KS Wild strongly supports fuel management near communities at-risk from wildfire. Programs using National Fire Plan funds help homeowners and communities protect themselves. In the plan, Congress allocated $227 million to pay for fuels reduction. Pending legislation sponsored by U.S. Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) could double federal funding for fuel reduction over five years.

Authentic fuel reduction focuses on surface fuels and small trees in dense and previously logged forests. Controlled burning and cutting of low-hanging branches on standing trees can decrease the risk of fire traveling from the ground into tree crowns. An example of this approach is the Ashland Watershed Protection Project (AWPP) in the City of Ashland’s municipal watershed.

The need for fuel management varies across the landscape. As a result of industrial logging, livestock grazing and 50 years of effective fire suppression, some K-S forests have fuel complexes vulnerable to undesirable fire effects. The need is likely to be most pronounced where past management activities have been concentrated in drier ecosystem types, such as in low-elevation forests and oak woodlands in the eastern K-S region.

LOGGING INCREASES FIRE DANGER

Commercial logging removes large trees, the most fire-resistant components of forest structure, which shade the forest floor from sunlight, break the horizontal movement of wind, and provide moisture reservoirs that calm fire behavior. Thinning driven by economic concerns can open the tree canopy and allow solar radiation to penetrate directly to the ground, which dries out surface fuels and increases the likelihood of hot and erratic fire behavior. This occurred when the 2002 Squires Peak Fire spread into the BLM Spencer Lomas timber sale area and exploded past containment lines.

FIGHTING FIRE WITH FIRE

Intentional burning is the most effective way to reduce hazardous fuels and calm wildfire behavior. The amount, continuity and moisture content of the smallest fuels on the ground surface (twigs, needles, grass) determine the rate of fire spread and the intensity of its heat energy release. Prescribed fire consumes dry and dead surface fuels and disrupts the continuity of "ladder fuels" that carry fire from the ground into tree crowns.

ECONOMICS

Prescribed burning is cost-effective. Investments of $300 per acre can burn several hundred acres at a time, although costs increase when pre-treatments of ladder fuels are needed for worker safety. In contrast, logging operation costs start at $800 per acre and can reach as high as $2,000 per acre, depending on terrain and access. Economic benefits of subsidies for hazardous fuel reduction include savings in future wildfire suppression costs, which exceeded $1 billion in 2000 and 2002.

Resources:

Brown, R. 2000. Thinning, Fire and Forest Restoration: A Science-Based Approach for National Forests in the Interior Northwest. Defenders of Wildlife. Washington, D.C.

Carey, H. and M. Schumann. 2003. Modifying Wildfire Behavior -- The Effectiveness of Fuel Treatments: The Status of Our Knowledge. National Community Forestry Center Southwest Region Working Paper. Modifying Wildfire Behavior.pdf

Countryman, C.M. 1955. Old-growth conversion also converts fire climate. Fire Control Notes 17(4): 15-19.

DellaSala, D.A. and E. Frost. 2001. An ecologically based strategy for fire and fuels management in national forest roadless areas. Fire Management Today 61(2): 12-23.

Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project, 1996. Status of the Sierra Nevada, Final Report to Congress. Wildland Resources Center Report No. 37. Center for Water and Wildland Resources. University of California, Davis. http://ceres.ca.gov/snep/pubs/

Stephens, S.L. 1998. Evaluation of the effects of silvicultural and fuels treatments on potential fire behavior in Sierra Nevada mixed-conifer forests. Forest Ecology and Management 105: 21-35.

U.S. General Accounting Office. 1999. A cohesive strategy is needed to address catastrophic wildfire threats. GAO/RCED-99-65. Washington, D.C.

U.S. General Accounting Office, 2001. Letter to Sen. Larry Craig and Rep. Scott McInnis Re: Appeals and Litigation of Fuel Reduction Projects. August 31. GAO-01-1114R.

U.S. General Accounting Office, 2000. Reducing Wildfire Threats: Funds Should Be Targeted to the Highest Risk Areas, GAO-00-296.

Walstad, J.D., S.R. Radosevich, and D.V. Sandberg (eds.). 1990. Natural and Prescribed Fire in Pacific Northwest Forests. Oregon State Univ. Press. Corvallis, OR.