From: Steve Holmer <wafcdc@igc.apc.org>
S. 1028: Outdated Policies that will Increase Fire Risk,
Endanger Firefighters, and Harm Forest Ecosystems
by Timothy Ingalsbee, Ph.D.
Director, Western Fire Ecology Center
Western Ancient Forest Campaign
INTRODUCTION
From September 4-12th, 1997, I traveled through the northern
Sierra Nevada in order to better understand the possible social and
ecological consequences of Senate bill 1028. I interviewed a number
of federal fire scientists and fuels managers, private foresters, local
environmentalists, and members of the Quincy Library Group. I also
gathered official documents, took photographs, and purchased maps
relating to the proposed project. Perhaps the most important data
source was the opportunity to observe the condition of the landscape
and walk the ground of proposed timber sale units.
From 1980 to 1990 I was employed as a firefighter for the U.S.
Forest Service and National Park Service. I did graduate research in
fire ecology and fire management on my way to earning a doctoral
degree from the University of Oregon. I have been a fire ecology
educator for the last six years, and have produced several publications
and conference presentations on fire ecology and fire management
issues. From my personal background, and my recent field research in
the forests covered by S.1028, I have come to the conclusion that
significant ecological damage and community harm would occur from
implementation of this bill. For the reasons explained below, I believe
citizens and legislators concerned for the long-term health and
sustainability of the National Forests and forest-dependent communities
in California (and throughout the West) should vigorously oppose
S.1028.
PROBLEM: S.1028 SACRIFICES FOREST HEALTH FOR A
FAILED FIRE SUPPRESSION STRATEGY
S.1028 represents an outdated fire philosophy that is based on
the suppression tactics developed during the 1930's, and the
pre-suppression fuels management strategies developed during the
1950's. During this latter period, over two thousand miles of
fuelbreaks were constructed throughout the Sierra Nevada as part of a
Cold War era Civil Defense program to prepare for "conflagration
control" in the event of thermonuclear warfare. This program was
abruptly ended in the early 1970's because these fuelbreaks were too
costly to implement and maintain, and more importantly, because in all
but a few incidents they did not work during actual forest fires.
The Forest Service currently lacks any scientific evidence to
support its claim that shaded fuelbreaks allow safe, efficient
firefighting, or will protect forests from fire. On the contrary, there is
a large body of research making the opposite conclusion. For example,
the research of Dr. Omi (1996), Director of the Western Forest Fire
Research Center and the nation's top scholar of fuelbreaks, reveals that
the agency has no documentation proving any reductions in wildfire
losses with the use of fuelbreaks. Dr. Omi concludes that a broad
landscape system of fuelbreaks (such as proposed by S.1028) cannot be
economically justified. Other studies (e.g. Davis, 1965; Deeming,
1990) have not only criticized the poor economics of fuelbreaks, but
noted the controversial nature of their impacts on biological and scenic
resources.
S.1028 fails to address the repeated failures of past fuelbreak
programs. Rather than "protect" the forest from fire, the new
fuelbreaks would actually add to the existing groundfuel hazard,
increase the intensity and severity of future fires, pose risks to
firefighter safety, and increase the risk of large-scale, severe wildfires.
In the name of firefighting efficiency, the construction of fuelbreaks
would cause impacts to the very values of the forest---wildlife habitat,
water quality, recreational opportunity, scenic beauty, and community
stability---for which S.1028 claims to be protecting and restoring. In
effect, S.1028 would sacrifice forest ecosystem health in exchange for a
misguided, failed fire
protection scheme.
PROBLEM: S.1028 WOULD INCREASE FUEL HAZARDS
The landscape of the northern Sierra Nevada already suffers
from excess groundfuels in the form of heavy slash left untreated from
previous logging, and dense thickets of brush growing in cutover,
managed stands. S.1028 offers no plan to remove this load of slash
and brush; instead, S.1028 focuses strictly on the removal of new green
trees. This would add even more groundfuels in the form of new slash
and stumps. Additionally, S.1028 does not discuss how it plans to fund
long-term maintenance of the fuelbreaks. The failure of all prior
shaded fuelbreak programs in California has been their inability to
control brush from colonizing the exposed, disturbed logging sites.
Slash mixed with brush, particularly "chaparral" species like manzanita,
is an extremely flammable fuel load that will increase the hazard and
risk of severe wildfires. An authentic fire protection plan would seek
ways to reduce this fuel type, not add to it, as S.1028 would do.
PROBLEM: S.1028 WOULD INCREASE FIRE INTENSITY AND
SEVERITY
S.1028 plans to use commercial logging to reduce tree canopy
cover to 40% or less. This reduction in crown closure would change
microclimatic conditions in ways that feed intense fires. Groundfuels
would be exposed to more sun and wind, causing them dry out earlier
in the spring and sooner after rainstorms. Dr. James Agee's (1996)
research has demonstrated that reducing groundfuels is the most
effective treatment to prevent crownfires, while thinning tree canopies
results in hotter, drier, windier conditions on the ground surface. With
higher temperatures, lower humidities, and stronger winds, surface
fires burn intensely and spread rapidly. The high heat column from
slash-and-brush fires can ignite crownfires even when flame lengths fail
to reach lower limbs or climb ladder fuels. And slash-and-brush fires
cause root-scorch that can kill large old-growth trees even if their
canopies do not ignite.
Assuming that slash treatment does occur in the future (a huge
assumption given the agency's abysmal track record), then burning the
huge hand- or machine-piled mounds of slash generated by new logging
would cause severe fire effects by essentially sterilizing the soil.
Finally, using fuelbreaks to light backfires during firefighting incidents
would cause severe burning of adjacent forest stands since they would
be lit during extreme fire weather conditions. Often, the objective of
backfires is 100% consumption of the vegetation from ground to
crown, thereby sacrificing trees to stop fires. The impacts and uses of
these fuelbreaks would thus increase fire intensity and severity---the
very opposite effects S.1028 claims to achieve.
PROBLEM: S.1028 WOULD RISK FIREFIGHTER SAFETY
Proposed fuelbreaks are located alongside existing logging
roads. These roads were built to access timber sales, not to aid fire
suppression. Thus, roads in the Sierra Nevada commonly switchback
up steep slopes, cut across mid-slopes, follow stream courses at the
bottom of narrow canyons, and run through previously cutover areas
where units are covered with slash, brush, and plantations. Firefighters
staged in these fuelbreaks will either have to apply direct attack
strategies and march down into steep drainages to fight fires below
them (one of the most dangerous maneuvers in firefighting), or they
will have to apply indirect attack strategies and wait for the fires to
reach their control lines. In either case, firefighters would be at risk
from being overrun by wildfire in the kinds of extreme fire behavior
situations that are used to justify the fuelbreaks.
S.1028 fails to prioritize treatment of the principal hazardous
fuel load---slash and brush---and fails to provide long-term funding
mechanisms for maintenance of the fuelbreaks. If new slash is untreated
and new brush is allowed to grow, then these fuelbreaks will be
extremely unsafe and inefficient areas for firefighting crews. The vast
majority of firefighting fatalities have occurred from fires burning
through thick brush, not closed canopy forests. The claim that
adjacent roads will allow speedy evacuations of crews will likely tempt
some fire bosses to put firefighters into risky situations that demand
such emergency retreats. S.1028 perpetuates the myth of human ability
to control extreme fire behavior, and puts firefighters at risk from the
agency's futile attempts to live up to this myth.
PROBLEM: S.1028 WOULD INCREASE ROAD-BUILDING
An internal agency document yet to be released to the general
public offers preliminary analysis of the kinds of environmental impacts
that would occur from implementing S.1028. At the top of the list of
impacts is the revelation that 117 miles of new logging roads would
have to be constructed in order to fully develop the fuelbreaks.
Additionally, permanent roads and temporary skid roads would need to
be built to gain access to the several thousand "group selection" (i.e.
clearcuts) sites in the Fuel Reduction Zones (FRZs) adjacent to
fuelbreaks. Both the amount and density of roads would greatly
increase, causing adverse effects to fish and other wildlife habitat,
water quality, soils, and scenic resources. Moreover, the fragmentation
and edge effects of existing roads would be greatly magnified by the
substantial amounts of vegetation removal required for construction of
fuelbreaks. Habitat for spotted owls, flying squirrels, bear, and deer,
for example, would decline due to the loss of hiding cover, thermal
cover, and forage. Also, negative impacts would occur from illegal
activities that are routinely conducted alongside logging roads, such as
wildlife poaching, timber theft, garbage dumping, and forest arson.
The desire to restrict new road-building and remove old logging roads
is prevalent among the public and members of Congress. Regardless,
S.1028 is utterly dependent upon a quantumfold increase in the amount,
density, and impacts of logging roads.
PROBLEM: S.1028 WOULD INCREASE FIRE RISK
Roads are known conduits of human-caused fires. Proposed
roadside fuelbreaks would increase human access and mechanized
activities within timber sale units. This would lead to increased risk of
accidental fires caused by logging and road-building activities, as well
as from careless recreationists. It would also lead to increased
intentional fires lit by Forest Service firefighters. One of the main
purposes of fuelbreaks is to light backfires during wildfire suppression
incidents. Backfires used to be a rare, desperate tactic because they
cause considerable damage and inevitably add more burned acreage to a
forest fire. But in recent years they have become almost a standard,
routine practice. Backfires are ignited in the worst of all possible fire
conditions; consequently, they often escape control, jump over
firelines, and sometimes create separate wildfires of their own. The
truth of the matter is that these fuelbreaks are not going to stop severe
wildfires, but are places the agency intends to start backfires.
The risk of large-scale, severe wildfires will inevitably increase
due to the changed microclimatic conditions and fuel loads left in the
wake of logging, as well as the management activities planned for the
fuelbreaks---logging, road-building, and firefighting. The Achilles heel
of S.1028 is the lack of a provision for funding long-term brush
maintenance of the fuelbreaks, and lack of funding for fuels reduction
within the landscape blocks between fuelbreaks. Without these two
essential components of a hazard fuels reduction program, S.1028
would fail to address the real fire hazards today--slash, brush, and
plantations. The fuelbreaks would defy the ability of firefighters to
safely and efficiently use them during extreme fire events, and
ironically, would only prime the pump for future severe fires. S.1028
does not protect forests or restore ecosystem health, but merely
continues the agency's failed logging and firefighting policies of the
past.
PROBLEM: S.1028 WOULD CAUSE COMMUNITY
INSTABILITY
S.1028 claims to promote economic stability for the local
community by mandating a five year period of accelerated logging. In
recent years, job losses have occurred in the timber industry both
through outright mill closures and the automation of logging and
milling processes. This modernization has resulted in more wood being
processed by fewer workers. Thus, while the old Sierra Pacific
Industries mill in Quincy, California employs over 250 people, the new
SPI mill employs just 7 (seven) workers per shift. And whereas
formerly a crew of ten could be used to fell and yard trees on a typical
timber sale unit, now mechanical harvesters (i.e. "fellerbunchers")
need only 1 (one) worker to run these logging machines. Many of the
roadside fuelbreaks, particularly on the eastside, would be logged by
fellerbunchers.
Local foresters admit that the pace and scale of logging
mandated by S.1028 would exceed the current capacity of local falling
and hauling contractors. This would require the agency to go outside
the region and import contractors to get the cut out. There is no
promise that after the five year period is over for this "pilot project,"
the program will be continued; thus, S.1028 appears to feed into yet
another "boom and bust" cycle which has been the history of the
timber industry throughout the West. After the logging capacity has
been artificially inflated to fulfill the ambitious cutting goals set by
S.1028, there may be pressure to continue the program for "economic
stability" even if the environmental effects prove to be costly.
The stability promised by S.1028 comes at a time when the
region has already experienced and will continue to undergo economic
change. Existing local businesses have learned to diversify their
products and services, and the area continues to experience population
growth. As the Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project (SNEP) studies noted
(e.g. Duane, Kusel), these newcomers are bringing human and financial
capital with them, and are generating new employment opportunities in
the region. The new immigrants are attracted to the area because of
the recreational and scenic amenities provided by the region's natural
environment---amenities that will be degraded by the scale of logging
proposed by S.1028. Short-term stability should not come at the
expense of long-term sustainability, and S.1028 favors one sector of the
economy above all others, including southern California water users,
dependent on a healthy forest ecosystem.
S.1028 CONFLICTS WITH FEDERAL FIRE MANAGEMENT
POLICIES
The whole concept of "defensible" fuel profile zones continues
the agency's adherence to the damaging practice of "fighting" forests to
suppress fires. Ironically, each successful "battle" over blazes has only
intensified the fury of subsequent fires in this never-ending, unwinnable
"war" against Nature. The Forest Service now readily admits that
aggressive firefighting has led to the kinds forest health problems that
S.1028 claims to be solving, yet it provides no alternative to the
treadmill of mismanagement that annually wastes millions of tax dollars
and priceless natural resources on firefighting spectacles.
While S.1028 is based on the discredited fire suppression
philosophy, tactics, and strategies of the past, it also stands in
contradiction with recent revisions of fire management policies. The
new Federal Wildland Fire Management Policies affect all land
management agencies in the Departments of Interior and Agriculture.
The interagency body that created the new policies admitted some vital
truths: not all fires can or should be suppressed, and during large-scale,
severe wildfire incidents, it is only a change in the weather that enables
firefighters to "control" these kinds of fires. Among over 80 new fire
management policies
is the call to reeducate the general public and Forest Service employees
about the ecological role and positive uses of fire. The new federal
policies strongly advocate the use of prescribed fire from both natural
and managed ignitions in order to promote forest ecosystem health, and
to prevent the environmental, economic, and human costs of fire
suppression.
SOLUTION: IMPLEMENT UNDERSTORY PRESCRIBED
BURNING
Hazard fuels reduction is not a new idea in the Sierra Nevada:
Lassen Volcanic and Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Parks have been
doing this for over fifteen years. The National Park Service reduces
hazard fuels through understory prescribed burning, using both natural
and managed ignitions. The Forest Service, however, claims that it is
too dangerous to do understory prescribed burning, and insists that it
must do "mechanical treatment" instead. But how is it that the Park
Service has not had to cut build roads or clearcut timber in order to
reduce hazardous fuels? What does the Park Service know that the
Forest Service must learn?
If forest ecosystem health and community stability are the real
issues and not just phony excuses for harmful new timber sales, then
the Forest Service should follow the lead of the Park Service and
implement careful use of prescribed burning, with the goal of restoring
a natural fire regime across the landscape. Susan Husari, Deputy
Director of Fire and Aviation in Region Five, revealed in her SNEP
study that on Forest Service lands in the Sierra Nevada it costs $6,400
to suppress a one acre wildfire while it only costs $50 per acre to do
prescribed underburning. With increased prescribed burning, the size,
severity, and costs of future wildfires will decrease. If the intent of
Congress is to seek the most environmentally-sound and cost-effective
means to reduce the fuel hazard and fire risk, then the Forest Service
should be instructed and fully funded to implement understory
prescribed burning without commercial logging. The long-term goal
should be full restoration of ecological processes, including fire.
The fire scientists and fuels managers participating in the SNEP
studies (e.g. Husari & McKelvey; van Wagtendonk; Sessions, Johnson,
Sapsis, Bahro, & Gabriel; Weatherspoon & Skinner) universally voiced
strong support for prescribed fire to manage hazard fuels and reduce
wildfire risks. Dr. Jan van Wagtendonk said it clearest: "Prescribed
burning appears to be the most effective treatment for reducing a fire's
rate of spread, fireline intensity, flame length, and heat per unit area."
Although some of the SNEP papers gave some tentative support to the
creation of fuelbreaks, their analyses were based on the assumption that
these fuelbreaks would be used as the initial staging grounds for
conducting prescribed fires across the landscape rather than as
permanent sites to contain and control wildfires. Furthermore, personal
interviews with Skinner and Weatherspoon revealed that they believe
fuelbreaks should be located on the upper third portions of slopes in
areas that naturally have lighter fuel loads rather than plow them
through dense timber stands on lower slopes, as S.1028 intends to do.
The fuel hazards and fire risks of the Sierra Nevada are real,
but the SNEP Report revealed the bitter truth that the Forest Service's
logging, road-building, and firefighting policies of the past are what
have created the forest health and wildfire problems of today. It defies
logic and simple common sense to think that more logging,
road-building, and firefighting will be the cure. S.1028 ignores the
best fire science, undermines the new federal fire management policies,
and runs contrary to the views of the Forest Service's own fire experts.
It is time address real problems with real solutions and S. 1028 does
not meet that test.
REFERENCES
Agee, J.K. (1996) "The Influence of Forest Structure on Fire
Behavior," Proceedings, 17th Annual Forest Vegetation Management
Conference, Redding CA
Davis, L.S. (1965) "The Economics of Wildfire Protection with
Emphasis on Fuel-Break Systems," Calif. Division of Forestry,
Sacramento CA
Deeming, J.E. (1990) "Effects of Prescribed Fire on Wildfire
Occurrence and Severity," in Walstad, J.D. et.al. (eds.) Natural and
Prescribed Fire in Pacific Northwest Forests, Corvallis OR
Duane, T.P. (1996) "Human Settlement, 1850-2040," Sierra Nevada
Ecosystem Project, Vol. II, Davis CA
Husari, S.J. and K.S. McKelvey (1996) "Fire-Management Policies and
Programs," Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project, Vol. II, Davis CA
Kusel, J. (1996) "Well-Being in Forest-Dependent Communities, Part I:
A New Approach," Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project, Vol. II, Davis
CA
Sessions, J., Johnson, K.N., Sapsis, D., Bahro, B., and J.T. Gabriel
(1996) "Methodology for Simulating Forest Growth, Fire Effects,
Timber Harvest, and Watershed Disturbance under Different
Management Regimes," Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project, Vol. II,
Davis CA
Weatherspoon, C.P. and C.N. Skinner (1996) "Landscape-Level
Strategies for Forest Fuel Management," Sierra Nevada Ecosystem
Project, Vol. II, Davis CA
U.S. Dept. of Interior and Agriculture (1996) "Federal Wildland Fire
Management Policy and Program Review Implementation Action Plan
Report," National Interagency Fire Center, Boise ID
van Wagtendonk, J.W. (1996) "Use of a Deterministic Fire Growth
Model to Test Fuel Treatments," Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project,
Vol. II, Davis CA
Steve Holmer
Campaign Coordinator
Western Ancient Forest Campaign
1025 Vermont Ave. NW 3rd Floor
Washington, D.C. 20005
202/879-3188
202/879-3189 fax
wafcdc@igc.org