COMMUNITY
TUESDAY, JUNE 29, 2021
FIRE
“Over the course of my
career, my tolerance
for red trees is a lot
more than it used to be
because I know that’s
how it has to be.”
Continued from Page A1
Lewis thrusts his arm into
a spray of green foliage that’s
bursting from a patch of black
ground.
This is a willow too.
A new willow, fresh as let-
tuce plucked from a garden,
and about knee-high on
Lewis’ tan pants.
Its fl exible shoots and
lance-shaped leaves have
risen from the ash since
fl ames swept through here
almost two months to the day.
That was no ordinary fi re.
Lewis, who most often tries
to douse fl ames as an assis-
tant fi re management offi cer
for the Wallowa-Whitman
National Forest’s Whitman
Ranger District, was on that
April day in charge of kin-
dling fi res.
And today he and the
others have returned to have
a look at the early results of
their handiwork.
During two days in mid-
April, Lewis oversaw the
crews that lit prescribed fi res
that covered about 1,100
acres, mainly on the north
side of the reservoir but also
a section on the south side,
near the Forest Service’s
Southwest Shore camp-
ground.
The fi res had multiple pur-
poses. A primary goal was to
remove accumulations of dry,
dead grass and layers of des-
iccated pine needles, Lewis
said. That combustible debris
could fuel a wildfi re during
summer, when fl ames would
be much more diffi cult to
control than the April blazes,
which were ignited while the
ground was moist and a few
snowdrifts still lingered in
sheltered clefts among the
pines.
Although the April fi res
were intended to protect the
mature, second-growth pines
that predominate in these
relatively low-elevation for-
ests — Phillips Reservoir is at
about 4,100 feet — the blazes
were also supposed to kill
some trees, said Hawkins, fi re
staff offi cer for the Wallowa-
Whitman.
The “prescription” for the
fi res — a list of the goals that
managers hoped to achieve
— included killing from 30%
to 70% of the “regeneration,”
Hawkins said.
Those are the seedlings
and saplings growing among
the bigger pines, some of lat-
— Steve Hawkins, fi re
staff offi cer, Wallowa-
Whitman National
Forest
Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald
Trevor Lewis, assistant fi re management offi cer for the
Wallowa-Whitman National Forest’s Whitman Ranger
District, shows how tall willow shoots grew after a pre-
scribed fi re burned through this area along Deer Creek in
mid-April. Lewis visited the site on June 22.
ter being 18 inches or more in
diameter.
A century and more ago,
before the Forest Service and
other agencies started ag-
gressively fi ghting wildfi res,
few of those little trees likely
would have survived much
beyond the seedling stage,
Hawkins said.
That’s because fi res, most
of them started by lightning,
swept through the forests ap-
proximately every seven to 15
years, he said — an estimate
based on studies of the fi re
scars left on old pines in other
areas with similar character-
istics.
Those historical fi res posed
little threat to big pondero-
sas with their thick bark,
Hawkins said. They were
also protected by their lack
of limbs for the fi rst 30 or
more feet of trunk, depriving
fl ames of a “ladder” to climb,
spreading fi re into the trees’
more vulnerable crowns.
Those past fi res had similar
effects to modern prescribed
fi res, in that they generally
stayed on the ground or close
to it, devouring ground fuel
but sparing the larger trees.
By largely excluding fi re
from these forests for much of
the 20th century, the Forest
Service and other agencies
allowed younger trees to grow
in much greater density than
in the past. In some areas
this understory of smaller
trees are mainly fi rs, but
around Phillips Reservoir
most of the conifers, both
young and older, are pon-
derosas. Regardless of species,
these smaller trees can serve
as those ladder fuels that
threaten even the tallest tree.
The agency has over the
past 30 years or so started to
try to reverse these effects,
and prescribed fi re has been
one of its primary tools, said
Cikanek, ranger for the Whit-
man District.
For some areas north of
Phillips Reservoir, this April’s
fi res were the third since the
early 1990s.
“When you skip a century,
it takes a few steps to get
back,” Cikanek said.
But there is the matter of
those reddish-orange needles,
so distinct amid the green
backdrop.
Cikanek said he’s pleased
to see that the April fi res
killed many of the smaller
pines. Removing these trees,
along with the surface layers
of grass and pine needles, will
reduce the severity of any
summer wildfi re that starts
here, he said.
Hawkins agreed.
“Over the course of my
career, my tolerance for red
trees is a lot more than it
Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald
Forest Service employees pruned burned limbs from some young ponderosa pines
near Mowich Loop picnic area on the north side of Phillips Reservoir. The trees were
burned during a prescribed fi re in mid-April.
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used to be,” he said.
But Cikanek acknowledges
that the April blazes also
scorched, in some cases likely
lethally, some mature pines.
Cikanek said the prescrip-
tion for the fi res called for up
to 10% mortality among older
trees. The actual death toll
will be well below that level,
he said.
Some trees with reddened
needles will survive, Lewis
said.
Many of these trees didn’t
actually burn, he said — the
discoloration was caused by
radiant heat from the fl ames
below. Trees that still have
green needles for the top 25%
or so of the crown probably
will survive, Lewis said. He
concedes that this year’s se-
vere drought will increase the
mortality rate, however.
On June 22, while walking
among the pines near Mowich
Loop, the Wallowa-Whitman
picnic area beside Highway
7, Lewis pointed to scorched
trees that already have new
green needles.
Deer Creek fl ows a few
hundred yards east of the
picnic area.
The stream, which heads
high in the Elkhorn Moun-
tains, was lined with willows
and alders. The April pre-
scribed fi re, spurred by gusty
winds, burned hot here.
That’s not surprising,
Lewis said.
The creekside willows and
alders had become “deca-
dent,” he said — a term in
this case meaning the thick-
ets had a lot of old, dead wood
and relatively fewer new,
succulent shoots.
Although the fi re left those
unsightly black skeletons,
Lewis said those are only the
remnants of that dead wood.
Many deciduous trees,
including water-loving species
such as willows and alders,
are invigorated by fi re.
As proof, he points to the
expanse of knee-high, glossy
green willow shoots that line
Deer Creek.
“Disturbance is what
causes the fl ush of new
growth,” Cikanek said.
The April fi re also spread
through a grove of aspen
just east of the Mowich Loop
parking lot.
Lewis said that within
three weeks of the fi re, aspen
shoots were standing three
inches tall in the grove.
Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald
New sprouts of bitterbrush grow from the base of a
burned shrub on June 22 at Union Creek campground.
The bitterbrush burned during a prescribed fi re April 15.
forest can still benefi t from
prescribed fi re, most notably
the reduction in the fuel load
on the ground.
On the north side of the
reservoir these small trees
are part of the understory
that prescribed fi re is sup-
posed to thin out.
But here, near the camp-
ground, almost all the trees
are small, and they need to be
protected. To that end, prior
to the prescribed fi re, workers
pruned the lower limbs that
could serve as ladder fuels,
Lewis said.
He said similar work —
pruning followed by pre-
scribed burning — is planned
along the Forest Service road
that runs along the south side
of the reservoir and leads to
both Southwest Shore and
Millers Lane campgrounds.
This project not only is
intended to reduce the risk
of wildfi res on the national
forest, but also to help protect
the many parcels of private
property just south of the
road.
Union Creek campground
This Forest Service camp-
ground on the northeast side
of Phillips Reservoir, a mile
or so from Mason Dam, is the
most popular recreation site
in the area. It’s one of a few
Forest Service sites in the re-
gion that has campsites with
electric, water and sewer con-
nections for RVs and trailers.
Hawkins said the Wallowa-
Whitman has undertaken
multiple projects since the
1990s to reduce the wildfi re
risk in the campground,
including thinning the pines
and lighting prescribed fi res.
Lewis said the camp-
ground is the last area that
was ignited on April 15, the
fi rst day of prescribed burn-
ing, and for a couple reasons,
fl ames didn’t spread as
South of the reservoir
rapidly as other areas.
Lewis strolls into the pine
First, the humidity was a
forest just west of the Forest bit higher later in the day.
Service’s Southwest Shore
Second, the forest fl oor
campground.
inside the campground has
The situation is quite dif-
comparatively less fuel, a
ferent here than it is north of situation Lewis explains
the reservoir.
with a chuckle.
A wildfi re in the late 1980s
“It’s a campground, and ev-
killed most of the pines near ery little kid picks up sticks
the campground, and the For- for a campfi re,” he said.
est Service planted ponderosa
Kids also roam among the
seedlings.
pines.
Lewis said this younger
Although the prescribed
fi re burned before the camp-
ground had opened for the
season, campers who arrived
saw patches of black ground
and pines with reddened
needles.
Cikanek said he under-
stands that burning in a
campground — even a con-
trolled fi re that’s intended
to protect the place from
devastating wildfi res — can
bother some visitors.
Aron Grief isn’t among
those.
Grief, who lives in Molalla,
southeast of Portland, was
walking to the campground’s
fi sh-cleaning station with
a stringer of rainbow trout
when he passed the group
of Forest Service employees
looking at the forest.
“Are you going to do more
burning?” Grief asked. “I
know why you did it.”
Cikanek told Grief that
there wouldn’t be any pre-
scribed fi res during summer,
what with the higher fi re
danger and the campground
being open.
Grief said he appreciates
that the Forest Service is
trying to reduce the fi re
danger in the campground.
He pointed out the clumps
of Idaho fescue, a native
bunchgrass, growing where
the fl ames were two months
ago.
“It’s green,” Grief said.
While driving through
the campground on the way
back to Highway 7, Hawkins
stops the Forest Service
pickup truck to have a look
at a clump of bitterbrush, a
shrub that is an important
source of winter forage for
deer and, to a lesser extent,
elk.
In common with decidu-
ous trees and certain grass-
es, bitterbrush is invigorat-
ed by fi res of relatively low
severity, such as prescribed
fi res, Hawkins said.
He examines a patch of
bitterbrush that burned in
the April fi re.
At the base of the black-
ened shrub he points to
green shoots a few inches
tall.
That new growth will be
palatable to deer and elk,
Hawkins said, and more ac-
cessible to the animals than
the spiny, thick-limbed shrub
that burned.
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