News and opinion about wildland fire
Intentionally ignited vegetation fire to benefit natural resources
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Prescribed Fire5 Comments on Forest Service explains prescribed fire in six minutes 
The U.S. Forest Service has released the fifth in a series of videos about fuel management and fire. This six-minute episode is about the planning and implementation of prescribed fire.
Concerning the terminology used in the video, I was pleased that it is called prescribed fire, and not prescribed burn, or the awful term that seems to have been in vogue during the last couple of years, good fire.
A survey was conducted in January, 2021 to assess the state of both National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) and non-NWCG prescribed fire training in the Southern geographic area. It was developed, distributed, and analyzed by a work group formed by the Southeast Regional Strategy Committee of the Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy and the Southeast Regional Partnership for Planning and Sustainability.
The online survey was completed by 955 practitioners, private landowners, and others within all 13 Southern states.
The complete 34 page analysis of the responses is posted, but below are some observations and recommendations.
Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Thomas.
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Prescribed Fire9 Comments on Forest Service explains low intensity fire 
The U.S. Forest Service has released the fourth in a series of videos about fuel management and wildfire. This four-minute episode explains the importance of routine, low intensity fire within California’s fire adapted ecosystems. It also covers the consequences of removing low intensity fire from these same landscapes including the buildup of hazardous fuels.
Low Intensity Fire – California FOREST NEWS – Episode #4 from Pacific Southwest Region on Vimeo.
In recent weeks there have been discussions online about whether or not fuel reduction projects can aid firefighters by reducing the intensity of wildfires. These rumblings are heard from agenda driven advocacy groups including the John Muir Project.
There is no question that properly executed and followed up fuels treatments — mechanical, or prescribed fires — can modify subsequent fire behavior and reduce a wildfire’s intensity. Despite the attention getting efforts of these groups, this has been a settled issue for a very, very long time. Indigenous people no doubt knew this, and in recent decades wildland firefighters do as well.
From an Associated Press article by Don Thompson:
Scientists say climate change has made the American West much warmer and drier and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive, accelerating the need for more large-scale forest treatments.
Critics say forest thinning operations are essentially logging projects in disguise.
Opening up the forest canopy and leaving more distance between trees reduces the natural humidity and cooling shade of dense forests and allows unimpeded winds to push fire faster, said Chad Hanson, forest and fire ecologist with the John Muir Project.
Such reasoning defies the laws of physics, said other experts: Less fuel means less severe fire. Fewer trees means it’s more difficult for fires to leap from treetop to treetop.
In a tweet that linked to the Associated Press article, British Columbia-based fire ecologist Robert W. Gray wrote:
Another case of false equivalency: weight of published, peer-reviewed fact vs one or two counter factuals published in a single journal known for pushing pseudoscience.
During extreme weather and fuel conditions, such as strong winds and very low fuel moisture, fires can spread very quickly with a great deal of resistance to control igniting spot fires a mile ahead, and in some cases may burn rapidly through or jump across fuel reduction sites, possibly igniting structures. This can illustrate the importance of homeowners making structures fire resistant and reducing flammable material in the Home Ignition Zone.
But in less than extreme conditions, a fire that spreads into a recently completed fuels project will slow, be less intense, and will offer less resistance to control. A recent example of this was when the Caldor Fire in Northern California began to reach the South Lake Tahoe area, allowing firefighters to attack the fire more directly. In a live briefing on September 3, 2021 East Side Incident Commander Rocky Opliger complimented the agencies for the fuel treatments that had been accomplished over the years. He said the 150-foot flame lengths dropped to about 15-feet when the fire entered the treated areas. This allowed hand crews and engines to take an aggressive approach to suppress the fire and prevent structure loss. The video of the briefing is on Facebook; Mr. Oplinger’s comments about the fuel treatments begin at 34:10.
“Science” funded by agenda driven advocacy groups that has not been peer-reviewed should always be suspect. Settled science that has been proven for decades or even centuries, should be respected.
Temporary shift in policy due to extreme wildfire conditions in the West and competition for firefighting resources due in part to COVID-19 infections rising again
1:55 p.m. MDT August 3, 2021
In an August 2 letter to the field, new US Forest Service Chief Randy Moore said that because there is in a “national crisis”, they will not “manage fires for resource benefit”. In other words, instead of allowing fires to burn in order to replicate natural conditions and improve the ecosystem, they will put them out — at least to the best of their ability.
This year there are several factors that brought us to the crisis: competition for firefighting resources, a large number of incidents, firefighter numbers reduced by COVID-19 infections, and fire behavior enhanced by drought. It has all led to larger, longer-duration fires. Not mentioned by the Chief is the hundreds of vacant Forestry Technician positions. In early July there were 800 on National Forests in California alone.
During a virtual meeting July 27 with Western Governors to discuss wildfire preparedness, President Joe Biden was told that their states need more aviation resources, they need help with obtaining aviation fuel, they need more boots on the ground, and they encourage aggressive initial attack. The last item was referring to managing rather than suppressing fires. Governor Gavin Newsom referenced last month’s Tamarack Fire south of Lake Tahoe that was monitored but not suppressed. It stayed very small for 12 days until it grew rapidly, spreading east for 20 miles into Nevada, burning more than 68,000 acres and destroying 25 structures. On the August 3 National Situation Report it is still listed as a less than full suppression fire.
In declaring what is a temporary shift in policy until the Western fire season abates, Chief Moore cited numerous reasons for the change:
The 2021 fire year is different from any before. On July 14, 2021, the National Multi-Agency Coordination Group raised the national preparedness level (PL) to 5, the earliest point in a decade and the third earliest ever. There are currently over 70 large fires burning across the nation and 22,000 personnel responding, which are both nearly three times more than the 10-year average for the month of July. Severe drought is affecting over 70 percent of the West, and the potential for significant fire activity is predicted to be above normal into October. Our firefighters are fatigued, especially after more than a year of almost constant deployments, beginning with helping Australia in January 2020, and continuing through a difficult 2020 fire year and then supporting the vaccination effort in early 2021. In addition, COVID-19 infections are rising again. They are degrading our firefighting response capacity at an alarming rate, which will persist until more Americans are vaccinated.
In short, we are in a national crisis. At times like these, we must anchor to our core values, particularly safety. In PL 5, the reality is we are resource limited. The core tenet of the Forest Service’s fire response strategy is public and firefighter safety above all else. The current situation demands that we commit our fire resources only in instances where they have a high probability of success and they can operate safely and effectively. We will rely on the tested principles of risk management in determining our strategies and tactics.
Chief Moore said this was not a return to the “10 a.m. Policy” from 1935 which set as a goal stopping the spread of every fire by 10 a.m. the second day.
In addition, ignited prescribed fire operations will be considered only in geographic areas at or below Preparedness Level 2 and only with the approval of the Regional Forester after consulting with the Chief’s Office.
This directive only applies to the US Forest Service, and not to the four land management agencies in the Department of the Interior — National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and Bureau of Land Management. Of those four DOI agencies, only the NPS is into “managed fire” in a big way. We asked a spokesperson for the NPS if they were making a similar temporary change in policy, but they were unable to meet our publication deadline, “given how busy it is and the need to work with the Washington Office of Communications”. [Update at 5:06 p.m. August 3. NPS Branch Chief for Communication and Education Tina Boehle got back to us with information which indicated the agency is not making any changes in their fire strategies — without actually stating it specifically.]
Currently there is a less than full suppression fire burning in North Cascades National Park in Washington which has blackened 150 acres, and another that has burned 470 acres in Yosemite NP in California. There are 18 listed on the Situation Report on National Forests, with most of them being in the Northern Rockies Geographic Area.
A video produced by the Northern Rockies Fire Science Network posted on YouTube last year was intended to spark discussion about managing fire for resource benefit on public lands. It featured interviews with 22 fire practitioners, including Dick Bahr, National Park Service Program Lead for Fire Science and Ecology, who said:
We have really good modeling now. … If you’re not comfortable with where it’s going to get or you’re concerned about what it’s going to burn up — do you take on the fire, or do you take on protection of what you’re going to do? And now the big shift is, we have now the opportunity, go put the money and the effort into protecting that point you’re worried about losing and let the fire do what it’s supposed to do…
You’re going to win a few, you’re going to lose a few. And it’s OK to lose, but you’ve got to learn from them.
Edited at 5:06 p.m. MDT August 3 to include late arriving information from the NPS which indicated that the agency is not making any changes in their fire strategies.
Data from 1988 to 2018
Despite widespread recognition that treating forests and grasslands with prescribed fire can be a major step toward reducing the negative impacts of wildfires, only one primary Federal land management agency made a substantial increase in the number of hectares accomplished from 1988 to 2018 — the Bureau of Indian Affairs. A higher proportion of tribal lands managed by the BIA have been subject to prescribed fire than for any other agency, with a mean of 7.5% of tribal lands burned each year.
This conclusion was expressed in a paper written by Crystal A. Kolden of the University of Idaho, titled, “We’re Not Doing Enough Prescribed Fire in the Western United States to Mitigate Wildfire Risk.” The last section of the document, the Discussion, is below. It begins with the statement that many may disagree with — the Southeastern states have fewer wildfire disasters than the rest of the country because they accomplished over twice the amount of prescribed fire as the entire rest of the US combined between 1998 and 2018. However, later she writes about the West, “[T]he topography is more complex and inaccessible, burn windows are narrow, and fuels have built up throughout decades of fire exclusion.” There are also challenges in the West in dealing with restrictions imposed by air quality agencies, more so than in the Southeast.
The paper also points out another rarely mentioned factor that limits the use of prescribed fire on Federal lands. “[Agencies] have not made sufficient policy changes or budgetary allocations to carry out the Cohesive Strategy.” Which, she writes, “…specifically identified prescribed fire as the most cost-effective solution over the largest potential area of the US, as compared to managed wildfire and non-fire vegetation treatment.”
Below is the Discussion section of the paper.
The Southeastern US accomplished over twice the amount of prescribed fire as the entire rest of the US combined between 1998 and 2018. This may be one of many reasons why the Southeastern states have experienced far fewer wildfire disasters relative to the Western US in recent years. The amount of prescribed fire reported in the Southeastern US is also likely underreported, as the Southeastern states have purportedly accomplished millions of hectares of prescribed fire annually for decades. However, until 1998 there was no central prescribed fire reporting in the US. Even after 1998, non-federal entities did not necessarily report the full scope of their accomplishments in the federal reporting system.
The dramatic difference in prescribed fire completed between east and west reflects both a broad socio-cultural divide over fire and a problematic dichotomy between federal and non-federal fire management. Biophysical conditions have often been highlighted as a challenge to prescribed burning in the Western US; the topography is more complex and inaccessible, burn windows are narrow, and fuels have built up throughout decades of fire exclusion. By contrast, the Southeastern states have both the most extensive Wildland–Urban Interface in the US and some of the worst air quality challenges associated with prescribed fire due to higher humidity (e.g., increased smog formation). That agencies are able to accomplish so much prescribed fire in such a populated region likely also reflects social acceptance in addition to more conducive conditions. It is also telling that no single Southern state is driving the regional trend. State summaries in the Historical Wildland Fire Summary reports indicate that Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas all completed an average of over 40,000 ha per year each from 2002 to 2017.
Prescribed fire is widely accepted as a tool in the Southeastern states, where residents are more accustomed to using controlled fire to enhance timber production, control the rapidly growing vegetation, and enhance game species habitat. Some states, such as Florida, even have laws that recognize prescribed fire as being in the public interest and protect landowner rights to utilize it. Although studies throughout the US have shown that residents in all regions broadly support the concept of prescribed fire, they fear the potential for escaped fires and they are also highly concerned about smoke impacts [41]. However, Engebretson et al. found significantly higher tolerance of prescribed fire smoke from Southern-state residents than those in Western states, which suggests that this tolerance may translate into less opposition to using prescribed fire in the Southern GACC. This is true for either federal or non-federal agencies in the region; the Historical Summaries indicate that much of the USFS annual prescribed fire accomplishment occurs in the Southern GACC states (particularly along the Gulf Coast) rather than in the Western states where the greatest proportion of USFS land lies.
By contrast, fire managers in the Western US face considerable social barriers to using prescribed fire, including negative public perceptions of risk of escapes and smoke. This high perception of risk has been cemented by the occasional escaped prescribed fire, but it has likely also become entrenched due to the absence of prescribed fire demonstrated here. Fire managers, particularly federal fire managers, receive insufficient incentive to use prescribed fire under current agency policies that incentivize fire suppression (e.g., with overtime pay and promotion) but penalize risk-taking, particularly when escaped prescribed fires occur. Additionally, federal funding for prescribed fire and other fuel reduction activities has been drastically depleted over the past two decades as large wildfires force federal agencies to expend allocated funds on suppression rather than prevention.
Of the federal agencies reporting individually (i.e., separate from the ST/OT class), only the BIA has been able to substantially increase the relative use of prescribed fire. This increase is particularly striking because a higher proportion of tribal lands managed by BIA have been subject to prescribed fire than for any other agency, with a mean of 7.5% of tribal lands burned each year. This may reflect the more recent efforts of tribes seeking to reclaim sovereignty on their ancestral lands through increased self-governance and drawing upon TEK to re-introduce extensive intentional fire in these landscapes, particularly following the 2004 Tribal Forest Protection Act. The push for more prescribed fire among tribes is also reflected in the BIA budget for prescribed fire, particularly compared with the fire suppression budget. BIA devotes the second-highest budget of the five primary land management agencies to prescribed fire (behind USFS), but the prescribed fire budget is between 50% and 80% of its fire suppression budget, while no other agency’s prescribed fire budget has exceeded 25% of its fire suppression budget in the last five years. It is also worth noting that the more detailed Historical Wildland Fire Summary reports suggest that the strong positive trend in the Eastern GACC region is potentially partially a function of increased tribal burning in that region.
Despite changes in federal fire management policy meant to increase prescribed fire use, only one region of the US has considerably increased the amount of prescribed fire completed, and credit for much of this increase goes to non-federal agencies. Given the evidence that federal agencies have not accomplished more prescribed fire across the US over the past two decades, this suggests that while the Cohesive Strategy incorporates the best available science in a top-level holistic management framework, federal agencies have not made sufficient policy changes or budgetary allocations to carry out the Strategy.
There is considerable evidence in the scientific literature that prescribed fire is the most effective means of reducing the risk of wildfire disasters and increasing ecosystem resilience across much of the US. However, only one primary federal land management agency has substantially increased prescribed fire use, and the only widespread use and acceptance of prescribed fire is in the Southeastern states. Federal and non-federal entities have used the prescribed fire expertise of the Southeastern region as a training ground for fire and fuel managers across the US, but this has not translated to increased prescribed fire use. This suggests that a larger cultural shift in public sociocultural perceptions of prescribed fire is needed to truly capitalize upon the utility of prescribed fire and more aggressively reduce wildfire risk. Without such a shift, more catastrophic wildfire disasters are inevitable.
The graphics are from the paper written by Crystal A. Kolden.
Fire 2019, 2(2), 30; https://doi.org/10.3390/fire2020030
