A higher number of more intense, destructive, and costly wildfires are likely to occur during the next decade on wildlands throughout the West. The 1999 General Accounting Office (GAO) report highlighted nearly 40 million acres at risk for catastrophic wildfire, with subsequent reports indicating the acreage at risk nearer 80 million acres. After the unprecedented wildfires of 2000 in the northern Rockies, and fire-related fatalities in Washington and California in 2001, a national wildfire plan is now in its first year of full-scale implementation. However, the 2002 wildfire season has begun at a record pace, with over 3.5 million acres burned, over 1000 structures consumed, and several fatalities before the end of July.

While wildfire is spectacular, the phenomenon is a complex event, not well understood by the general public, much less easily covered by reporters with daily deadlines. To increase our understanding of the wide array of issues associated with wildfire, this brochure highlights key aspects of wildfire behavior, prevention, and suppression strategies.

Tracking the causes of wildfire in a given region (as opposed to seeing only broad averages mentioned earlier) establishes trends, likelihood, and eventually suggests local education, prevention, and suppression strategies. For example, many local areas are lightning prone due to geography and weather, or have a history of wildfires from escaped debris burning. Wildfires along roads and highways are often associated with risks from smoking, hot exhaust or hot brakes.

How can we further identify the likelihood for wildfire in a given region:

• Weather: The great thrust of the Sierra Nevadas rising from the northern California foothills are famous for creating favorable lightning conditions, and daily increases in updrafts. As night approaches, winds drop off, humidity levels rise, and temperatures fall, lessening immediate risk for intense fire. The very concept of a "fire season" refers to the increasing hours of sun and rising temperatures during June through September that dries wildland fuels and raises their wildfire susceptibility. Local and regional fire-fighting agencies monitor these local conditions –assessing the daily or seasonal risks to establish precaution levels and protection strategies.

• Drought: Western forest and rangelands are subject to cyclical prolonged drought conditions that can greatly increase the likelihood of an intense, destructive wildfire. Drought can be defined as a significantly lower amount of precipitation over several months from the average. (This explains why a drought can be in effect even through the winter snowfalls, and can persist for several years.) Over time, drought lowers the moisture level in the critical 1000-hour fuels (trees and snags fallen over naturally, old logs, etc.). These fuels are normally difficult to ignite due to their normal moisture levels, but once dried out, they become "available fuel" for even an otherwise light surface fire. Drought affects landscapes, increasing likelihood of wildfires across vast acres. Drought also lowers the overall vigor of trees, making them susceptible to insect attack and disease for many years into the future.

• Slope: On level ground, a wildfire would tend to spread in a circle, consuming fuels on a "front" in every direction. As a slope is encountered, a predominant uphill direction of spread is established, along with an increased rate of spread and wildfire intensity. The cause is simple: heat from the fire travels up the slope "pre-heating" fuels for easier and faster combustion.

• Timber type and health: Fundamental distinctions must be made between various forest ecosystems. A juniper/brush ecosystem does not normally contain sufficient fuel continuity to sustain a high intensity wildfire. Lower elevation ponderosa pine forests will typically be more fire resistant as they have evolved with a natural occurrence of wildland fires. Mixed conifer stands are more susceptible to fires, because of their thinner bark and branches that grow closer to the ground. High elevation forests have lower fuel loads, experience lower temperatures and more precipitation – all decreasing overall risk. Continuous forested stands will spread fire far more easily than pockets of trees with natural ridges, meadows, or fuel breaks.

• The amount, type, and structure of flammable fuels on a given acre is critical to understanding the likelihood of an intense, destructive wildfire. A good way to begin this discussion is to refer to the numerous "Fire Safe" or "Defensive Space" programs developed to protect houses and cabins in the woods. Environmental groups, natural resource industries, and public agencies all agree on the need to manage vegetation around a property in order to reduce wildfire spread, intensity, and therefore its destructive potential.

1. reduce the amount of flammable fuels on their property to lower likelihood of fire spread and ease of ignition (heating prior to combustion). This comes from using fire retardant building materials such as composition or metal roofs rather than shakes, and removing some of the overall vegetative volume, focusing on the first 30 feet around the home (varies by region). Besides providing room for fire equipment, the 30 feet allows the radiant heat to dissipate instead of heating the structure.
2. remove small trees and large brush that could carry a surface fire up into the next big concentration of needles and leaves. These small trees and brush (called "ladder" fuels) ) allow fire to climb up into that next large fuel concentration.
3. create strategic fuel breaks (space from one combustible source to another) by removing vegetation a number of feet from their houses. Roads and driveways are fuel breaks that, while not necessarily strategic, provide crucial access & escape.

Assessing the impact of a fire can be examined in a number of categories.

• Wildlife: Were there unique habitats lost - well-known feeding or wintering grounds? Any identified endangered species? (Was the fire burning in Habitat Conservation Areas, Spotted Owl circles?)

• Recreation: Damage to campgrounds, roads and structures in scenic areas, parks, etc.
• Commercial timber: Value of forest products in active forest management designated areas.
• Air quality: An issue of increasing importance as air quality measurement techniques improve and public expectations increase. Wildfire smoke contains dioxin, particulates, and great quantities of carbon, impacting human health, and atmospheric levels of these gases or impurities.
• Soil productivity: Fire can effect the physical, chemical and biological characteristics of any soil, which is normally full of microorganisms leading to a normal absorption of rainfall, and symbiotic relationships with trees and other vegetation. In extreme fire intensity resulting in oven-like ground temperatures, soils can become hydrophobic, losing their capacity to absorb moisture as a result of a fine powder-like layer of ash that makes water bead on the surface. Which soil types locally are most fragile? When soil types are examined in relation to slope and intensity of fire, the full impact begins to emerge. Soil damage and subsequent erosion have substantial multi-generation consequences.
• Watersheds and streams: There are well-documented instances of severe damage to reservoirs silted in, losing years of their planned use. Are there mass soil movements into local streams? What toxics are being delivered to the streams following a wildfire?
• Structures - archeological or residential: Colorado wildfires in 2001 unearthed a number of previously hidden Native American archeological sites, on the other hand many historical structures are at risk. Are there local historical sites within the burned area that might have been damaged? New residences, vacation cabins or second homes are increasingly built in dispersed woodland developments – has their local emergency services infrastructure kept pace with the increased demand? How many houses are in danger or have been damaged or lost?
• Communities: Loss of businesses, drinking water supplies, tourism opportunities, suppression costs to communities, fatalities or injuries.
• Costs of suppression: Regardless of the debates over when and if to fight wildfires, there are direct costs to maintain a suppression infrastructure, and use it. The limited budgets of local fire departments, and state fire-fighting agencies can be the most easily tracked for impacts from a particular wildfire.

One wildfire veteran sums it up this way, "The cheapest fire to suppress is the one prevented. The second least is the one suppressed while still small, with an efficient and effective initial attack force." Aspects of suppression are highlighted here, prevention is discussed next, and whether to suppress and under what conditions is covered later.

The well known fire triangle is a good place to start – combustion needs three elements: fuel, heat, and oxygen. Removing or depleting one of these elements will extinguish the fire.

• Detection. Accomplished with aerial observation, woods workers, fire lookouts, and the general public. Early detection of a wildfire increases the options for effective suppression. The detection infrastructure has changed considerably over the past two decades, with more reliance on aircraft rather than firetowers. Improved communications technology broadens the number of eyes among woodsworkers and the general public, while computerized record keeping and analysis allows for a more knowledgeable and focused understanding of when and where fires might start.
• Effective reporting. The key points for any locale is to be clear on who specifically to report fires to, and what critical information to gather and pass along:

• Time first observed (subsequent sightings or overflights at later intervals can then identify rate of spread and other changing fire behavior).
• Location – With aerial and mapping resources, establishing the exact location of a fire is a quick, relatively easy procedure. Of critical importance is the location for access to suppression, or the topography that will impact future fire behavior.
• Fire characteristics – The color and column behavior of smoke is an initial key.

• Access. Crucial to bringing resources to bear on a fire, is whether there is road access. In the absence of roads, smokejumpers brought in by plane, or helicopters ferry in initial attack crews. Part of a wildfire fighting infrastructure is a series of "helipads" around the forested landscape, cleared of snags and trees that would endanger the landing of helicopters ferrying crews, or loading water bags. Northern California’s Quincy Library Group advocates for a system of strategic fuel breaks built along highways or ridges that combine road access with acres significantly thinned to stop or slow the fire’s momentum. In contrast, the recent shift of emphasis resulting in forest road closures and reduced road maintenance in the national forests will inevitably impact access from a wildfire suppression perspective.
• Importance of early action. Fire behavior changes as fire size increases. The actual length of the fire’s leading edge can increase exponentially forcing a similar expansion of effort to suppress the fire. Common rules of thumb are that the nature of fire changes after:

• 10 AM each day - the heat of the day affecting fire intensity, and the likelihood of winds,
• it grows over 10 acres in size - after which fires can begin to create their own "weather."

• Strategies and Tactics. Two broad strategies are recognized – direct or indirect attack.

• In the best of circumstances, fire incident commanders will attack the head of the wildfire – literally building control lines in the path of the fire, removing fuel, or applying water or some other agent to stop the fire in its tracks.
• If the fire is too intense, spreading rapidly, poorly accessed, or in terrain without adequate safety exits or zones, it is attacked indirectly. Control lines are built along the more stable sides of the fire, continually narrowing the active head of the fire until conditions are right to attack directly.

The required level of training varies greatly depending on experience and responsibilities in a fire suppression effort. A typical woods worker whose primary job is harvest, silvicultural or other specialized activity, may be called upon to assist in fire suppression, for which there are minimum training requirements. For these workers (and in rare cases for volunteers off the streets), a 1 time

8-hour course developed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). This course with exam, explores basic fire principles, tactics, fire behavior, weather, personal protective equipment and the standard fire orders (see below). While this course need only be taken once within 6 months of employment, many companies provide it as a refresher annually. In conjunction with the video, crews are trained in the use of and deployment of a fire shelter.

For seasonal firefighting crews, the level of training is considerably higher. During the last several years, seasonal crews are brought on board 7-10 days prior to actual suppression work. In addition to the previously mentioned topics, all aspects of fire management, suppression, equipment use, communications, map reading, first aid, team skills are all covered. This training curriculum takes between 35-45 hours of instruction.

The following standard fire orders and "Watchout" situations distill the risks and priorities that apply in any wildfire attack, direct or indirect, and form the basis for training Citation - the USFS Fire and Aviation Management website www.fs.fed.us.fire

As responsibilities and the number of fire-fighting personnel under supervision increase, as well as fire complexity, so does the level of training for fulltime fire-fighting professionals. Supervisory skills become critical, as does prior experience in understanding and reading fire behavior throughout the day, and as the fire encounters new fuel concentrations and terrain changes. There are obvious specialized skills such as the use of professional loggers to cut burning snags, smokejumpers where there is no easy road access, and pilots capable of flying heavy tankers into low visibility conditions 200-300 feet above ground to drop retardant.

Besides the various levels of training needed, better equipment, techniques, and technology are constantly being integrated into suppression efforts. These include new Personal Protective Equipment (hard hats, fire-resistant clothing, heat resistant gloves, etc.), improved fire shelters; improved radio and communication tools; water, foam, or retardant treated to cling to surfaces; and inexpensive remote weather stations providing minute by minute updates on wind and humidity from ridge to ridge. Even the traditional hand or dozer-built firelines are being supplemented with the use of Class A foam with staying power sprayed along the ground in a line.

Fire suppression management is separated into 3 categories, based upon size and potential.

• Initial attack resources - Those resources assigned to their normal patrol area responsible to respond quickly to extinguish fires upon the initial start.
• Extended Attack - Initial attack resources combined with regional resources used to attack fires that escape initial attack.
• Project Fire - All large fires are managed by Incident Command Structure (ICS) fire management teams. States typically have several teams available, while Federal teams are made up of inter-agency personnel. Both are comprised of regional employees, stretching the knowledge of large fire suppression expertise, but at a cost of losing commanders who are most familiar with their own locale (they may be off directing the suppression effort of some other large fire).

When multiple Project fires are burning, competition for contract crews, equipment and air resources is extreme.

One might assume that there would be only one agency responsible for suppression on any given ownership, for example, the USFS fighting fires on USFS lands… Generally this would be true, but in the evolution of suppressing wildfire, contracts and agreements have emerged that balance acres owned, and whose attack crews are closest or available. The aim is to provide a seamless response, the de facto acceptance that "it doesn’t matter what color the fire truck is." In theory, this is an effective concept. In reality, differences in agency missions tend to effect the level and intensity of suppression tactics.

A challenge for all cooperating agencies is the increasing presence of homes in wildlands. Local fire departments are typically charged with the responsibility for structures, while states and other federal agencies have wildland forest resources protection responsibilities. How these groups plan their interaction among the mixture of houses or cabins in forest is an important item to address prior to the pressures of a wildfire incident. Then, in several Western states, there are significant acres of "unprotected lands" – six million in Oregon alone - not under the jurisdiction of a local fire department or a state or federal agency. Costs incurred from suppressing a wildfire on lands under an agency’s jurisdiction are recovered through taxes or other payment mechanisms, but on these unprotected lands, the costs are not recoverable. This causes a dilemma when a fire on unprotected land could be suppressed early before it grows and threatens structures, but to do so, means costs are not recovered.

Fire suppression policy is derived at a national level for federal agencies and to a lesser degree for states. Because states protect some federal lands and work cooperatively, certain policy decisions affect state requirements. The ultimate responsibility for wildfire suppression is held with the National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) in Boise Idaho. Citation - www.nifc.gov and www.nwcg.gov/

Prevention can be broken into public education and awareness campaigns, and efforts to reduce the field conditions for catastrophic wildfire. It should not be confused with the policy of fire exclusion which will be discussed later.

The US Forest Service’s Smokey Bear mascot is one of the most recognizable figures in modern America. Dousing campfires and reminding recreationists of the flammability of their favorite nature destinations remain important goals in National Parks and Forests. Similarly, most forested states have their own programs. These often run public service announcements, and provide material to schools and statewide prevention cooperatives.

A system of Precaution Levels, complete with color-coded billboards and arrows indicating the fire danger rating for the day, are visible at any rural fire or ranger station by the average forest user. Most agencies also have established restrictions that reduce access to certain areas as fire danger increases. Depending on moisture level and expected weather criteria, there are levels of restricted public access to campgrounds, and restrictions on industrial activities in the forests, most visibly harvesting operations. Of interest, is that harvesting operations are liable and responsible for costs of fires starting from their activities. Typically harvest crews are prepared to act as initial attack crews, and maintain agreements with federal and state agencies to provide their equipment and operators for support crews.

One emerging issue relates to the vacation homes and cabins found more and more often in the woods. Should "Fire Safe," "Defensible Space" or "Survivable Space" programs around these residences be mandatory? The increasing exposure to wildfire of increasingly expensive homes is being examined by insurance companies as well as by rural fire departments charged with structure protection.

The other side of the prevention coin is reducing conditions for catastrophic fire.

• One emerging strategy that suffered significant setbacks in the past two years is the use of prescribed burning. Seeking to mimic the historically frequent light fires started by lightning each year, these burns are either intentionally set, or managed as the opportunity arises from such a strike. A great deal of expertise has developed around successfully conducting prescribed burns, whose very name alludes to the beneficial nature of non-catastrophic wildfire. However, while most of the public assumes there must be little more than monitoring such fires to prevent flareups, active management of these fires is critical to meet several objectives, including the enhancement of wildlife habitat. We’ve already noted the value of raking away duff from valuable large trees. An increasing effort is being made to protect a certain percentage of large down logs from being consumed, in order to provide enhanced habitat - in this case building fire lines to prevent already dead and down material from burning.

• Removal of a portion of the fuel as a pretreatment before prescribed burning, or a stand alone treatment, reduces risk for catastrophic wildfire while providing several benefits. Removing merchantable fuel in the forms of logs or chips reduces the direct costs of a fuel reduction program, and provides economic benefits to local economies. Fine fuels, not a traditional forest product, nevertheless have a market at biomass facilities that provide locally produced electricity. Particulate emissions from biomass plants are miniscule compared to the degradation of air quality from a large wildfire, or from extensive prescribed burns. In addition, mechanical Heavy fuel loads in Sierra Nevadas (www.qlg.org)

A large number of scientists and fire professionals agree, wildfire in the landscape can only be postponed, never "prevented." The challenge is to re-introduce fire into the landscape that minimizes catastrophic loss, and first reducing fuels mechanically to a lower level, seems to make sense.

After a wildfire has been stopped, either through suppression efforts or early winter rains or snowfall, the effort turns to mitigating wildfire consequences.

Soil erosion and its impact on streams and lakes is a critical concern. Where fires have been intense, roots have burned along with the duff and surface litter. Rainfall on these exposed lands quickly loosens and displaces soil, creating concentrated water runoffs that erode the landscape. The keys to any soil erosion program are to reduce the volume and velocity of water in any given location – slowing and spreading it out in order for the moisture to be absorbed, and energy dissipated.

Spreading straw will protect bare soil until ground cover can be established on vulnerable or heavily damaged acres. Tree planting will decrease the time for new forests to appear. Seeding grass on a widespread basis has cost limitations and creates debate whether it slows the natural return of trees. However grass seeding is often used specifically along road systems, where culverts and ditches must also be cleared, and catch basin’s created to prevent water run off. Waterbars on roads, and seeding of cutbanks help stabilize the road access systems.

After a wildfire, there will often be large volumes of wood with commercial value. Decay begins immediately, with the commercial value of the timber dropping off significantly, to only 10-25% of the original value after 24 months. Regardless whether the commercial value of timber is realized, leaving large stands of snags increases future wildfire risk and suppression costs over the next 15 years. Most of the dead stems will rot at the base or snow base line within 5-10 years, falling over, and creating huge fuel loads (measured in tons per acre) now within 2-3 feet of the surface. A wildfire consuming major amounts of fuel close to the ground will be significantly more likely to raise soil temperatures to 600-700 degrees for hours, killing soil organisms that were not harmed during the original fire.

With the various points raised in the preceding sections, the reader can better sort through the principles of today’s many wildfire policy controversies. In this overview of the challenges of understanding wildfire, you'll be reminded of many factors affecting wildfire already highlighted.

"The public has no difficulty in sorting out the difference between beneficial and damaging weather – between rainfall and hurricane; between irrigation flows and destructive floods. These all involve water, but we can talk about the differences in intensity and effect, and people understand. …But we can’t do that about fire today. … So how are we going to bridge that gap? How are we going to explain that a wildland fire that is burning in underbrush, litter, and reproduction thickets, but staying cool enough to be tolerated by most of the overstory trees or perennial native species and doing no soil damage is a normal ecological positive event?

Maybe one way is to explain the difference in temperatures. There is an enormous difference between short-duration temperatures of 100 degrees C at the soil surface and a sustained heat of 500-700 degrees. In both situations, you have fire and heat, but the energy releases and environmental impacts are enormously different. It is like the difference between watering your pansy bed with a sprinkling can and a firehose. The energy release and environmental impact is dramatically different. Nobody has a hard time understanding that. Why can’t we explain fire the same way?

The difference between fires that benignly recycle carbon and nutrients and regulate species balance in most terrestrial ecosystems, and fires that destructively kill all vegetation and alter soils significantly and permanently, is the amount and duration of the heat involved. Low heats are relatively benign, particularly in short duration events; high heats are usually destructive, particularly in long duration burns.

And the major variable in determining the heat generated and the duration involved, is the type, amount, and arrangements of the fuels available in the ecosystem."

"A ponderosa pine-douglas fir system with stem counts in the hundreds per acres, fuel loads approaching 100 tons per acre, and contiguous areas of these conditions running thousands of acres, will ignite and burn at some future time. If the trees are large enough that they moisture- or nutrient- stress in normal climatic cycles, the odds go way up. If the crown base is below 8-10 feet on over 10% of the trees, the odds are good that any ignition will result in a crown fire. If the crown density is fairly high, any fire that crowns out will stay in the crowns and build more intense, lethal behavior.

And if the fire crowns out and achieves high intensity levels, most if not all of the vegetation will be killed. If the soil gets really hot because of the high temperatures and ground fuels, the chances of soil damage from organic matter destruction, nutrient losses, clay transformations, and hydrophobic conditions goes up. Where soils are damaged most severely, and cover is lost, a subsequent rainfall or snowmelt event will cause further soil and watershed damages. …

Here lies much of the long-term risk. Having the vegetation killed may be a problem, particularly where you have trees 100-200 years old that could form the basis of a long-term overstory structure in a functioning forest ecosystem. Lose those trees, and it takes you two centuries to get back to where you were yesterday. And you better manage well in those two centuries, or that won’t happen … But lose the vegetation – and significantly deplete the soils – and you have left a legacy of bad stewardship for millennia – dozens of generations. "

• Let a natural fire burn? Does every fire need to be suppressed – especially in remote areas? Can we put out a major fire? Is a certain amount of damage acceptable or beneficial?

• Air quality. As we become more aware of the impact air pollutants have on human health, along with methods to measure the pollutants put out by wildfire, we are realizing that such fires pump tons of carcinogens and carbon into the air, due to the varying completeness of combustion. In contrast, biomass electrical generation facilities burn excess forest fuels at a fraction of the pollutant levels of a wildfire or prescribed burning program. A combination of mechanically pretreating forested acres where lightning strikes and wildfire is likely before introducing prescribed fire, will be the most practical path forward, stretching dollars and acres treated.

• Rehabilitation Efforts and Salvage Logging – We’ve discussed the practical steps to minimize subsequent erosion and accelerate forest recovery. Salvaging dead and dying timber, however, continues to be highly controversial. Does this exacerbate the damage to a landscape recently burned, or create conditions for accelerated recovery? Interestingly the most recent example of large-scale salvage logging operation occurred after the 1980 Mt St. Helen's eruption in SW Washington. While the eruption was not a wildfire, there were all the elements of heat, wind, and resulting erosion, and extensive loss of wildlife habitat. Further, the presence and use of machinery in the salvage operations was exactly what is most protested today. Regardless, the Weyerhaeuser Company salvaged nearly 1 million board feet of timber (enough to supply lumber in 1980 for nearly 85,000 two-bedroom homes) and replanted thousands of acres. Today, healthy young forests over a broad landscape are the result.