The Loma Prietan
September 2002
Beyond the Heat and the Hype
A Sierra Club national report
Few events can grab public attention like a forest fire. TV viewers are mesmerized by the images of racing flames and towering smoke plumes, and homeowners are justly terrified by the prospect of flames approaching their backyard. But precisely because they combine beauty, danger and heroism, forest fires have taken on an oversized role in the American psyche.
Logging interests and pro-business federal agencies claim that we need to destroy much of our wild forests to help prevent dangerous forest fires. In fact, the reverse is true: logging has been shown to multiply the risk of catastrophic forest fires. That's because timber companies cut down the largest trees, which are the most resistant to fire, leaving behind flammable smaller trees and piles of debris.
Ironically, as the mythology of the forest fire has grown, our response has created conditions that inevitably lead to even bigger blazes. Through understanding forest fires, we can change course and break the cycle that leads to catastrophic infernos. By respecting the nature of forest fires and taking sensible steps that recognize their role in a healthy forest, we can protect homes, save American taxpayers money, defuse fire threats, and strengthen the heritage we call our nation's forests.
"Some public officials have tried to blame environmentalists for the forest fires that are ravaging Colorado, Arizona, and other Western states. These attempts to scapegoat environmentalists are a disturbing display of cynical politics," says Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club.
"Scientists have determined these fire problems stem from three problems: nearly a century of fire suppression that removed the natural role fire plays in healthy forests, an extreme multi-year drought and decades of commercial logging that (have) removed large, fire-resistant trees."
Threats and Realities in Our Forests
Fifty years of aggressive fire suppression by the U.S. government has hindered fire's natural and beneficial processes. Many areas have become choked with brush, and other kinds of trees are competing with the large species that formerly dominated the forest.
Recognizing increasing fire threats, the U.S. Forest Service tried to solve the problem by allowing timber companies to log more of our National Forests. However, the logging companies take only the high-value timber—the largest trees whose thick bark naturally resists the periodic fires that sweep through forests.
In addition to removing the fire-resistant trees, the logging operations leave behind saplings and massive piles of sticks and debris called "slash." Deprived of shade provided by the larger trees, the forest floor dries out more quickly and temperatures can get much hotter, turning slash piles and debris-strewn clearings to fire-friendly tinder.
With fuels having accumulated from years of suppression and logging, some forest fires can burn far hotter and faster than the smaller fires that periodically swept through the forests before we tried to "control" forest fires. These fires consume the accumulated brush and climb saplings to reach the limbs of the larger trees—becoming a much larger "crown fire."
Thus, as leading scientists have found, "Timber harvest, through its effects on forest structure, local microclimate, and fuels accumulation, has increased fire severity more than any other recent human activity."
Solutions
The following recommendations from forest scientists and fire experts can protect homes, save taxpayers money, defuse fire threats, and restore our forests' health:
• Protect homes by focusing forest management around homes and communities, and by providing education and resources to homeowners. By clearing flammable materials within 30-60 feet of their homes, landscaping appropriately and taking other responsible precautions, homeowners living near forests can help keep their property safe.
• Restore the natural role of fire to forest ecosystems with carefully prescribed burns. Because prescribed burning produces no timber commodity, it offers no short-term economic incentive. However, restoring the natural role of fire to a landscape often provides the best results and pays off with long-term financial savings.
• Protect National Forests from commercial logging and focus resources on active forest restoration. Prescribed burning, appropriate road maintenance, and decommissioning and restoring natural forest processes will diffuse catastrophic fire risks, provide healthier forests, increase economic benefits, and protect communities better.