When our Forests and Smokey the Bear are at odds, It’s a Hot Topic!
- annechughes
- Mar 4, 2023
- 5 min read
Updated: Mar 6, 2023
Group 3: Blog #2: Anne Hughes, Zipora Otieno & Bret Dannis
Out of control wildfire, photo Geolog
Only YOU can prevent Forest Fires. . . but SHOULD we??
Stop and think for a moment. Imagine being inside a burning furnace every year with smoke filling your lungs, choking, and wearing heavy garments, trying to extinguish raging fires. Visualize the wildlife, plants, trees, and other endangered species that die from wildfires. Think about wildfire smoke that affects the health and well-being of millions of people around the United States. But this is not all. There are other cascading impacts. Every year, the U.S. government spends billions of dollars fighting fires. Homes, vital infrastructure, and lives are also lost.
More and Bigger Fires!
More worrisome is the fact that the fires are getting worse. There is compelling evidence that wildfires in the United States have increased in magnitude, frequency, and severity. During the past two decades, fire events have tripled, quadrupled in size, and become more widespread than in the previous two decades, a new study has shown. Moreover, the most devastating fires are also more frequent, larger, and more likely to co-occur with other intense fires.
These maps show the spatial distribution of fires in the United States in 1984–1999 and 2005–2018. Small yellow dots represent small fires, large orange dots represent fires considered large by 1984–1999 standards, and large red dots represent fires considered large by 2005–2018 standards. Credit: Iglesias et al., 2022. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abc0020
Drivers of change in wildfire patterns
Although wildfires are a natural phenomenon caused by intense heat from the sun or lightning, it turns out that recent destruction is not all Mother Nature's fault. A new study has shown that humans are primarily to blame for the shifts in wildfire patterns in the United States. For example, during the past two decades, human activities caused 84 percent of all wildfires in the U.S., representing approximately 40,000 fires annually. There is no doubt that human beings are playing a substantial role in changing wildfire patterns. Euro-American settlement and 20th-century fire suppression practices have drastically altered fire regimes by allowing excessive fuel[1] accumulation (and severe wildfires) in some areas and reduced flammability resulting from shifts to more fire-resistant forest species.
Before European settlement, Native Americans used prescribed burns[2] for diverse purposes, ranging from cultivation, basketry, and medicine to the extensive modification of landscapes for travel or game. European settlers caused drastic changes in fire regimes throughout North America. Forests were cleared for agriculture and to provide fuel for heating, powering steam engines, and industrial production. Unregulated timber harvesting led to residual woody debris (fuels) accumulating that caused catastrophic fires. In response, the U.S. government instituted fire suppression policies that excluded prescribed burning from previously fire-adapted landscapes.
[1] Fuels are the flammable materials found in forests, typically including dead plants, small twigs, dry vegetation, and tree remnants.
[2] A prescribed burn is an intentional setting of forest areas on fire. The whole process is carefully scheduled, managed, and executed. For this reason, it is also called controlled or planned burning.
Why are prescribed burns critical in forest management?
A fire requires three things to burn: fuel, oxygen, and a heat source (the fire triangle). When firefighters try to put off a blaze, they always discuss the fire triangle. The main idea is that if one of the pillars of the fire triangle can be eliminated, the fire can be controlled and ultimately extinguished. Safe and successful prescribed burning eradicates excess fuel reducing the risk of intense and dangerous wildfires. It also helps prevent the spread of invasive species, makes room for new growth by removing old vegetation, and combats trees that block shade-intolerant plants.
Smokey the Bear, photo U.S. Forest Service Wildfire Prevention photo Smokewise
What They Found
When a fire is excluded from a habitat that historically burned:
Loss of ecosystem services, including the release of nutrients in the soil, vegetation diversity, and reduction of the pile-up of organic debris.
Increased volume of faster-burning fuels leads to more extensive and more destructive wildfires.
Thicker forest canopy creates a dark and dead ground cover, lacking diversity of plants.
Loss of native trees that create a diverse forest to support more reptiles, birds, amphibians, and insects.
More out-of-control wildfires that affect human structures, loss of private property, and loss of human life.
Uncontrolled wildfire in Illinois, photo NWI times
Did you know?
Prescribing controlled burns also known as intentionally set fires, has become a powerful tool for ecological restoration for managers nationwide. Choosing when to burn, how much to burn, and how often has been a long learning curve for those managing restored areas. The decision is usually based on human uses and desires, our agricultural and hunting seasons, or just when we have time to get together a group of pyro minded friends. Much research has shown that animals can adapt for the most part and actually do better with fire managed habitats, so the timing of the burns is less critical. The trees do best with spring burns instead of the non-growing winter burns that most managers choose to do.
What's Stopping Us?
Despite the benefits that may come with prescribed burns, we must first be able to use them effectively. This subject is often touchy and requires navigation around political, legal, and operational barriers. As our society continues towards increased urbanization and fire suppression, people become unfamiliar with landscape burning. Along with this, many environmental laws limit the ability to effectively use prescribed burning. Although laws like the Clean Air Act and the Endangered Species Act do a lot of good, they restrict when and where burns can occur. To safely burn these landscapes, wind speed, relative humidity, and fuel moisture conditions must align. This creates a small window of opportunity for prescribed burns to take place.
Prescribed burn with heavy dry fuels, photo IDNR
Looking Ahead
As a society progresses, we must remember where we came from. Fire has had a crucial influence on landscapes for thousands of years, and its current use should be considered more heavily. We can still learn a lot about prescribed burns. To keep up with our changing world, increased social acceptance and public awareness of the long-term effects of prescribed burns must be made. If we move in the right direction, we will utilize prescribed burns to limit the amount of property and lives lost from wildfires. We can also increase ecological resources, conservation efforts, and ecosystem service. For more information on prescribed burns in Illinois go to https://www.illinoisprescribedfirecouncil.org/
References
Ryan, K. C., Knapp, E. E., & Varner, J. M. (2013). Prescribed fire in North American forests and woodlands: history, current practice, and challenges. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 11(s1), e15-e24.
Balch, J.K., Bradley, B.A., Abatzoglou, J.T., Nagy, R.C., Fusco, E.J., Mahood, A.L. (2017). Human-started wildfires expand the fire niche across the United States. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 114, 2946–2951
Nagy, R.C., Fusco, E.J., Bradley, B.A., Abatzoglou, J.T., Balch, J.K. (2018). Human-related ignitions increase the number of large wildfires across U.S. ecoregions. Fire 1, 4
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