[Vision2020] fires

[Ted Moffett]

Donald et. al.

Thanks for this story that connects the Science magazine article on Western
US wild fire season intensity and duration due to climate change, to a very
personal account from Idaho. This story makes what might seem like an
abstract discussion of climate change impacts on wild fires much
more "real."  That climate change impacts on forest fire intensity are a
major threat to Idaho forests, appears to be a neglected topic, not to
mention the human water use impacts resulting from climate change related
reduction or earlier melting of Spring snow pack, with potential impacts on
reservoirs, irrigation, hydro power, recreation, shipping (Lewiston as a sea
port) and for those who still want to help the salmon, Spring smolt runs, as
they needs compete with each other.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/313/5789/940

Ted Moffett
--------------------
On 10/26/07, donald edwards <donaledwards at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Here's a pretty nice take on the fire issue in California and Ketchum,
> Id.  Seems to make the point that a longer, warmer fire season allows the
> timber and foliage to start drying out earlier and stay dry for longer.
> Other factors are mentioned, too.
>
> (CBS) 60 Minutes:
>
> Every year you can count on forest fires in the West like hurricanes in
> the East, but recently there has been an enormous change in Western fires.
> In truth, we've never seen anything like them in recorded history. It
> appears we're living in a new age of mega-fires -- forest infernos ten times
> bigger than the fires we're used to seeing.
>
> To find out why it's happening, *60 Minutes* correspondent Scott Pelley
> went out on the fire line to see the burning of the American West.
>
> Last fire season was the worst in recorded history. This year is already a
> close second, with two months to go. More than eight million acres have
> burned this year already. The men and women facing the flames are elite
> federal firefighters called "Hotshots."
>
> Nationwide there are 92 hotshot crews of 20 members each. *60 Minutes*found a group of New Mexico hotshots in the Salmon River Mountains of Idaho.
> They had set up camp in a burned out patch of forest with fire raging all
> around. They were hitting the day, exhausted, halfway through a 14-day
> shift.
>
> Leaving camp to scout out the situation, the firefighters anticipated a
> mess and they found it: the valley was engulfed in smoke. The flames blew
> through the firebreak lines they dug the day before.
>
> "We were trying to turn the corner yesterday, and that's when it kind of
> blew out. I think we got more ground over here that's been taken. Any
> questions?" a firefighter said.
>
> No question, this day the fire won. It surged across the mountain, forcing
> the hotshots to evacuate. All across the West, crews are playing defense,
> often pulling back to let acres burn, but standing firm to save communities.
> One stand this season came in August at Ketchum, Idaho. Forecasters said it
> was 99 percent certain Ketchum would be lost if nothing was done. Some 1,700
> local, state, and federal firefighters came from across the nation, working
> around the clock from a mountainside camp.
>
> Residents were evacuated, as 300-foot flames headed for homes.
>
> *60 Minutes* joined up with Tom Boatner, who after 30 years on the fire
> line, is now the chief of fire operations for the federal government.
>
> "A fire of this size and this intensity in this country would have been
> extremely rare 15, 20 years they're commonplace these days," Boatner says.
>
> "Ten years ago, if you had a 100,000 acre fire, you were talking about a
> huge fire. And if we had one or two of those a year, that was probably
> unusual. Now we talk about 200,000 acre fires like it's just another day at
> the office. It's been a huge change," he says.
>
> Asked what the biggest fires now are, Boatner says, "We've had, I believe,
> two fires this summer that have been over 500,000 acres, half a million
> acres, and one of those was over 600,000 acres."
>
> "You wouldn't have expected to see this how recently?" Pelley asks.
>
> "We got records going back to 1960 of the acres burned in America. So,
> that's 47 fire seasons. Seven of the 10 busiest fire seasons have been since
> 1999," Boatner says.
>
> "You know what? It's hotter than hell right here," Pelley remarks.
>
> "It's been pretty damn hot," Boatner says. "You can imagine the challenge
> for young men and women with hand tools like this to come up here and put
> out a fire like this, but there's thousands of people down there with
> multimillion dollar homes that are counting on them to do that."
>
> It was 20 years ago that firefighters got their first glimpse of what was
> to come. In 1988, a third of Yellowstone National Park burned. Since then,
> fires have broken records in nine states. Several mega-fires, like one in
> Arizona, have burned over half a million acres each.
>
> Why are there more of these fires? Turns out the forest service is partly
> to blame with a policy it started 100 years ago.
>
> The policy was to put out all fires immediately. "Because we so
> successfully fought fire and eliminated fire from this ecosystem for a
> hundred years, because we thought that was the right thing to do, we've
> allowed a huge buildup of fuel in these woods. So now, when the fires get
> going, there's a lot more to burn than historically you would've seen in a
> forest like this," Boatner explains.
>
> "Is it possible that we're gonna get to the point where we have these
> mega-fires and we just can't fight them because they're too large?" Pelley
> asks.
>
> "Well, we're there already. We have identified numerous fires this summer
> that we know we can't put out with the resources we have available. Because
> of the severity of the burning conditions and the size of the fires,"
> Boatner explains.
>
> The severity of the burning and size of the fires caught the eye of Tom
> Swetnam, one of the world's leading fire ecologists. He wanted to know
> what's touched off this annual inferno and whether it's truly a historic
> change.
>
> At the University of Arizona, Swetnam keeps a remarkable woodpile,
> comprised of the largest collection of tree rings in the world. His rings go
> back 9,000 years, and each one of those rings captures one year of climate
> history.
>
> Swetnam found recent decades have been the hottest in 1,000 years. And
> recently, he and a team of top climate scientists discovered something else:
> a dramatic increase in fires high in the mountains, where fires were rare.
>
> "As the spring is arriving earlier because of warming conditions, the snow
> on these high mountain areas is melting and running off. So the logs and the
> branches and the tree needles all can dry out more quickly and have a longer
> time period to be dry. And so there's a longer time period and opportunity
> for fires to start," Swetnam says
>
> "The spring comes earlier, so the fire season is just longer," Pelley
> remarks.
>
> "That's right. The fire season in the last 15 years or so has increased
> more than two months over the whole Western U.S. So actually 78 days of
> average longer fire season in the last 15 years compared to the previous 15
> or 20 years," Swetnam says.
>
> Swetnam says that climate change -- global warming -- has increased
> temperatures in the West about one degree and that has caused four times
> more fires. Swetnam and his colleagues published those findings in the
> journal "Science," and the world's leading researchers on climate change
> have endorsed their conclusions.
>
> But what was news to the scientists is something Tom Boatner has noticed
> for about ten years now. "This kind of low brush would normally be really
> moist and actually be a fairly good barrier to fire. But as I look at this I
> just see wilted leaves everywhere. There's no moisture left in them. They're
> dead," he points out.(CBS)* *Professor Swetnam wanted to show *60 Minutes*just how much has changed, so he brought Pelley to the top of Arizona's
> Mount Lemon. Two mega-fires there killed everything, even the Ponderosa
> Pines.
>
> "You know, I was always taught that Ponderosas were big, robust trees that
> were built to withstand fire," Pelley remarks. "And that when everything
> else burned off, the Ponderosas were still standing. But look at them."
>
> "The Ponderosas are able to withstand the low severity fires where you get
> flames of maybe one to two or three feet high. But now the behavior of these
> fires is off the scale," Swetnam says.
>
> Asked how much things have changed, Swetnam tells Pelley, "Well, we're
> seeing century-old forests that had never sustained these kinds of fires
> before, being razed to the ground."
>
> Back at the battle to save Ketchum, Idaho, the day shift was coming off,
> and the night shift going on.
>
> How long does it take to bring a fire like this under control?
>
> Says Tom Boatner, "This particular fire is about 45,000 acres and they've
> been working on it for about 11 or 12 days and they've got it about 50
> percent contained and with any luck they will finish containing this fire in
> another five or six days something like that."
>
> Containing it meant fighting fire with fire. Using drip torches, they
> started a controlled burn around the town, creating a barrier, so that when
> the forest fire hit there'd be nothing left to burn. These pre-burns are
> risky though. Trees can torch suddenly and explosively, sending embers up to
> a mile away.
>
> By daybreak on the 18th day, the gamble had paid off. The blaze came
> within 100 feet of some homes, but not one home was lost. It will take years
> for this forest to recover, but Tom Swetnam told Pelley with these new super
> hot fires some forests may never grow back.
>
> "We used to have forest soil here that might have been this deep," he
> says, indicating about a foot of depth, "but now we're just down to rock."
>
> "So you're down to mineral and sort of a rock, sort of armored soil. And
> that is not a good habitat for trees to re-establish," Swetnam says.
>
> "Where do you think all this is headed?" Pelley asks,
>
> "As fires continue to burn, these mega-fires continue to burn, we may see
> ultimately a majority, maybe more than half of the forest land converting to
> other forest, other types of ecosystems," Swetnam says.
>
> "Wait a minute. Did you just say that there's a reasonable chance we could
> lose half of the forests in the West?" Pelley asks.
>
> "Yes, within some decades to a century, as warming continues, and we
> continue to get large scale fires," Swetnam replies.
>
> Swetnam says that this is what we have to look forward to. He estimates,
> in the Southwest alone, nearly two million acres of forest are gone and
> won't come back for centuries. The hotshots are already planning for the
> next fire season. In 2006, the feds spent $2 billion on fire fighting, seven
> times more than just ten years ago.
>
> "You know, there are a lot of people who don't believe in climate change,"
> Pelley remarks.
>
> "You won't find them on the fire line in the American West anymore," Tom
> Boatner says. "'Cause we've had climate change beat into us over the last
> ten or fifteen years. We know what we're seeing, and we're dealing with a
> period of climate, in terms of temperature and humidity and drought that's
> different than anything people have seen in our lifetimes."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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> > than "Re: Contents of Vision2020 digest..."
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> > Today's Topics:
> >
> > 1. Re: Fw: Re: Western U.S. Forest Wildfire Activity
> > (Glenn Schwaller)
> > 2. Re: More GMA PAC Financial Disclosure Report (Mark Solomon)
> > 3. Re: real economic development in Moscow (Mark Solomon)
> >
> >
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 1
> > Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2007 15:19:25 -0700
> > From: "Glenn Schwaller" <vpschwaller at gmail.com>
> > Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Fw: Re: Western U.S. Forest Wildfire
> > Activity
> > To: vision2020 at moscow.com
> > Message-ID:
> > <323338460710261519lae3e6c9v3ab1ab3e9f64a3d9 at mail.gmail.com>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> >
> > It has EVERYTHING to do with whacko environmentalists and the radical
> > policies implemented by the Clinton administration, which brought an
> abrupt
> > and unfortunate end to rational forest and brush management techniques.
> >
> > Only a few short years ago these enviro-freaks successfully passed laws
> > prohibiting SoCal residents from clearing brush near their homes because
> of
> > an "endangered" kangaroo rat and the spotted mesquite weevil. Do you
> think
> > that had controlled burns and brush clearing be allowed, these
> catastrophic
> > fires could have been avoided, or at least lessened in their intensity,
> thus
> > preserving homes, (as well as the legally-privileged weevils and rats,
> who
> > by the way lost their lives and homes as well . . )
> >
> > As far as any "global warming" connection to the fires, I would think if
> > there was any influence at all it would be to REDUCE the incidence of
> brush
> > fires. Global warming would create a more hot and arid climate with
> reduced
> > rainfall, hence reduced growth of brush to fuel the fires, hence less
> fire.
> > So what ya need is a long term drought to cut down on the amount of
> brush to
> > burn.
> >
> > GS
> >
> > On 10/26/07, Sunil Ramalingam <sunilramalingam at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Roger,
> > >
> > > I don't disagree that there's a lot of underbrush in lots of national
> > > forests, along with a lot of skinny trees that will never get big,
> that
> > > are
> > > great fuel for fires. This has little if anything to do with the
> actions
> > > of
> > > environmentalists. This is from a century of putting out fires when
> > > they're
> > > small, and a lot of that had to do with preserving timber.
> Firefighting
> > > has
> > > been in transition away from that practice for a while now, but
> there's
> > > plenty of brush out there.
> > >
> > > I disagree that it's the USFS policy to not clear out brush.
> Prescription
> > > fires are lit to clear out brush, and a lot of those take place every
> > > spring
> > > and fall.
> > >
> > > This is a separate issue from the SoCal fires. The vegetation in these
> > > areas is primarily brush, not timber.
> > >
> > > I think you're making blanket statements about environmentalists
> > > here. Some
> > > don't want any intervention, some agree there should be some
> intervention.
> > > Those saying there should be no intervention aren't making any of the
> > > policies currently in place. I consider myself an environmentalist,
> but I
> > > don't think we should let all fires burn freely. At the same time,
> even
> > > though I fought wildland fires for ten summers, I don't think we
> should be
> > > putting them all out either. I certainly think anyone living out in
> the
> > > urban-rural interface should be clearing out the brush around their
> > > property.
> > >
> > > Sunil
> > >
> > >
> > > >From: lfalen <lfalen at turbonet.com>
> > > >Reply-To: lfalen <lfalen at turbonet.com>
> > > >To: vision2020 at moscow.com
> > > >Subject: [Vision2020] Fw: Re: Western U.S. Forest Wildfire Activity
> > > >Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2007 11:08:02 -0700
> > > >
> > > >Sunil
> > > >There seems to be a problem with "reply all" for this email so I am
> > > >forwarding it instead.
> > > >
> > > >The underbrush problem is a general one. Not clearing out underbrush
> is
> > > >part of the Forest Service's policy. It has been well documented that
> at
> > > >least some vocal environmentalist do not want any intervention by man
> or
> > > >management of the forests. This includes thinning out underbrush or
> > > insect
> > > >control. Dead trees due to insect infestation adds to the fire hazard
> > > >provided by underbrush. They are partly right in that before man's
> > > >involvement ther were small fires that cleared the underbrush which
> > > >prevented a hotter fire from wiping out the entire forest. Not all
> > > >environmentalist or forest managers see it this way. There is
> legislation
> > > >being proposed at the state and national level to change this policy.
> > > >Roger
> > > >-----Original message-----
> > > >
> > > >From: "Sunil Ramalingam" sunilramalingam at hotmail.com
> > > >Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2007 22:05:05 -0700
> > > >To:
> > > >Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Western U.S. Forest Wildfire Activity
> > > >
> > > >Roger, what is the basis of your statement:
> > > >
> > > >'The extent of the fires we exacerbated by the dense underbrush that
> > > >resulltd from environmetalist not allowing it to be cleared out,'
> > > >
> > > >and which fires are you talking about?
> > > >
> > > >Sunil
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
>
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