| Change is
afoot in the wildfire policy in Idaho's national forests,
and I had the opportunity to see how that policy has
changed over the past four years in the Nez Pere National
Forest.
On Aug. 16, I accompanied Scott Russell, resource adviser
for the Rattlesnake Fire and Nez Perce Forest fish biologist,
to the Red River Ranger Station, the Incident Command
Post for the Rattlesnake Fire.
Russell met me at the Elk City Ranger Station late
in the morning on the 16th. I had followed a Forest
Service pickup with two pallets of fire wrap down the
grade from smoky Grangeville, Idaho. The air was clear
on the South Fork, safe from the wind blown smoke of
the Poe Cabin fire south of White Bird and the short-lived
Little Canyon fire which flared up and was contained
by resourceful farmers.
I followed his dust through town, up and over the hill,
and down the Red River Road. We drove through the heart
of Bennett timber lands. Cut three to four years ago,
these damaged lodgepole and subalpine fir forests contrasted
starkly with the surrounding Forest land.
District Ranger Terry Nevius met us at Red River Ranger
Station. He was joined by IMT (Incident Management Team)
Information Officer Jennifer Costich, and Incident Commander
Bill Cowin.
Russell was the point man for the Rattlesnake Fire
and had worked it since it ignited on July 13. Russell
is familiar with this type of operation, as he has been
on the Nez Perce Forest for 15 years. Jennifer and Bill
were part of IMT number three. IMTs are replaced every
two weeks to ensure that fresh and rested legs are always
present, protecting both fire team personnel and ensuring
that high quality work continue through an entire fire
incident.
While waiting to leave for Dixie, I pored over several
crisp new multilayer maps. The day's recently updated
activity map for the "Snake", sparked July
13 in the grassy Salmon River breaks, showed continued
movement north and west well into the Gospel Hump Wilderness
and Jumbo Mining District and also northeast along the
Salmon River corridor within the Frank Church Wilderness.
Daily updated maps are the norm; many times appearing
thanks to nightly aerial surveys utilizing infrared
technology.
 "This
fire is the perfect marriage
– Scott Russell,
Resource adviser for the Rattlesnake Fire
Thus far the "Snake" had avoided private
property. This was not a WFU (wildland-fire unit with
a let-burn policy). Though well within two wilderness
areas and the Wild & Scenic Salmon River, fire officials
considered this blaze important to suppress, though
to date, well over one month later, containment is at
10 percent. Until recently it was nil. (At press time
the fire is at 25% containment).
This fire had been labeled a suppression fire (red)
on the zone fire maps because of its proximity to Dixie,
Idaho. This "town" lies in the heart of wild
central Idaho; an outpost surrounded by vast lodgepole
pine forests and inventoried roadless areas on all sides.
There are only about 25 year-round residents of Dixie.
Flashback.
Wildland firefighting began on a scorching August day
in 1886. Captain Moses Harris of the First Cavalry,
recently appointed by General Philip Sheridan as the
new superintendent of Yellowstone National Park, ordered
his men to attack a wildfire near Mammoth Hot Springs.
From that time on, fire has been battled at an incredible
cost to human life (24 firefighters in 2006), ecological
integrity (erosion & compaction of already thin
& unstable soils, fragmentation of intact forest
lands), and our pocketbooks (45 percent of the U.S.
Forest Service budgets in 2006).
Flash forward.
Something different was happening here, however. Few
fire lines had been dug. (At press time bulldozers had
dug lines on Forest land near the Whitewater Ranch.
Up until this time hand lines were the norm; dug on
the north and south ends of Dixie, and several others
at spot fires and in proximity to Orogrande, Concord,
and Whitewater Ranch.) Instead of taking this fire head
on, nearly always a lose-lose scenario, the Forest had
put almost all of its efforts and resources into protection
of private property.
The Rattlesnake Fire has cost taxpayers $16.2 million
with a $17-million dollar ceiling according to Nez Perce
Forest Supervisor Jane Cottrell. According to her calculations
this fire was costing $167 per-acre compared to an average
of $138 per-acre for suppression fires on the Forest.
The Bridge and Boundary fires, much smaller and to the
north were being approached similarly. To date the Bridge
Fire was costing about $13 an acre.
Compare this to the disastrous Slims Fire suppression
action, which occurred in Meadow Creek Roadless Area
in 2003. The fire, only 1,700 acres and threatening
a designated campground, was suppressed at a cost of
$22 million dollars in only a several day period.
Meadow Creek, proposed in part for wilderness designation
by the Nez Perce Forest, is a geologically unique area
and one important for wildlife, rare resident and migratory
fish, and significant stands of mid-elevation old growth.
It lies adjacent to the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness
to the east, a place where fires have been allowed to
burn for the past 30 years.
Cottrell was quick to acknowledge the Slims fire suppression
as a mistake. "The biggest difference now,"
she said, "before we do full confinement, containment,
and control, we assess values at risk and use indirect
tactics. Instead of trying to run out and put a dozer
line in, we think about what we can do to protect the
values at risk."
Values at risk is one of many new guiding phrases that
fall under Adaptive Management Response (AMR), a relatively
new system of decision making used by the IMTs. With
this more flexible approach, the Forest Service may
finally have the opportunity to change some of the misconceptions
surrounding fire and limit the damage caused by Smokey
Bear and an aging fire policy designed by the U.S. Army.
Says Cottrell of AMR, "Lots will say this system
endangers communities or makes bigger fires. The prime
example people need to see is the Selway-Bitterroot
Wilderness, with thirty years of wild fire use."
What Cottrell refers to is somewhat unique to this
pocket of the West. The Forests in this region have
long had the most common sense fire policy in the nation.
A higher percentage of fires have been allowed to burn
in this part of Idaho and in parts of Western Montana
than anywhere else in the nation, in large part because
of the presence of large designated wilderness areas.
"Because wildfire has been allowed to return,
the last ten years have been smaller fires," she
continued. "I'll bet my reputation that any fire
that starts in the lower Gospel Hump next year will
not be this big."
Russell mirrors Cottrell's optimism. "This fire
is the perfect marriage between resource protection
and rehabilitation and property protection."
The decisions made by the IMTs on this fire demonstrate
a priority shift. In a world of limited resources, human
health and safety and structure protection are more
important than preventing a fire from "destroying
the forest." In fact, much to the chagrin of the
Forest Service, the Rattlesnake fire has already accomplished
the objectives of the Crooked Cove Fuel Reduction project,
burning nearly the entire project area, which was scheduled
to occur in 2008.
According to Gary Macfarlane, Ecosystem Defense Director
for Friends of the Clearwater, a public land advocacy
group based in North-central Idaho, "The Forest
Service still has a long way to go, both in bringing
this fire-industrial complex under control financially,
and in acknowledging the limitations of defensible space
during a wildland fire event."
An often cited paper written by Forest Service researcher
Jack Cohen in 2001 reports that homes themselves can
provide fuel for fire if they are made of flammable
material or exposed to burning vegetation. Cohen says
that "residential compatibility with wildland fires
can be more effective at preventing wildland-urban fire
disasters than the current approach of emergency wildland-urban
fire protection."
According to Cottrell, "Property owners are going
to have to take more responsibility. Some communities
aren't in fire protection districts. They are either
going to have to pay or take on more responsibility."
One resident of Orogrande, northwest of Dixie, has
already done just that. Roof-line sprinklers, a pump
house that draws from the creek, and eighteen in-ground
sprinklers stand between his property and future fires.
Once the fire closes in enough to drive him from his
fire hose, he need only flip the pump switch, drive
away and hope for the best.
This is far from the norm, however. With no tax base,
Dixie, Orogrande, and many other places will continue
to rely on federally funded fire protection. Most Dixie
residents have gratefully accepted the help. According
to Cliff Ragdale, volunteer fire chief, "IMT folks
have done remarkable work to protect homes. Top notch
work." He feels like 90 percent of structures would
survive a fire if it moved up Crooked Creek to the unincorporated
town.
Last year's efforts ate up 47 percent of the Nez Perce
Forest's budget. And with what appears to be a more
aggressive shift in efforts to battle the "Snake",
the $17 million dollar ceiling set for the fire could
soon expand.
According to Nevius, "its only going to get more
expensive (to fight fires)." He expects fire fighting
costs will to exceed 50 percent of the Forest's budget
this year.
The model provided by the Rattlesnake, now topping
100,000 acres, isn't perfect. Costs associated with
protecting private property will continue to escalate
as more cabins and summer homes are built in fire dependent
ecosystems. Discussion over who pays for what will continue
until the first lightning strikes a ponderosa pine snag
next summer.
According to Steven J. Pyne, a professor at Arizona
State University and a former wildland firefighter who
fought fires for 15 years on the North Rim of the Grand
Canyon, the ecology of wildfire must be part of these
discussions. In his essay, "Thinking about the
Biological Basis for Fire," Pyne makes the case
for understanding fire as far more than a disturbance,
much too integral to be seen and treated as an independent
force to be combated.
Wildfire must be studied before, during,
and after its return to a specific ridge line or draw.
Fire ecologists and botanists must be allowed to enter
the fire-industrial complex currently occupied primarily
by firefighters and foresters. If we are to let wildfire
continue to do its important work, which will eventually
reduce future opportunity for catastrophic fire and
accomplish many of the Forest's costly management objectives
we must understand it as primarily ecological.
Will Boyd is the Education Director
for Friends
of the Clearwater, a grassroots public land advocacy
group based in Moscow, Idaho. He lives with his wife
and three children and teaches chemistry and physical
science at a local school.
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