With forest fires in the news so much recently, I thought subscribers might
find this article interesting.  There was a recent opinion piece in the Des
Moines Register, written by a journalist from Whitefish, Montana, stating
that the answer to preventing forest fires is more logging.

I expect to see some of the disastrous effects of the fires later this fall
when I visit my sister in Missoula, Montana.  A fire currently burning 15
miles from my sister's home was started by a truck's catalytic converter,
while it parked along the roadside.  What started as a small spot, grew to
25 acres and is now over 16,000 acres.

Jane Clark
=================================================
Habitat Watch # 191
Great Lakes United
Week of August 14, 2000- August 20, 2000

**WHAT CAN THE GREAT LAKES REGION LEARN FROM RECENT NORTHERN ROCKIES FOREST
FIRES?**

With wildfires currently burning throughout much of the United States West,
the western timber industry and some political leaders are calling for
reducing the threat of fire and strengthening the ability to fight it
through increased logging and road building. However, scientific studies
show that logging does not reduce fire risk. After the July 1999 blowdown,
a catastrophic windstorm that damaged hundreds of thousands of forested
acres and increased fire hazard in Minnesota and Ontario, regional
environmentalists, the timber industry and political leaders have engaged
in similar debates (HW161, HW183). What lessons can the Great Lakes region
learn from recent western developments?

Matthew Koehler of the Native Forest Network said that "since 1996,
Congress
has spent over $57 million on scientific assessments that have concluded
commercial logging to be the primary human activity causing an increase in
wildfire intensity and severity… these government studies have revealed
that no matter what logging system is used -- thinning, salvaging, or
clearcutting -- areas that have been logged and roaded experience more
rapid rates of fire spread, higher fire intensities, and greater fire
severity than unlogged areas." NFN's website:
<http://www.nativeforest.org/>www.nativeforest.org.

To further expand on this, Timothy Ingalsbee, Ph.D, Director of the Western
Fire Ecology Center, [log in to unmask] recently dispelled some common myths
about the interaction between commercial logging and wildfires.

· "Commercial logging removes the least flammable portion of trees -- the
trunks, while leaving behind their most flammable portions -- needles and
limbs, directly on the ground. Untreated logging slash can adversely affect
fire behavior for up to 30 years following logging.

· "Commercial logging reduces the "overstory" tree canopy, which moderates
the
"microclimate" of the forest floor. This canopy reduction exposes the
forest
floor to increased sun and wind, causing increased surface temperatures and
decreased relative humidity. This in turn causes surface fuels to be hotter
and drier, resulting in faster rates of fire spread, greater flame lengths,
fireline intensities, and more erratic shifts in the speed and direction of
fires.

· "Small-diameter surface fuels are the primary carriers of fire.
Commercial
logging operations remove large-diameter fuels, which are naturally fire
resistant, and leave behind an increased amount of fire-prone
small-diameter
fuels.


· "Timber plantations comprised of densely-stocked, even-aged stands of
young
conifers are extremely flammable and vulnerable to catastrophic fire
effects.When plantations burn they normally result in 100% mortality of
trees,
yet have no native seed sources to naturally regenerate stands.

· "Commercial logging spreads invasive weeds and stimulates the growth of
"chaparral" brush which are much more flammable than the original forest
cover.

· "Watersheds that have experienced extensive logging and road-building
experience greater fire severity than unlogged and unroaded watersheds."

While Great Lakes forests do not usually experience the dry conditions
necessary for large-scale fire, these facts are applicable to forests all
over
North America, not just western states. Small-scale periodic fire events
are a
necessary part of the natural cycle of many forested ecosystems, including
boreal forests in Ontario. Fire maintains forest health by cleansing the
forest of disease and insects, naturally thinning forest stands, recycling
nutrients and creating snags that are critical habitat for many species.
Fire initiates regeneration in individual fire-dependant species. In the
boreal forest, tree species evolved under a regime of repeated fire and are
able to regenerate quickly. Jack pine and black spruce adapted fire
resistant seeds, and aspen and birch sprout shoots from the roots of
fire-killed trees.

In the Great Lakes region, after events like the 1999 blowdown, fire needs
to be prevented from migrating into areas inhabited by humans. Last year's
massive windstorm damaged over 350,000 acres of forest, much within the
Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, where natural processes, such as
wind and fire, are allowed to shape the area. Various timber interests
called for salvage logging and road building within the BWCAW, and despite
sluggish, low priced sales, some salvage logging activity did occur in the
Superior National Forest.  Considering the negative association between
logging and fire; the fact that timber salvage in areas affected by the
blowdown would mainly remove tree trunks; and fire spread faster with
smaller-diameter debris -- it appears that
unless timber salvage occurs at the same location and immediately before
prescribed burns, salvage in the name of fire prevention could actually
increase the potential of fire spreading.

A well-thought-out plan of setting prescribed control burns appears to be
the
most effective mechanism to reduce the fire threat to humans. The US Forest
Service is working on an Environmental Impact Statement and is planning a
series of prescribed burns for the area, to be implemented in 2001. The FS
has
been criticized for not bypassing the EIS and setting fires this year, but
fortunately, wet conditions have lessened the threat of flare-ups this
summer.

These debates are symptomatic of a widespread lack of knowledge of the
suite of factors that cause fires to spread. Political leaders are making
ecologically poor decisions based on incorrect information: In June, after
the Los Alamos fires, an amendment to shift millions from National Forest
timber sales to fish and wildlife programs was defeated in part by the
argument that more logging was needed to reduce the risk of catastrophic
wildfire. A bill proposed in the House of Representatives, HR 1522, would
encourage more logging in the urban/wildlands interface to prevent fires.

Even resource management agencies seem to avoid incorporating progressive
fire
management policies that seek to restore natural fire regimes: the US
Forest
Service's recent revisions to the National Forest Management Plan failed to
address threats from fire suppression; and while the Ontario Ministry of
Natural Resources is developing forest management plans that give greater
consideration to the natural role of forest fires within the ecosystem,
they
also are developing guidelines to implement clearcuts that "emulate fire."

Whether there is an excess of fuel available or not, the majority of forest
fires are caused by humans within 100 yards of a road. In order to prevent
fires in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness impacted by the
blowdown,
the USFS announced restrictions on campfire use earlier this summer.The
Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has a web site
<http://www.ra.dnr.state.mn.us/fire>www.ra.dnr.state.mn.us/fire/ that
contains
fire-related information for Minnesota and the BWCAW, and set up a
"Blowdown
Hotline" that provides daily updates on fire danger, fire restrictions, and
fires currently burning: 888-422-3505 in state or 218-327-4295 out of
state.
Quetico Provincial Park in Ontario issued a ban on campfires within a
portion
of the park's southeast border with the BWCAW for the full season until
October 31, 2000.

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