Wednesday, June 30, 2021 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
FORESTS: Prescribed
burning helped
defend Sisters
Continued from page 1
preached an unpopular mes-
sage to those who advocated
full-on fire suppression, he is
seen not as crazy but someone
whose ideas could save the
U.S. West9s forests and ease
wildfire dangers.
Millions of acres have
become overgrown, prone
to wildfires that have devas-
tated towns, triggered mas-
sive evacuations, and blan-
keted the West Coast in thick
smoke.
Today, officials want to
sharply increase prescribed
fires 4 those set intentionally
and under carefully controlled
conditions to clear under-
brush, pine needle beds, and
other surface fuels.
Last month, four
Democratic U.S. senators
4 Ron Wyden of Oregon,
J o e M a n c h i n o f We s t
Virginia, Maria Cantwell
of Washington, and Dianne
Feinstein of California 4
introduced legislation that
requires federal land manag-
ers to significantly increase
the number and size of pre-
scribed fires on federal lands.
Wyden said it would more
than double funding for pre-
scribed burns.
<We would have a techni-
cally skilled prescribed fire
workforce,99 Wyden said in a
phone interview. <We would
streamline the smoke regula-
tions in winter months.=
Wyden and the Biden
administration are also seek-
ing creation of a 21st-century
Civilian Conservation Corps,
to provide more boots on
the ground to work on forest
health.
In New Mexico, Gov.
Michelle Lujan Grisham
signed legislation on March
18 that will clear the way
for more prescribed fires by
establishing liability standards
for landowners who conduct
them and creating a certifica-
tion program.
In Oregon, a bill from state
Sen. Jeff Golden would enact
rules for prescribed fires and
a certified burn manager pro-
gram. He envisions Oregon
having as many as hundreds
of trained managers to super-
vise prescribed fires.
<I don9t see that we
have any option other than
to increase the prescribed
burns,= said Golden, who is
from the Rogue Valley, where
wildfires tore into two towns
last year. <We9ve got, across
the Western U.S., a buildup
of decades of fuels, and it9s
going to burn.
<So do you want to burn
in a planned, strategic way
that has an element of con-
trol to it, or do you want it to
burn in megafires, with all the
costs 4 human, animal, envi-
ronmental costs 4 that that
entails?99
It took years for forest
managers to come around
to accept and then finally
embrace prescribed burning.
In the first half of the 20th
century, fire was seen as the
enemy, with federal and state
forest managers believing pre-
scribed burning damaged the
environment, particularly tim-
ber, a commercial resource.
But in the late 1960s and
1970s, federal forest man-
agers began employing pre-
scribed burns.
Yet scaling up the prac-
tice has been slow. From
1995 through 2000, an aver-
age of 1.4 million federal
acres (566,560 hectares) were
treated with prescribed fire
each year, far short of the 70
million acres (28 million hect-
ares) that in 2001 were in crit-
ical need of fuel reduction to
avoid high-severity wildfires,
biologist David Carle said
in his 2002 book <Burning
Questions: America9s Fight
with Nature9s Fire.= Another
141 million acres (57 mil-
lion hectares) also needed
treatment.
Several cold realities are
stacked against the latest
plans: The periods between
wildfire seasons when pre-
scribed burning can happen
safely are shrinking; some
forests are too overgrown to
ignite without thinning; and
prescribed fires can shroud
nearby towns.
<We have to be mindful of
not pouring smoke into com-
munities because that9s a vio-
lation of the Clean Air Act,99
said Tim Holschbach, deputy
chief of policy and planning
with Oregon9s Department of
Forestry.
Furthermore, many land-
owners are reluctant to use
prescribed fire because of
fears of getting hit with steep
costs.
Some states can hold burn-
ers liable for any property
damage caused by an escaped
prescribed fire. Others use
so-called simple negligence
standards, which require the
burner to practice reason-
able care. A plaintiff would
need to prove negligence for
the burner to be responsible
for damages and firefight-
ing suppression costs. Gross
negligence standards make it
harder to hold people account-
able, requiring plaintiffs to
show burners acted with reck-
less disregard if fires get out
of control.
To encourage prescribed
burning on private lands,
Oregon will explore shifting
from simple to gross neg-
ligence. Gov. Kate Brown
signed legislation on June 11
that directs a state agency, in
consultation with stakehold-
ers, to study whether states
with such standards experi-
ence more prescribed fires
and more out-of-control fires.
The review must also examine
the accessibility of insurance
coverage for prescribed fires.
Prescribed burning has
prevented disasters and high
rebuilding costs. In 2017, a
wildfire threatened the resort
town of Sisters, but firefight-
ers were able to control it
because, months earlier, crews
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removed trees and brush with
machines, then ignited pre-
scribed burns.
<The fire came to a halt,
both because it had less
fuels and also because in the
thinned, more natural forest,
there was a lot more space
for the firefighters,= noted
Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley
of Oregon, who is pushing
for more funding for forest
treatment.
Scott Stephens, a profes-
sor of wildland fire science at
the University of California,
Berkeley, wants a big increase
in prescribed burns, along
with mechanical forest thin-
ning, but predicts it will be
gradual due to both a lack
of people trained in it and of
political and societal support.
That prescribed burning is
now widely seen as a remedy
would have been welcome
news to Biswell, who died in
1992 at age 86.
Harold Weaver, a forester
21
for the Bureau of Indian
Affairs, was also an early
advocate. In 1955, Weaver
published an article titled
<Fire as an enemy, friend and
tool in forest management.=
Like Biswell, he was cold-
shouldered. The two sup-
ported each other.
The West, which is more
susceptible to wildfires
because of its vast wildlands
and dry climate, has been
stepping up prescribed burns.
In 2019, 3.7 million acres
were treated by prescribed
fire in the West, a 268%
increase from 2011, the
National Association of State
Foresters and the Coalition of
Prescribed Fire Councils said
in a report.
Stephens said prescribed
fire and restoration thinning
should increase at least five-
fold to turn things around
and create healthy forests as
Biswell, his predecessor at
Berkeley, envisioned.
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