More Fire on the Land - Not Less

Grand Junction Daily Sentinel

September 17, 2006 -- News images and stories of wildfire are impossible to ignore during the summer fire season - flames towering above treetops, firefighters courageously digging fireline under impossible conditions, slurry bombers dipping into mountain valleys to drop bright red retardant.

From Arizona and Nevada to California and Idaho, a number of large wildfires this summer have stretched our nation’s firefighting capacity to the maximum. And this has been a relatively tame year in Colorado compared to recent fire seasons like 2002 when massive fires such as the Hayman Fire on the Front Range and others across the West torched millions of acres of forest, drove people from their communities, and destroyed homes and businesses.

There are multiple reasons for the mounting intensity of fire season – overstocked forests, drought, earlier snowmelt, and more people moving into areas where fires are common.

Despite the escalating problems, one solution has begun to gain traction.

A growing group of firefighters, land managers, and scientists think part of the solution to western wildfire and forest health problems is more fire on the land - not less. They argue that we are often too quick to stomp fires out – sometimes it would be better to manage fire ecologically and let it play its natural role in forests. They are promoting “fires managed to achieve natural resource benefits” – or fire use in the lingo of fire professionals.

fire use fires are wildland fires that are managed, not just immediately suppressed, or put out. These fires differ from prescribed fires in that they are naturally ignited by lightning strikes. The story of fire use is one that is not often reported or known outside of the tight knight community of fire professionals.

A number of fire use professionals are based here in Grand Junction including some of the most highly trained and experienced fire use management teams in the country.

Bill Hahnenberg, Fire Management Officer of the Upper Colorado Interagency Fire Management Unit, started out working on fire suppression teams, but a strong interest in fire ecology eventually led to a career in helping restore fire on the landscape rather than strictly putting it out. He is now the Incident Commander for the Rocky Mountain fire use Management Team. His team is one of seven around the country that responds to and manages the largest and most difficult fire use fires.

“The first fire use fire I worked was the Ute Creek Fire in 1994 in the Flattops Wilderness,” says Hahnenberg. “The area had been hit by a beetle epidemic in the 40s and there were so many snags and dead and down material that you couldn’t even move around in that area. The fire worked its way through there and cleaned it up. It allowed the vegetation to come back and now that is a great area for elk and other wildlife. The people in the local communities there have strong connections to the land from ranching and hunting and when I talked to them about fire use, they said it just makes sense. That made a big impression.”

Fire has always been a part of the West. For millennia lightning strikes have sent fires creeping through ponderosa pine and other forest types. Native Americans and early settlers used fire to encourage forage for wildlife and domestic animals. John Wesley Powell, an early explorer of the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon, reported seeing vast areas of the West that were burning or had burned. But that was before the twentieth century and the era of Smokey the Bear.

“We need to find a balance with the Smokey the Bear's message,” says Ross Oxford, leader of the Unaweep Fire Use Module based at the Grand Junction Interagency Air Center. “Often, when we take the message to the public that fire can play a positive role; the response is - ‘What are you talking about?’ Public education on the natural, ecological role of fire is critical.”

The Unaweep Fire Use Module is a 7 person all-purpose, do-it-all fire crew – one of only 18 Modules in the country. They are firefighters, researchers, and self-sufficient fire managers capable of operating in remote wilderness. The group has to get to the fire in any way possible – by truck, on foot, and even by helicopter. Once they establish camp they are responsible for their own cooking, sharing large meals cooked over camp stoves.

“In 2005 I was deployed on fires for 105 days. I slept in a tent for 88 of those nights,” adds Oxford.

The group is trained to fight fires and suppress them if the need arises, and to carry out all of the management tactics used by suppression firefighters. However, they also collect data on the fires – weather, fire behavior, growth rates, etc.

“That is what I love about working on the Module,” says Oxford. “Everyday is different. On any given day we may have two guys photographing fire behavior, another two using GPS to map the fire perimeter, and two guys working the weather station. The next day we may be shelter wrapping structures or digging fireline. It is always something new.”

A common misperception about fire use is that it is just letting a fire burn, Oxford said.

“We manage the fire – sort of like herding it in the direction we want it to go,” says Oxford. “You want the fire to burn, but there may be a house in the area. You build fireline around the house, and allow the fire to move around. We use the same tactics as the suppression teams – backfiring, using natural barriers, building line, etc, but we have the skills to keep the fire burning and working its natural processes while protecting private property and other values in the area.”

Oxford explains that there is a lot of planning, preparation, and training that goes into managing a fire use fire. First, the forest or land management unit has to have plans in place detailing where fire use is authorized. Second, the ignition has to occur within the planned area. If both of those criteria are not met then fire use is not an option and the fire is put out.

If a fire is a candidate to be a fire use fire, fire personnel take many factors into consideration in making the decision to manage it – firefighter safety, nearby private property, threatened and endangered species, weather forecasts, and benefits to natural resources.

“These fires require a high level of planning, and the decision is not made lightly. Fire use is not appropriate in all situations and in all locations,” Oxford said.

So, what will it take to make fire use a more widely understood and accepted practice?

Chris Faranetti, a former smokejumper and present Operations Specialist at the Grand Junction Interagency Air Center, says it comes down to public education.

“Most people do not understand the historical, ecological role of fire," he said. "Some individuals think that when you get a fire, you have to put it out.”

Faranetti says that smoke plays an important role in limiting agencies ability to do prescribed burns and practice fire use.

“In very few places is fire use conducted without raising alarm. If the valley fills up with smoke our phone is ringing off the hook. Well, I would rather have a week of smoke from managed fire than a whole summer of smoke from major wildfires. Managing public and private land by returning fire back into the ecosystem is going to take time.”

There are, however, signs of acceptance. Fire use is moving out of the wilderness and increasingly being practiced adjacent to and even on private lands.

Ranchers and other private landowners are now approaching the BLM and the Forest Service wanting to sign agreements allowing fires to be managed across their properties, says Hahnenberg.

“I used to think that wildfire was destructive. Now I look at it as an amazing natural process," he said. "The more we use it, the more likely one of those big wildfires that might threaten communities will run into an area that has already burned with fire use. That will reduce some of those extreme fire behaviors and allow firefighters to get in there and manage it.”