Forest Mismanagement Contributes to Severity of Wildfires

DURHAM, North Carolina, May 25, 2004 (ENS) - The severe wildfires that have devastated the Western United States in recent years are in part the unintended legacy of decades of misguided forest management practices, according to a Duke University fire ecologist.

Large wildfires now burning across California, Arizona and New Mexico show that the Bush administration's plan to "fireproof" the West's forests has backfired, said Norman Christensen Jr., professor of ecology and founding dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke.

"Fire suppression, logging and grazing on fire-prone public land were intended to reduce the risk of fires, but many Western forests are now more flammable," Christensen said, adding that the federal government must reprioritize how and where its wildfire management dollars are spent.

Although it is still early in the 2004 wildfire season, six large fires are burning today - two in Arizona, one in Colorado, one in Florida and two in New Mexico, and national fire managers are predicting above-normal wildfire activity for much of the West.

In 2003 some 3.2 million acres burned and the Forest Service and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) spent more than $1 billion to fight these fires.

In 2002, some seven million acres went up in flames and the federal government spent more than $1.6 billion to fight fires across 15 states.

The two agencies had to borrow some $300 million from other accounts in 2003 to fight forest fires.

Current wildfire management practices that emphasize logging ignore local conditions like weather and topography.

The most dangerous fuel source in most Western forests is ground fuel, he said, dry grasses, pine needles and low shrubs, and this fuel source is not removed by logging.

"Ignited ground fuels can create enough heat to scorch a tree up to a height of 150 feet," Christensen said. "Reducing them should be the first priority of any wildfire management plan. Yet the practice of suppressing wildfires has allowed debris to accumulate to dangerous levels on the forest floor."

Fire management authorities should use their scarce resources on wildfire management in the forest-urban interface, not in remote areas where fires pose no threat to humans, Christensen said.

"A management plan that takes into account local differences and targets the most hazardous fuels can not bring back the lives, homes and communities already lost," he said. "It might, however, make a difference in the future."

Last fall the Bush administration succeeded in convincing Congress to enact its Healthy Forests plan, which expedites forest thinning projects on some 20 million acres of federal land and includes $760 million for forest thinning projects, with half earmarked for the communities considered most at risk.

Critics believe the plan is a giveaway to the timber industry and does little to protect communities most at risk from wild fire.

Christiansen warns that "indiscriminate logging" aggravates the problem by thinning a fire-prone forest’s canopy and littering its floor with sawdust and other combustible debris.

“Loss of canopy increases wind speed and air temperatures and decreases humidity in the forest,” Christensen says. “As a result, ground fuel fires that break out can spread faster and farther than they would normally.”

Some 190 million acres of public land are believed to need treatment for drought, insect infestation and potential fire.