The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current, August 13, 2019, Image 3

The daily Astorian., August 13, 2019, Page 3, Image 3

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Newspaper Page TextA3 THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, AUGUST 13, 2019 West struggles to hit goals of ﬁ ghting ﬁ re with ﬁ re Oregon changed air quality rules for planned ﬁ res By BRIAN MELLEY Associated Press KINGS CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Calif. — The thick scent of smoke hung in the midday air when a trail along the Kings River opened up to an ominous scene: ﬂ ames in the trees and thick gray smoke shrouding canyon walls. Fireﬁ ghters were on the job. In fact, they had started the blaze that chewed through thick ferns, blackened downed trees and charred the forest ﬂ oor. The prescribed burn — a low-intensity, closely managed ﬁ re — was intended to clear out under- growth and protect the heart of Kings Canyon National Park from future wildﬁ res that are growing larger and more frequent amid climate change. The tactic is considered one of the best ways to pre- vent the kind of catastrophic destruction that has become common from wildﬁ res, but its use falls woefully short of goals in the U.S. West. A study published in the jour- nal Fire in April found pre- scribed burns on federal land in the last 20 years across the West has stayed level or fallen despite calls for more. Prescribed ﬁ res are cred- ited with making forests healthier and stopping or slowing the advance of some blazes. Despite those suc- cesses, there are plenty of reasons they are not set as often as ofﬁ cials would like, ranging from poor conditions to safely burn to bureaucratic snags and public opposition. After a wildﬁ re last year largely leveled the city of Paradise and killed 86 peo- ple, the state prioritized 35 brush and other vegeta- tion-reduction projects that could all involve some use of intentional ﬁ re, said Mike AP Photo/Brian Melley Fireﬁ ghter Matthew Dunagan stands watch as ﬂ ames spread during a prescribed ﬁ re in Cedar Grove at Kings Canyon National Park. Mohler, deputy director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Despite the push for more burns, there are disastrous reminders of prescribed ﬁ res blowing out of control — such as a 2012 Colorado burn that killed three people and damaged or destroyed more than two dozen homes. Overcoming public fears by teaching about “good smoke, bad smoke, out-of- control ﬁ re and prescribed ﬁ re” is just one hurdle before ﬁ reﬁ ghters can put match to kindling, Mohler said. “It’s the difference between ﬁ re under our terms and ﬁ ghting ﬁ re on Mother Nature’s terms,” he said. It can take years to plan and clear federal, state and local environmental and air pollution regulations. A burn among giant sequoias once took 13 years to accom- plish, said Michael Theune, a spokesman for Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. In the American West, where the landscape is steep and downed trees, brush and other fuels have built up over decades of ﬁ re suppression, the so-called burn window can be short because of hot, dry conditions. Relaxing environmental restrictions has cleared the way for more prescribed ﬁ res in some cases. Oregon recently changed air quality rules for planned ﬁ res to strike a balance between smoky winter skies and bad summer blazes. Cal- ifornia proclaimed a state of emergency to allow it to fast- track brush clearing. Most states and federal agencies in the U.S. West have ambitious goals they don’t achieve, said Crys- tal Kolden, a University of Idaho forest and ﬁ re science professor whose study con- cluded that not enough pre- scribed ﬁ res are being done in the region. “They know they need to be doing more prescribed ﬁ re, they want to be doing more prescribed ﬁ re,” she said. “They are simply unable to accomplish that.” Opponents cite the threat to wildlife and release of greenhouse gases. In Califor- nia, some environmentalists opposed intentional burns because they can destroy nat- ural drought-tolerant shrubs and replace them with ﬂ am- mable invasive weeds and grasses. Rick Halsey of the Cal- ifornia Chaparral Insti- tute said reintroducing ﬁ re through prescribed burns is appropriate in the Sierra Nevada, where more fre- quent lightning-sparked ﬁ res and blazes historically set by Native Americans are believed to improve forests by clearing brush to allow taller trees to thrive and open- ing sequoia seed pods so they can reproduce. But Halsey said pre- scribed ﬁ res don’t help much of the rest of the state. The ﬁ re that tore through Para- dise showed how ineffec- tive clearing underbrush can be — it roared across 7 miles that had burned just 10 years earlier. “It was still grasses and weeds and shrubs, and that’s the model these prescribed burning advocates have used,” Halsey said. “They say if we have younger fuels on the landscape, we’ll have less ﬁ res or lower intensity ﬁ res, and we can use those areas to protect communities. And that has never happened in wind-driven ﬁ res.” The state acknowledged in a draft environmental impact report that clearing vegetation may not slow or halt extreme ﬁ res. But successful prescribed burns can save property from some future ﬁ res, supporters said. Four years ago, Cedar Grove in the bottom of Kings Canyon escaped a mas- sive lightning-ignited ﬁ re — ﬂ ames burned up to where periodic prescribed burns had thinned undergrowth. About $400 million in property, including employee hous- ing, lodging, campgrounds and a water treatment plant, was spared, said Theune, the parks spokesman. Last winter was a very wet one in California, and that left brush and vegetation less volatile through spring. In Kings Canyon, ﬁ reﬁ ghters returned in June to burn dif- ferent segments along a nar- row strip of pines, cedars and manzanita between the rag- ing Kings River and a road that ends in the canyon. With other ﬁ reﬁ ghters standing by in case embers escaped, a half-dozen mem- bers of the park’s Arrow- head Hot Shots methodically dripped ﬂ ame from gas-and- diesel torches to ignite dry pine needles, twigs and other accumulated material. A mosaic-like pat- tern of ﬁ re crept through grasses, pine cones and dead branches. Downed pon- derosa pines became occa- sional ﬂ ashpoints. Teams with hoses doused ﬂ ames that threatened to climb liv- ing trees. Ideally, Sequoia and Kings Canyon parks would burn 10,000 or more acres a year, Theune said. The annual target is about a ﬁ fth of that, and the actual acreage burned often falls far short of that goal. Over two days, the ﬁ re crew blackened the 218 acres targeted, doubling the total area burned last year in the two parks. But it was merely 10% of the parks’ annual goal and just a tiny fraction of land in the U.S. West that could be treated with prescribed ﬁ re. 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