Subject: ** FIRE AND THE WINDS OF CHANGE **
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Comments:
It's nearing that time of year when much attention turns to Fire.
Public TV is airing three programs in July on wildfire and
public lands.  I took a few moments to chronicle the upcoming TV
programs, and to reiterate some nagging concerns on public lands fire
policy and practices.  Two pages follow...Dve.

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                                                                  ECO-WATCH   
                                                                  June 28, 1991



          The Winds of Change fuel Public Lands Fire Policy Inquiries

                                 Dave Iverson


       This July, Public Television programming will spotlight public lands fire
policy and practices. Nova begins the series with "Yellowstone's Burning
Question," airing in the Utah area on Monday and addressing what they call the
"surprisingly rapid recovery" Yellowstone National Park has made since the
so-called catastrophic fires of 1988. Tuesday's programming picks up the theme
on The New Explorers with "From Beneath the Ashes," an inquiry into the role of
fire in the national forests and prairies of America. Mid-month, on July 15th,
The National Audubon Society Specials presents "Wildfire," an examination of the
role of fire in shaping the environment through visits to South Dakota prairies,
Southeast pine forest, and Southern California's chaparral lands."

       Such focus should once again fuel inquiries into the appropriateness of
current fire policies of public land management agencies.  If so, we should hope
for a summer season cool enough and wet enough not to spark too many real fires. 
This would allow us to concentrate on the political fires that always surround
policy debates where money and power are at stake.

       George Wuerthner, in Yellowstone and the Fires of Change, petitions for
a change in basic public lands fire policy.  His Yellowstone-based assessment
is worth quoting at some length:

        "More than $12l million went into the [Yellowstone park] fires at last
       count and the bills are still coming in. Was it necessary to spend this
       amount? It depends on your basic assumptions about fire. If one does not
       necessarily feel that fires are 'destructive,' or are at least a
       necessary ecological force, then far too much money was spent trying to
       suppress the fires - which as has been seen is a vain attempt.

        "A more rational approach to fire suppression would have been to direct
       all money and man-power to protection of communities like Cooke City and
       park developments like Grant Village, while allowing the fires to run
       their course in non-developed areas. Because wildfires do not respect
       human-imposed political boundaries and burn into areas where fires are
       undesirable, some fire control is necessary. Fires can de deflected
       around strategic sites like Old Faithful, or human communities like
       Cooke City, if enough energy is put into the effort. However, it is also
       the best that can be hoped for when one is dealing with large fire
       complexes that are impossible to control or contain. Only when weather
       changes are human control efforts likely to have any affect on wildfires
       in general.

        ". . . If one examines the historic record, it becomes obvious that
       much of the West is dominated by frequent small intensity fires
       occasionally interrupted by infrequent fires that burn extensive
       acreages. Such a fire summer may come only once during the course of a
       human lifetime, and may thus seem catastrophic; but in reality such a
       fire is quite predictable given the climatic and ecological conditions
       which dominate the Western landscape. These episodic fires provide an
       explosive pulse of energy and nutrients that powers the ecosystem.

        " . . . The flames of the summer of 1988 did not destroy [Yellowstone
       Park], for within the fires were cast the seeds of a new beginning.
       Yellowstone, born in fire, also lives with fire.

       We must learn to live with fire too.  To do so, we must learn that in
most cases, once a fire complex has reached a critical mass the best defense is
a well planned defense for only those strategic resources that can be protected. 
In too many cases public lands fire suppression practices seem to resemble
out-dated military operations both in size and sluggishness.  In too many cases
large fires are extinguished by mother nature leaving thoughtful observers
wondering just what was accomplished with the enormous sums of money and time
poured into so-called fire suppression efforts. 

       Why not instead concentrate on "strategic resource defense", coupled with
an agile tactical offense for undesired igntions.  This latter strategy is now
commonly employed but could be pursued with more intensity if public lands
agencies were using many fewer resources for para-military buildups.

       Will public lands management agencies learn lessons from Yellowstone -
and other recent experiences - regarding both the usefulness of fire and better
ways to protect what we value highly?  Much like "New Perspectives in Forestry"
and "Change on the Range", the jury is still out.  A burning question is: Are
public land management agencies capable of organizational learning?