A6
LOCAL
Wallowa County Chieftain
Wednesday, October 28, 2020
Forest Service considers
regions for prescribed burns
By RONALD BOND
Wallowa County Chieftain
Mark Moeller/U.S. Forest Service
A prescribed burn takes place in the Puderbaugh fi re unit in 2018. Puderbaugh is among fi ve
prescribed fi re units in Wallowa County, totaling nearly 11,500 acres, under consideration for
a prescribed burn this fall, though it’s unlikely all of that acreage will indeed be burned.
WALLOWA COUNTY
— More than 11,000 acres
in the Wallowa Fire Zone
and over 20,000 total acres
within the Wallowa-Whit-
man National Forest are
under consideration for a
prescribed burn in the com-
ing days and weeks should
the weather allow it, though
it’s unlikely that much land
will end up seeing fl ames
before snow fl ies.
“Between now and the
snowfall when the con-
ditions are appropriate,”
Peter Fargo, public affairs
offi cer with U.S. Forest
Service, told the Chief-
tain of the window being
looked at for burns to be
conducted. “We’re looking
at fuel conditions, weather
conditions, and this year in
particular we’re prioritiz-
ing burn units further away
from populated areas and
downwind from populated
areas.”
The prescribed fi res are
used as a method of forest
management to clear under-
brush, dead fuel or down
fuel. A burn “allows fi re to
play its natural role on the
landscape under controlled
conditions,” according to a
USFS press release.
Just fi ve units in the Wal-
lowa Fire Zone are under
consideration for a pre-
scribed burn, but the com-
bined size of those sectors
is 11,481 acres, and all fi ve
could see more than 1,500
acres burned. The larg-
est prescribed areas are
the Puderbaugh burn unit,
southeast of Joseph, at
3,293 acres, and the Muddy
Sled burn unit, north of
Enterprise, at 2,367 acres.
About 5,000 acres are
being considered for the
Whitman Ranger District,
largely based in Baker
County, and another 4,000
could be burned in the
Grande Ronde Fire Dis-
trict, based largely in Union
County.
“The Forest (Service)
is assigned a fuels-reduc-
tion target each year,”
Mark Moeller, assistant
fi re management offi cer
for the U.S. Forest Service,
said in email to the Chief-
tain. “This target includes
all fuels reduction treat-
ments, and does not spec-
ify how many acres of each
type of treatment must be
accomplished. When the
forest receives this target,
we set goals for how many
acres of each treatment we
would like to accomplish
in order to reach that target
number.”
So far, pile burns are all
that have been conducted
in the WFZ, and that was
the majority of what was
cleaned out through fi re a
year ago. Moeller said 942
acres of pile burning was
done last year, compared to
just 167 acres of prescribed
burning.
He said that Forest Ser-
vice personnel conduct-
ing the burns will move to
do so if conditions are OK,
but added it’s unlikely that
there will be much burned
this year.
“The weather will not
be conducive, likely, this
& Skylight
Gallery
fall to do those,” Moeller
said of the prescribed WFZ
burns.
Fargo explained the
high number of acres listed
to potentially be burned
by what he termed good
fi re is partly for planning
purposes.
“We want to have a lot
of opportunities out there,
if conditions are right, for
a prescribed fi re,” he said.
“That would be the simple
explanation for why there
are so many acres on (the
map) so that we have multi-
ple opportunities across the
landscape.”
Several groups give their
input when areas to receive
prescribed burns are recom-
mended, including area fi re
management offi cers, For-
est Service leadership and
partners such as Oregon
Smoke Management.
The Northeast Oregon
District is coming off one of
the best summers in recent
history with just 253.5
acres burned and just more
than 10 in Wallowa County,
according to the Oregon
Department of Forestry.
That, though, doesn’t
mean the prescribed burns
should stop.
“The way our fuel man-
agement and prescribed
fi res program looks at the
resources is over the long
term — over a 5-, 10-, 15-,
20-year and more period
and anticipating that the
vegetation will continue to
grow, and in the absence
of benefi cial fi re, (there
will) be conditions that are
primed for more destructive
fi res,” Fargo said.
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Joseph United
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