USDA awards $10 million grant to explore uses for beetle-killed trees
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has awarded a $10 million grant to a consortium to investigate methods for turning trees killed by beetles into biofuel. Led by Colorado State University, the group includes Cool Planet Energy Systems, Colorado State Forest Service, the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, University of Wyoming, University of Montana, Montana State University, University of Idaho, and the Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Research Station.
Red Skies of Montana on DVD
If you liked the historic film Watershed Wildfire about the 1955 Refugio Canyon Fire, you would probably enjoy the 1952 classic movie Red Skies of Montana, which was very loosely based on the 1949 Mann Gulch Fire that claimed the lives of 13 firefighters, including 12 smokejumpers. With the cooperation of the U.S. Forest Service, the Technicolor film was shot in and around Missoula, Montana and stars Richard Widmark, Constance Smith, Jeffery Hunter, and Richard Boone. I believe this movie is where the myth of exploding trees was created.
Cliff Mason, a veteran foreman of the Forest Service’s smokejumper unit, is called out with a crew on a fire, despite the fact that they have not rested in three days. Accompanied by R. A. “Pop” Miller and four other men, Cliff leaves the smokejumper base at Missoula, Montana to parachute into a nearly inaccessible area of Bugle Peak. Hours later, at base, superintendent Richard “Dick” Dryer becomes worried because Cliff is not answering radio calls. The next day, after the fire crowns, Dick flies by helicopter into the area and is stunned to find only Cliff, in shock and wandering through the devastated region. Cliff is rushed to the hospital, where he gradually recovers, although he cannot remember how he got separated from his men, or why he was the only one to survive.
And in other news about music related to fire, a video is available featuring a song titled “I See Fire” that will be in the upcoming Hobbit sequel The Desolation of Smaug, which will open in theaters December 10. The song was written and performed by Ed Sheeran, who played all of the instruments in the recording except for the cello. Earlier this week he tweeted, “Managed to learn violin for a day”.
Below is a screen shot from the music video, and below that, the video itself.
Millions of dollars are being sought or spent on mitigating the effects of bark beetle mortality in the name of preventing disastrous wildfires. Sometimes these efforts are a smoke screen by private companies, or those influenced by their lobbyists, who want to reduce regulations and environmental restrictions on cutting timber on federal lands. At other times the public or even firefighters see dead trees and assume that beetle-killed forests will lead to catastrophic fire behavior. While there is not complete agreement, most of the available science and the preponderance of evidence contradict that assumption.
Beetles are a natural part of the environment and have been around as long as forests. The recent surge in their numbers is due to two factors: warmer weather that kills off fewer of them during the winter, and drought in some areas that reduces the vigor of the trees, decreasing their ability to fend off the attacks.
Dr. Dominik Kulakowski conducted research on insect outbreaks and fires in Rocky Mountain forests for fifteen years. During that time he worked as a research scientist at the University of Colorado and now is a professor at Clark University where he continues to pursue this research.
Below is an excerpt from Dr. Kulakowski’s testimony on April 11, 2013 before the Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulation of the Committee on Natural Resources of the United States House of Representatives. He was providing information for the committee members to consider when they vote on H.R. 1442, a proposed bill with a strange name, the “Depleting Risk from Insect Infestation, Soil Erosion, and Catastrophic Fire Act of 2013”.
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“…Another example is that of a major outbreak of spruce beetle in spruce and fir forests in Colorado in the 1940s, following which there was substantial concern about the increased risk of fire. But although over 300 fires occurred in that region in the decades that followed, our research found that the forests affected by beetles were no more likely to have burned than other forests. Furthermore, no major fires occurred in those beetle-affected forests in the years and decades that followed the outbreak despite the abundance of dead trees. The most likely explanation for this lack of large severe fires is that climatic conditions in these forests are a more important factor in determining fire risk than is the presence of dead trees. In fact, it was not until a severe drought in 2002 that a large fire affected these forests. During that year there were many wildfires in Colorado, the majority of which burned forests with no recent history of outbreaks.
During the drought of 2002, wildfires also burned some forests in northern Colorado that were attacked by beetles just prior to 2002. The potential increase of fire risk immediately following bark beetle outbreaks is the subject of active research. During this so-called “red phase” dry red needles persist on recently killed trees. It has been hypothesized that the risk of fire may therefore increase during and immediately after outbreaks of bark beetles. Relatively little research has examined fires during the red phase of outbreaks and more research is necessary. However, our examination of the 2002 fires found that outbreaks that immediately preceded those fires affected neither the extent nor severity of fires, most likely because changes in fuels brought about by outbreaks were overridden by weather conditions and other variables.
To understand these scientific findings, which may seem counter-intuitive, we need to consider that (1) bark beetles affect fuels in several ways and (2) several factors are necessary for the occurrence of wildfires. Recent research indicates that reductions in canopy density following outbreaks are actually more important to fire risk than are increases in dead fuel. In other words, beetle-killed trees rapidly lose their needles and this reduces the amount of potentially flammable material in the forest canopy. In contrast, live trees have dense canopies which are critical to the spread of wildfire. Furthermore, and most importantly, in forests dominated by lodgepole pine and spruce there is generally no shortage of flammable material, even in the absence of beetle outbreaks. These forests are characteristically dense and during droughts the risk of severe wildfire is likely to be high, regardless of outbreaks. In sum, catastrophic fire is not an inevitable outcome of bark beetle outbreaks. Instead climate is so important to fire risk in these forests that the effects of outbreaks appear to have comparatively little or no influence.”
Brooks Hays has a recent article at his Government from the Ground Up blog that explores that premise and says the land management agencies should embrace high-intensity fires. Here is an excerpt:
It looks like this ecological truth is not yet understood by the general public. But the Forest Service also seems to be gripped by an old-fashioned view of fire’s functions. “It’s still a good old boy network,” says [Richard] Hutton, [forest ecologist and director of the Avian Science Center at the University of Montana], “full of rangers who honestly believe in their heart of hearts that their job is to keep trees green.” Their idea of a healthy forest is “no beetles, no fire,” he explains. “And they’ll thin and cut away trees to prevent fires or any other disruption that might prevent trees from being green.”
Making matters worse is the fact that the agency remains underfunded. And when the Forest Service is strapped for cash, Hutto points out, it’s the younger, better-educated, more ecologically-minded rangers that get the ax – and the trees follow.
“What’s missing,” says Hutto, “is ecology, in a word. There are too few ecologists in the forest service.”
Below we revisit the article we wrote in 2010.
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The Director of the John Muir Project, Chad Hanson, has written a paper about wildfire and its relationship to biodiversity and climate change, titled The Myth of ‘Catastrophic’ Wildfire. Here are some of his findings, as reported by New West:
There is far less fire now in western U.S. forests than there was historically.
Current fires are burning mostly at low intensities, and fires are not getting more intense, contrary to many assumptions about the effects of climate change. Forested areas in which fire has been excluded for decades by fire suppression are also not burning more intensely.
Contrary to popular assumptions, high-intensity fire (commonly mislabeled as “catastrophic wildfire”) is a natural and necessary part of western U.S. forest ecosystems, and there is less high-intensity fire now than there was historically, due to fire suppression.
Patches of high-intensity fire (where most or all trees are killed) support among the highest levels of wildlife diversity of any forest type in the western U.S., and many wildlife species depend upon such habitat. Post-fire logging and ongoing fire suppression policies are threatening these species.
Conifer forests naturally regenerate vigorously after high-intensity fire.
Our forests are functioning as carbon sinks (net sequestration) where logging has been reduced or halted, and wildland fire helps maintain high productivity and carbon storage.
Even large, intense fires consume less than 3% of the biomass in live trees, and carbon emissions from forest fires is only tiny fraction of the amount resulting from fossil fuel consumption (even these emissions are balanced by carbon uptake from forest growth and regeneration).
“Thinning” operations for lumber or biofuels do not increase carbon storage but, rather, reduce it, and thinning designed to curb fires further threatens imperiled wildlife species that depend upon post-fire habitat.
In addition to being the Director of the John Muir Project, Mr. Hanson is also a researcher at the University of California at Davis and was elected as one of the directors of the Sierra Club in 2000.
More researchers have recently come to the same conclusions others have about the effect that bark beetles have on wildland fire behavior. Some people see beetle-killed trees and intuitively think that fire behavior will be greatly increased in those areas. There is not complete agreement on this, but at least two recent studies have concluded that beetle killed trees do not substantially increase the risk of active crown fire, at least in lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) and spruce (Picea engelmannii)-fir (Abies spp.). We said the same thing as early as two years ago.
The latest research paper is titled “Do Bark Beetle Outbreaks Increase Wildfire Risks in the Central U.S. Rocky Mountains? Implications from Recent Research”. The authors were Scott H. Black, Dominik Kulakowski, Barry R. Noon, and Dominick A. DellaSala, from the Xerces Society, Clark University, Colorado State University, and Geos Institute, respectively.
Their taxpayer-funded research is available to taxpayers if we pay an additional fee to the Natural Areas Journal. (UPDATE January 24, 2013. We contacted one of the authors, Dr. Barry R. Noon, and he graciously sent us a copy of the paper.)
But their abstract can be read on the internet for free. Here is an excerpt:
…We review the literature on the efficacy of silvicutural practices to control outbreaks and on fire risk following bark beetle outbreaks in several forest types. While research is ongoing and important questions remain unresolved, to date most available evidence indicates that bark beetle outbreaks do not substantially increase the risk of active crown fire in lodgepole pine and spruce-fir forests under most conditions. Instead, active crown fires in these forest types are primarily contingent on dry conditions rather than variations in stand structure, such as those brought about by outbreaks.
Their conclusions are similar to those in another paper titled Effects of bark beetle-caused tree mortality on wildfire, and was written by Jeffrey A. Hicke, Morris C. Johnson, Jane L. Hayes, and Haiganoush K. Preisler. We wrote about it in June of 2012. They said that the potential for active crown fire would increase somewhat between one and four years after mortality, then it would decrease substantially.
Here, in part, is what we wrote last June about that study:
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…The author’s confidence in the conclusions reached about torching potential and active crown fire potential for the first ten years was low, but it is probable that active crown potential would increase for the first four years after mortality and then decrease dramatically. Torching potential would probably increase.
Surface fire properties, defined as reaction intensity, rate of spread, and flame length, would likely increase, but the confidence in the prediction for the first four years was low.
The authors pointed out that changes in fire behavior following a pine beetle outbreak…
…may only occur under some environmental conditions. For example, effects may be manifested during intermediate wind speeds (Simard et al., 2011) or in moister conditions, such as earlier in the fire season (Steele and Copple, 2009). Past controversy on this topic can be partly reconciled by this consideration of more specificity about study question, time since outbreak, and fuels or fire characteristic when describing results.
Our view of the research
It would be helpful if all of these parameters and studies could distill the conclusions into one index helpful to land managers and firefighters, which I will call Resistance To Control (RTC). Simultaneous increases in surface fire, torching, and crowning would result in more RTC. But it becomes more complicated to characterize when, for instance, crown fire potential decreases to near zero, while surface fire intensity and torching increase. Long distance spotting is a firefighter’s biggest headache and makes fires almost impossible to control, at least at the head. Crown fires are the major culprit for long distance spotting, but surface fires and individual or multiple tree torching can also create spot fires. And all of this varies, of course, with the weather. Strong winds can make ANY fire very resistant to control as long as the fuels are continuous.
If a person leaps to the possibly incorrect conclusion that all of the fire behavior parameters shown in the chart above are accurate, including the sections with low confidence, then RTC would increase somewhat one to four years after a beetle outbreak, and then would probably decrease since the crown fire potential would dramatically decline. Surface fires, including those with some torching, can be more easily controlled using tactics, sometimes with aerial support, such as direct hand line construction, hose lays, indirect line construction with burnouts, and backfiring from out ahead of the fire. When crowning is the primary method of fire spread, you usually have to wait for either the weather or the fuels to change. Air tankers and helicopters dropping fire retardant or water can be more effective when the fire is confined to the surface, as long as firefighters are on the ground to take advantage of the temporary slowing of the rate of spread, and if the wind is not too strong.
With apologies to the authors of this very good research paper, I took the liberty of adding a Resistance To Control variable to their chart:
And of course the authors of the paper included the familiar phrase, “more research is needed”, which is a mandatory section in every research paper.
The authors, who are employed by taxpayers, arranged to have the government pay a fee to have their paper published by the for-profit Elsevier corporation which is headquartered in the Netherlands. But thankfully, this time the USFS also published it on their U.S. Government web site where taxpayers can access it at no additional charge.
If you believe taxpayer-funded research should always be available to taxpayers freely over the internet, go to the White House web site and sign the petition. (Update Jan. 23, 2013: you can still read the petition at the site, but it is closed to new signers. About 60,000 people signed it.)
Road closures are still in effect for the Halstead Fire in Idaho. The fire started on July 27 about 3 miles north of Stanley, and is burning in a rugged area of the Salmon-Challis National Forest.
MAFFS drop on Halstead Fire 08/29/2012
The fire was active yesterday, gaining more than 7,200 acres in the afternoon. Smoke columns were visible from Challis as the fire rapidly burned through bug-killed trees in Pinyon Creek and Bernard Creek on the north part of the fire.
Heavy helicopter on the Halstead Fire
A small spot fire discovered Monday night, according to Bob Houseman’s IMT, made a 2,000-acre run and went from a low surface-burning fire to an extreme canopy fire that raced across the treetops as wind and topography aligned in the bug-killed timber. The IMT has noted extreme growth potential on this fire.
Fire crews and managers have been warned about the dangers of bug-killed timber stands moving quickly to crown fire behavior in the Northern Rockies.
The Northern Rockies Regional Fuel Planner, Stu Hoyt, has issued a Safety Advisory for areas affected by mountain pine beetle infestations. There have been several instances where crews have not been expecting the rapid transition from surface fire to crown fire in lodgepole pine in the green attacked and red needle stages. This advisory is posted on the predictive services website under Fuels and Fire Behavior Advisories and can be found on the Northern Rockies Coordination Center website under Outlooks. Concerns to Firefighters and the Public:
Anticipate rapid transition of surface fire behavior to passive and active crown fire behavior when temperatures are above 75˚, relative humidity is below 20% and foliage is in sunlight.
Wind is not needed to influence this fire behavior transition.
Anticipate rapid fire growth in all directions as this is a fuels dominated condition.
Anticipate long-distance spotting in any direction.
Anticipate independent crown fire movement perpetuated by embers landing in the foliage of beetle-attacked or killed trees.
Mitigation Measures:
Closely monitor fire weather conditions to maintain situational awareness.
Track the probability of ignition.
Utilize the table developed by the Missoula Fire Lab for Mountain Pine Beetle-attacked trees.
Probability of ignition above 70% should be an early trigger point in decision making.
At POI greater than 80% firefighters should be prepared for rapid transitions from surface to crown fire behavior.
When initial attacking new fires in these conditions, if possible delay engagement to after peak burning period or early morning when fire behavior is low.
Escape routes and safety zones must be identified before engagement.
Using the green as a safety zone should not be considered.
Identify at least two different Escape Routes and Safety Zones in case your original ones are compromised.
Monitor and understand the effect that weather changes and topography have on fire behavior.
Post lookouts who can see the flaming front.
For further information, contact Stu Hoyt at (406)329-3266 or (406)370-5757
