war on drugs into the narrative of the fire by blaming pot growers as the cause. Or, we can recognize that an area like that is going to have periodic fires of varying intensity as part of a natural pattern of renewal.
I am with pilot guy…….
The fire ecologist said “nuked” and the media took off with it….who is to blame?
If pilotguy is a pilot like I am and I saw this at altitude in a forward motion in front of my aircraft cowling………….
Guess my mind is made up……like many things in Gov…..keep your mouth shut in these situations in front of the media…..the fire ecologist ought to know better
Guess what,,,it was a HOT FIRE……you decide!
If you are in any doubt about how much vegetation is left…look at this…..
https://wildfiretoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Rim-Fire-August-21-2013-Photo-by-Robert-Martinez.jpg
This used to be fully grown forest.
Maybe “nuked” is not a good term for a quote to the media, and maybe the percentages were over-estimated, but many parts of the Rim Fire scar look just like this.You decide.
Obviously, this was a VERY HOT burn. Some of you may recall a similar type of burn on the Biscuit Fire in 2002.
And lots of the 1987 fires in NorCal & Southern Oregon, and the Yellowstone fires in 1988, and the Bitterroot fires in 2000 and on and on and on: now, go back 10-25 years later and look at the “nuked sites” where “everything is dead” ….. and don’t get lost in the dense reprod and heavy ground vegetation.
Nature has amazing recovery powers!
The picture you reference is of a landscape that had little to no vegetation cover to begin with (let alone trees). It is rock with a thin layer of soil that supported grass, mosses herbs and lichens. The initial black will be green once the first rains hit in the fall.
That picture was taken near the drew ICP, it was a big patch of brush and grass. Sure some of the steep overloaded slopes burned hot, some didn’t.
The media often changes the wording taken in an interview. I have had it done to me more times then I wish to remember. They write stories to attract readers and ratings, that equals money. And often its a editor back at the office who changes the wording, not the person doing the interview. Mr. Holley is right, never try to fool around with anyone from the press. And these days they may be lurking around with a mini recorder and hidden camera at the briefing dressed in Nomex…
Never trust a reporter to get it right. I once jokingly told a cub reporter that if the helicopters got too close to the fire, they would explode. That was on the front page of an El Paso paper the next day. But on the plus side, my IC would not let me be interviewed ever again after that.
Bill: I have to wonder why you’re using quotes around the title Fire Ecologist? In case you’re dubious as to the reality of such a title, the NPS and the USFS both have region level Fire Ecologist positions within their respective agencies.
Mr. Miller may have been misrepresented by the media. On the other hand, depending on the satellite data thresholds used in his map classification, it is possible that he really did come up with a map showing 40% high severity. The inherent variability and implications of burn severity thresholds are why burn severity maps need to be assessed (and sometimes corrected) by ground assessments in the field.
David, I realize there are many full time Fire Ecologists that work for the federal land management agencies, but as I explained near the bottom of the article, Mr. Miller is listed in the USFS directory as a Remote Sensing Specialist, which is likely to be accurate. Or, he may be cross-trained and is qualified as both.
Funny, I had the exact same conversation on my facebook page earlier this morning. Terminology like “nuke & moon scape” should NEVER be used in the media. The public interprets these terms differently than fire folks. Instead, we need to use words like severity & intensity. I sure hope the ecologist was mis-quoted.
Sounds the the smae kind of rhetoric that came out of Yellowstone in 1988.
Another good example of why it’s important to be careful when talking with the media. Whether the comment is “nuked” or something like “you’re walking on sacred ground”, be sure that your facts are based on solid science and not just an attempt to offer a “quotable quote” for the Evening News or tomorrow’s newspaper.
out of curiosity I’d urge you continue trying to contact Mr Miller … having dealt with the media for over 30 years I would believe they screwed up the story but sometimes we do it to ourselves.
7% of 254,926 is 27.9 square miles. Pretty easy to exaggerate that. Close enough for the media.
Since BAER says that’s pretty low for conditions, there may have been a “we would have expected” that may have been left out.
There is lots of confusion about soil burn and veg burn. These are different. Soil burn means all the organic material has been oxidized and the soil rendered incapable of absorbing water. Vegetation burn means damage to vegetation. There is no contradiction.