Forestry and Its Seasons: Fire Season Part 1

We have all kinds of seasons.  As fall approaches, it’s football season.  There’s allergy season, the holiday season, and the Four Seasons – both those aligned with the calendar and of Frankie Valli fame.  Forestry has its seasons as well.  There’s the planting season, the growing season, and in the northern U.S. the infamous “mud” season.  Then there’s the one that gets the most media attention and that is all-too-sadly growing -- fire season.

From pine forests of the coastal southeast to the dry forests of the inland mountain west and the desert southwest, fires just like wind throw, floods, and bugs, are part of the normal forest cycle.  In fact forest firers occur naturally on every continent except Antarctica.  What isn’t so normal about the cycles that we’ve seen for the last few years and perhaps that serve as harbingers of the future is the size and intensity of fires in the U.S. and Canada.

Primary Causes of Wildfires
Most fires are started by natural causes – especially lightning.  However, fires escaping from open trash burning or a tossed cigarette aren’t rare enough.  Even more devastating are those fires which are intentionally set.  In fact, both in the 1940s and even more recently there have been documented attempts by Axis member Japan to Al-Qaeda who have attempted to use forest fires to drive disruption and fear.

Changing Times
Climate:  While wild-land forest fires have always packed a devastating punch, several factors are combining to make things even worse.  Whether you believe in the scientific reality of climate change – natural, human induced, or a combination of effects – there is little argument that weather patterns have shifted.  Many areas are experiencing droughts and little snow pack, leading to drier forests and more intense fires when they do come.

Bugs:  Insects and diseases are another very notable cause.  Perhaps none eclipse the native Mountain pine beetle and the 48 million acres of dead and dying trees across the western states.  These dead trees are ready-made for fires.

Unnatural Conditions:  The Endowment focuses all of its activity in “working forests.”  In short, we don’t “do” wilderness and we aren’t funding short-rotation woody agriculture.  Those working forests – what most folks would view as “natural” forests whether planted or naturally regenerating – depending on the species and location, have certain norms that make them more-or-less fire resistant.  Using the theory that one picture is worth a thousand words – here’s a string of three pictures that we think is worth millions of words.

This series of photos was taken of exactly the same spot on the Bitterroot National Forest in Montana by the USDA Forest Service.  Starting on the left (1909) after a harvest in an area where fire had been excluded since 1895.  The Second is in 1948 and the final in 2004.  Note the changes in vegetation.  If fire passed through the stand on the left it would have done little damage.  The one in the middle would have experienced some loss but many larger trees would have survived.  However, the current stand which is exemplary of all-too-many of America’s forests today in fire-prone areas would surely be a total loss.

Carlton N. Owen

Land Stewards and Their Helpers

What do 15,000 folks in Hawaii have in common with more than 686,000 in New York?  They are owners of a piece of America’s forest.

Earlier this week I received a copy of the USDA Forest Service’s State and Private Forestry Annual Report – April 2012.  It was accompanied by a much longer Appendix comprised of State and Territorial fact sheets.  Receiving  this in the midst of the now full-blown race for the White House , and all of the sound bites about “too much” or “too little” government, got me to thinking about the men and women who own America’s forests and those who help them tend it.

Who Owns America’s Forests
We are indeed one of the most blessed nations on the planet.  Parts of those blessings arise from the fact that one-third of our expansive land is blanketed with tree cover!  And, not too far down the list of blessings comes in the fact that all 308 million of us as American’s own a part of that forest heritage whether it be held in trust in National Forests, state forests, parks or other public lands. 

The part of this picture that too many of us take for granted is that the largest slice of that “forest pie” is not owned by us individually nor collectively, rather, some 35% of that forestland –some 251 million acres – is held by families and individuals.  And a lot of them … nearly 11 million owners.

In our system of government they clearly “own” the trees and the land.  Yet, there are many public benefits that accrue to us all without our direct engagement either in the form of payment or responsibility.  Those private forests help clean our air, filter and provide our drinking water, and serve as homes to a vast array of wildlife.

Managing a Forest Takes a Village
Harkening back to another line from yet another Presidential campaign, I recall the one that served to once again divide us when Hillary Clinton published her book, “It takes a Village.”  This borrowed line from an African proverb about the impact that all in a community have in helping to raise a child, has similar implications when we think about forests.

Yes, clearly the landowner carries a heavier responsibility and burden than do others (just as do parents).  Yet, few landowners walk that road alone (again, just as do parents).  Most call on the services of a consulting forester to help them develop and implement a management plan to achieve their objectives.  Few landowners – private or corporate – maintain the necessary firefighting equipment to call upon when disaster threatens.  Nor, do many own their own mills to serve as a market for their raw materials.

Indeed, forest ownership and management is a complicated business.  Among the many blessings we have are the well-trained men and women of the primary federal natural resources agency – the USDA Forest Service – and their state-based compatriots at the forestry commissions and state forestry services that have for decades been there when the fires were raging, the bugs attacking, and after the harvest with seedlings to help start that new forest.

In a time of dumbing-down of very complex issues into one-line sound bites, it is important that we all remember and say a word of appreciation to the men and women who steward America’s private forests and those who help them tend it.  I for one am very thankful for the professionals at the federal and state level who answer that calling in concert with the range of private businesses who help make up the forestry village.

Written by: Carlton Owen