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. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - For SC email list T-and-C, send: GET TERMS-AND-CONDITIONS.CURRENT to [log in to unmask]