The current smoke management often does not allow fire managers to burn the amount of acres they have plans to burn. Hessburg thinks that the least smoke option is the best one. The top photo shows the air quality during a prescribed burn. Because of an inversion, smoke hung in the area for two days before clearing. The same photo was shot during wildfire season. The smoke contained six times the particulates and lasted for 30 days before clearing. In closing Hessburg asked those in attendance, "How do you want your fire? How do you want your smoke?"
In the 1930s, thousands of panoramic photos were taken from around the western United States. The US Forest Service commissioned photographer John Marshall to find and reshoot many of the locations. In Mission Peak, Hessburg said without fire in 80 years, trees filled in the open space and have grown in so close together they easily carry fire and pass insects and disease from tree to tree and acre to acre. "Historical landscapes saw continual fire. These fires created highly varied patterns of tree size, age and density. This patchwork of burned and recovering vegetation helped the landscape resist the spread of future fire and insect outbreaks," said Hessburg.
In 2015, $2.1 billion was spent on fire suppression, the highest recorded since 1985. Hessburg estimated economic impact in 2015 including rebuilding lost structures, restoring lost infrastructure, loss of business revenue and decreased property values was 24 times the suppression cost totaling $50 billion.
The Seeley Lake Fire Department served a free barbecue before the presentation. The event was sponsored by the Seeley Lake Fire Department, the Blackfoot Challenge, Southwestern Crown Collaborative, Clearwater Resource Council, The Nature Conservancy, DARLOA, Northern Rockies Fire Science Network, FireSafe Montana, Greenough/Potomac Volunteer Fire Department, Swan Valley Connections, Lincoln Fire Rescue, Department of Natural Resources and Conservation and the US Forest Service .
SEELEY LAKE – The reality of wildfires burning more frequently with higher intensity and across larger areas was the hot topic Thursday, April 27 during the Era of Megafires event in Seeley Lake. Guest speaker Dr. Paul Hessburg shared the story about why he feels megafires (fires larger than 100,000 acres) are happening. Instead of fear, his mission was to incite a call to action and a feeling of power to change the way wildfires affect people's homes, neighborhoods, towns and the landscapes that surround communities.
While not all communities have been affected directly by wildfire, Dr. Hessburg argued the issue of wildfire spending affects all taxpayers. In 2016, 57 percent of the total US Forest Service budget went toward fighting wildfires. That has increased 40 percent in the past 25 years.
Hessburg said that in a good year 60 percent of the total suppression cost goes to protecting homes, not forests. In a bad year, it is closer to 95 percent.
"Where homes are isolated the per home defense costs often exceed the value of the houses themselves," said Hessburg. "The time to decide where and what to build with, separating roads in and out of neighborhoods and defensible neighborhood planning happens before the wildfire. When the wildfire is roaring it is often too little, too late."
According to Hessburg, the reasons for more frequent megafires are increased fuel in the forests and rangelands and a climate shift where summers are hot, dry, windier and longer than ever before.
In Hessburg's forestry career of 38 years, he has found the forested area in the west has increased significantly over the past 100-150 years. Former grass and shrublands are now forested. Areas that used to experience frequent, low intensity fires now burn less frequently and with more intensity burning more acres.
The forests are also denser than they were historically. Smaller trees growing in the understory become ladder fuels that allow fire to reach the crowns of large trees. This increases the mortality of the large tress that used to be able to survive low intensity fires.
Hessburg attributes these changes to the lack of fire and active management on the landscape.
"The absence of Indian burning, livestock grazing, timber harvest and now fire suppression are all preventing fire from doing its job for a period of almost 150 years," said Hessburg. "Logging removed the big old trees, the forest got denser and more layered and fuels increased on the forest floor. By keeping fire from doing its job, this once complex patchwork has become a blanket of dense forest."
Hessburg addressed climate change as a major driver for megafires. Winter snow packs are declining and hotter, drier, windier summers are common. He said that fire seasons are on average 40-80 days longer than they were 50 years ago. Climate experts estimate the acreage burned will increase two to three times by the middle of the century.
Hessburg said the United States (US) has the most highly trained firefighting workforce in the world. They suppress 95-98 percent of all fires annually.
"While we think 95-98 percent success sounds great, it is actually the uncontrollable two to five percent that are causing all the damage and all the costs to contain," said Hessburg. "Fire suppression alone is an incomplete solution. What is needed is a cultural shift instead of being purely reactive about fire to primarily proactive about fire. We want to put fire suppression out of a job."
Hessburg said prescribed burning is a good proactive tool. He showed the acres burned by wildfires and prescribe burning for each state in 2015. Montana was sixth in the nation with more than 351,000 acres burned in wildfire and ranked 14th for burning nearly 45,000 acres using prescribed fire.
The wildfire acres in 2015 totaled nearly 10 million acres. While under the fire regime created by the Native Americans, 50-100 million acres burned each year.
"This is the kind of scale of burning that was ordinary over thousands and thousands of years that maintained the forest," said Hessburg.
Hessburg also said a key limiting factor to prescribe burning is a lack of social license to burn large areas.
"The biggest barrier to prescribed burning is the smoke it produces," said Hessburg. "Wildfire smoke is not regulated. It is considered an unavoidable nuisance. But to a large degree much of that smoke is avoidable or can be reduced."
Hessburg feels the current smoke management regulations are too restrictive. The question is not if there will be smoke; it is when will there be smoke. While prescribe fires will create smoke and hang in valleys for a few days, depending on the burn, wildfire will sock in a community for a month or better in a bad fire season.
Another tool is mechanical thinning. Hessburg also feels that social license is needed to do the right kind of thinning, in the right places and to rebuild needed long term mill infrastructure where it is needed.
The final tool is managing wildfires by "herding them" and allowing them to burn when weather and fuel conditions allow. This will naturally thin the forest and consume the fuels on the forest floor. Hessburg feels this is the most underutilized tool because of the fear that allowing a fire to burn incites in the public. He said that the 95-98 percent of fires that are suppressed could "be put to work" while thinning and prescribed burning should be used when there are fire perimeter control and fire behavior concerns.
The National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy identifies three areas for communities to take a proactive approach to fire:
• Create resilient landscapes around communities by changing the way fire comes towards the community.
• Create and maintain fire adapted communities being ready for fire before it comes.
• Maintain a safe and effective wildfire response. It means putting fires out when the outcomes will be severe but also allowing them to do work when it can be allowed.
"It's a social problem. There is no future without wildfire and smoke. Instead of trying to avoid fires we need to learn to better coexist with fire in a new way," said Hessburg. "How do you want your fire? How do you want your smoke? How do you want your forest in the future?"
All of the organizers were extremely pleased with the attendance. Coordinator Jenny Rohrer said one of the concerns of the group was attracting people who have not heard the information Hessburg presented.
"I think we got exactly the crowd we were looking for - people that own property and want to think about a plan of how to manage their own fuels and steward their own area around their homes," said coordinator Jenny Rohrer. "I think people's ears were wide open."
The Department of Natural Resources and Conservation Clearwater Unit offers free home assessments to help prepare for wildfire season. Call the Clearwater Unit, 244-5857 to make an appointment.
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