Fire Management

Wilderness fire is an extremely complex issue. An entire handbook could and should be written on this topic. A number of complex factors can be involved with a particular fire situation, such as the presence of endangered species, size of the Wilderness, proximity of homes, other structures, or commercial timber stands, fire conditions, time of year, etc. The unique complexities of various situations will not be examined in detail here, but a general discussion on Wilderness fire is presented below.

Many Wilderness ecosystems evolved with fire as a major influencing force, shaping vegetative type, ecosystem health, and species abundance. Many plants such as lodgepole pine and chaparral shrub species have evolved with frequent fire, and regenerate their health and vigor through periodic burns. Some wildlife species gain almost immediate habitat benefits after a fire, whereas other species may experience a decline in their population due to the habitat changes. For example, deer and elk benefit greatly from the increase in grasses and forbes that result after a fire, while burned snags provide expanded nesting opportunities for many birds and small mammals. In contrast, moose populations can decrease due to loss of brushy willow thickets needed for forage and cover. Cyclical changes in species composition and vegetative mosaics after fire are a dynamic and natural aspect of healthy, functioning ecosystems.

In some areas, decades of fire suppression have altered ecosystems, resulting in unnatural woody fuel accumulations and dense stands of vegetation. Rather than viewing fire with fear, it must be allowed to return to the Wilderness as an important natural process.

The goal of wilderness fire management should be to allow naturally-ignited fires to burn in Wilderness while protecting human life and property in or near Wilderness. Naturally ignited fires that start outside the Wilderness should not be prevented from burning into the Wilderness.
Fire is addressed in the Special Provisions section of the Wilderness Act, § 4(d). In this section, Congress granted the land management agencies very broad discretion in regard to three things — the management of fire, insects, and disease.

“… such measure may be taken as may be necessary in the control of fire, insects, and diseases, subject to such conditions as the Secretary deems desirable.”

This broad discretion allows managers to either let a wildfire burn, or actively suppress it using a wide array of tools and equipment, including motorized means. At the time the Act was written, fire management in the United States consisted of fighting actively burning fires. Preventive fire management was not a common concept in the 1950’s and 1960’s. While it is clear that Congress intended the agencies to have wide discretion in fighting wildfires, but it is less clear if the Act’s provision for wide discretion extends to conducting preventive fire management activities such as forest thinning, prescribed ignitions, or clearing preventive fire lines inside Wilderness.

Protecting Structures

Substantial fire science research has studied why some homes and structures ignite when exposed to fire while others do not. Research findings demonstrate that whether structures are likely to ignite depends on conditions that exist within 100-200 feet of the structure. This indicates that thinning vegetation and igniting prescribed fires miles away will have little affect on protecting structures from fire (request free videos on structural ignitions from Jack Cohen, Intermountain Fire Sciences Laboratory, Missoula, MT).

Structural ignitions are a factor of heat, time, and flammability of materials. For this reason, towering crown fires can pass over structures without igniting them if the structures have undergone basic fire-proofing steps because such fires move fast, sweeping over and past a structure within a few seconds, which is not long enough to build up enough heat to ignite low-flammability construction materials.

Research done on all the homes that burned during the Los Alamos fires in 1998 and the Bitterroot fires in 2000 indicate that the type of construction materials used and the type of yard maintenance pursued are the most significant factors in preventing ignition, not vegetation manipulations carried out a quarter mile away or further. Most structural ignitions appear to occur due to low creeping ground fires that extend out from the fringes of the main fire, fueled by dry grass, leaves, needles and shrubbery located near a home’s foundation, or by small blowing embers called ‘firebrands’ that are carried ahead of a fire in the strong air currents created by the fire, igniting wood shingled roofs and leaves or needles left lying in raingutters or under porches.

This evidence strongly suggests that vegetative manipulations in wilderness such as thinning or prescribed burns are not necessary or even linked to protecting structures located more than 200 feet from the Wilderness boundary. Vegetative manipulations should therefore only be considered, if at all, for non-Wilderness lands between communities and the Wilderness boundary, or on Wilderness lands that are within a 200 foot perimeter of important structures.

Protecting other Property

Fire suppression or manipulating vegetation to reduce fuels are often cited as necessary in order to protect adjacent private property such as crops or commercial timber stands from fire. Managers often claim they have an obligation to protect adjacent lands, and that the agency faces legal liability if a wildfire leaves federal lands and damages private property.

Legal history does not support the liability fear. Lawsuits brought by private parties in regard to property damage caused by wildfire have been unsuccessful when the public agency has a fire management plan in place and followed clear fire management goals. When a statute permit managers to exercise discretion, as the Wilderness Act does in the case of fire, the federal agency is immunized against liability under the federal Tort Claims Act, even if unforeseen and serious damage results.

Even without the specter of liability, it makes sense for managers and adjacent landowners to cooperate in preventing fire from leaving federal lands and damaging private property. The property owner has an obligation to participate in protection of their own property, so protective measures should be focused outside the wilderness boundary. For example, if a cleared fire line is desirable, it should be placed outside wilderness. The federal agencies’ statutory obligation is to protect the wilderness resource, not sacrifice the public’s interest unnecessarily to protect private property if other methods of protection are available.

Manipulations to Reduce Fuel Loads

A commonly heard argument for thinning trees and using prescribed fire inside wilderness is to reduce ‘unnatural’ fuel loads. This argument is based on the premise that reducing fuel loads will decrease the risk of large ‘catastrophic’ fires. A second argument is that reducing the risk of ‘catastrophic fire will eventually enable managers to allow future wildfires to resume a historical role in the ecosystem.
A major point to keep in mind is that the ecological role of fire in an ecosystem is extremely complex, and varies greatly from one ecosystem to the next. Historical evidence indicates that many ecosystems experienced significant stand-replacing fires every century or two, long before active fire suppression in the 21st century created the fuel buildup that is present in many forests today. This suggests that major stand-replacing fires are not necessarily unnatural nor catastrophic.

A second major point to keep in mind is that changes that occur due to a wildfire are not necessarily bad in terms of ecological health. Despite the alarming sound of the phrase “catastrophic fire,” nature begins revegetating and repopulating an area with wildlife soon after a fire of any size has moved through.

Another issue associated with the use of prescribed fire is that it does not mimic the ecological affects of a naturally occurring ignition. The reason for this is because prescribed fires are not conducted under the same conditions nor at the same time of year. In order to keep prescribed fires from getting out of control, ignitions are generally planned for spring or fall, when conditions are cooler and moister. This affects nesting species and young animals born in the spring that cannot keep up with their parents as they move out of the fire’s path. Plants are also in a different stage of growth during the spring and fall than they are during the summer when most wildfires naturally ignite, so the impact a fire has on life cycles may be quite different at different times of the year.

The bottom line is that intentionally manipulating vegetation in Wilderness for fire management purposes may not be ecologically necessary. Compelling evidence that such action is really necessary should be provided prior to approving any such action that trammels an area’s wild character.

Fire Management Plans

National fire policy stresses that all natural fires should be controlled unless there is a fire management plan in place for the Wilderness and, even then, that natural ignitions will be allowed to burn only under narrowly defined prescriptions. Fire Management Plans should prescribe conditions that allow naturally ignited fires to burn in Wilderness. If planned ignitions are considered necessary to reduce fuel levels to a point where natural fires can again define Wilderness conditions, then ignitions should first be conducted on adjacent non-Wilderness lands whenever possible. Once fuels are reduced on surrounding non-Wilderness lands it may be possible to simply allow fire to burn inside the Wilderness without further manipulation. Planned ignitions, however, will not create the same biological effects as natural fires unless they are applied under the same conditions and time of year in which naturally ignited fires generally occur. All planned ignitions should be supported by an environmental analysis and public comment pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act.
Although the Wilderness Act grants managers wide discretion in regard to fire, managers should be encouraged to adhere to the spirit of the Act and refrain from using motorized equipment such as chainsaws and bulldozers in Wilderness unless a written minimum requirement analysis documents their absolute necessity. Fire control efforts should emphasize natural features (rivers, ridges, vegetation changes) and hand tools to protect the areas Wilderness character. All efforts should be made to limit manipulation and motorized intrusions on an area’s Wilderness character.

Fire management policies and plans should reflect the following:

1. We must acknowledge that human intervention runs counter to the spirit, if not the letter of the Wilderness Act. The emphasis of the Act is on allowing natural processes to operate freely. When managers light the match, fire ceases to be a natural force and instead becomes a manipulative tool.

2. Wilderness fire plans should be developed on a landscape level. Planning on a larger geographic scale can allow fires that start outside Wilderness to burn into the Wilderness. At the same time, strategies to protect adjacent lands or structures can be implemented without interfering with Wilderness fires.

3. Structures can be protected without total fire suppression. Techniques ranging from using fire-resistant wraps and foam to clearing away nearby ground fuels have proven very effective in saving cabins, bridges, fire towers, and similar structures. It isn’t necessary to conduct prescribed burns or suppress natural fires to protect structures.

4. Private landowners bear the responsibility for protecting their land. If a person chooses to build a cabin in the woods, it isn’t the public’s obligation to protect it at all costs. Similarly, it’s inappropriate to engage in a prescribed fire plan that manipulates hundreds of acres of Wilderness in order to protect a private inholding.

5. Creating buffer zones or fire breaks within Wilderness is inappropriate. Actions to control the effects of fire that may spread onto adjacent public or private land should focus efforts on those lands.

6. The role Native Americans played in fire history is important, but shouldn’t affect current Wilderness fire policy. Congress defined designated Wilderness as areas where humans would not (in the future) occupy or intentionally modify the landscape. Furthermore, for political and ecological reasons it would be impossible to re-create pre-Columbian conditions.

7. Prescribed fire should only be considered in Wilderness if it is for a wilderness purpose, such as being an intermediate step toward allowing natural fires to burn in the future, and only then after showing that a natural fire regime can not achieve the same purposes. The burden of proof should always be on those who propose to manipulate wilderness.

If suppression actions are taken, the emphasis should be on using “Minimum Impact Suppression Techniques.” Any motorized equipment considered must be shown to be necessary through a written minimum requirement analysis.