THE MISGUIDED FEAR OF FOREST FIRE
by
Chris Maser

Although the misguided fear of forest fires has plagued a number of presidential administrations, the George W. Bush administration is the most current. Be that as it may, the Bush administration has asked Congress to speed up the efforts to prevent forest fires by exempting ten million acres of public forest from normal, environmental reviews and by eliminating all administrative appeals on projects to thin forests, where the declared risk of fire is high. This maneuver would force any challenges by the public to a given thinning project directly into court, where judges would be prohibited from issuing temporary restraining orders or preliminary injunctions to stop such projects. Such a constraint means—if the timber industry is true to its old pattern—that the commercially valuable, old-growth trees can continue to be cut while the court decides if the project is even legal.¹ Here, the real environmental challenge is not the prevention of fire, but rather saving the large, old-growth trees, which are not the ones targeted to be cut in a thinning—the young, small, suppressed ones are. In other words, the people in the timber industry could cut with impunity virtually any tree they chose.

These past years of the Bush administration's reminds me of a comment made by Ralph Waldo Emerson:  "Your attitude thunders so loudly that I can't hear what you say." Besides, it took a century of mismanagement by both Democrats and Republicans to get our public forests in the sad shape they're in today. They cannot be "fixed" overnight. It will take time and patience—something we Americans need to practice.

That notwithstanding. There are some people, such as Dr. Dennis P. Lavender (a retired professor of the exploitive mode of forestry) who believe herbicides are better than fire in "managing" a forest. He thus contends that synthetic chemical compounds should replace fire, even though western forests have been "designed" by fire over the centuries and millennia. To make his point, Lavender cites all the traditionally perceived, short-term, negative effects of fire, to wit:

1. Much of the brush has evolved to resist fire. It will sprout vigorously after burning, and dormant seeds-which require exposure to heat to germinate-will result in increased stands of brush, creating a Sisyphean task. [A "Sisyphean task" is an endless and ineffective endeavor.]

2. Fire will destroy the many invertebrates required to build soil, together with their food. True forest biodiversity is below the soil surface, as there are at least 1,000 species of such organisms per square yard.

3. A map of Oregon forest soils shows that low nitrogen levels coincide largely with areas that have been repeatedly burned. Even supposedly harmless ground fires can be very destructive to vital soil processes and the soil (not trees or other plants or vertebrates), which is our basic resource. The use of fire that can vaporize the majority of soil nitrogen is not compatible with sustainable forestry.

A procedure preferable to fire would involve any one of a range of chippers and the use of herbicides. The above is ecosystem specific.²

Let's examine this product-oriented approach to forestry one point at a time:

1. Much of the brush has evolved to resist fire. It will sprout vigorously after burning, and dormant seeds-which require exposure to heat to germinate-will result in increased stands of brush, creating a Sisyphean task.

What Lavender says is true in some areas (such as northwestern California, where the tenacious, sprouting tanoak can occupy a site for decades if the site is repeatedly burned). In other areas (such as many parts of the Intermountain West), however, fire is needed to keep groves of quaking aspen from dying out due to a lack of sprouting, which is a current and serious threat to the local biological diversity, especially since aspen groves are natural clones.

The outcome of these examples, as well as all other cases, depends on a variety of circumstances, such as the intensity and duration with which a fire burns on any given site. Beside, the "brush" Lavender objects to is also part of forest development and landscape-scale diversity. What Lavender is really concerned about is the perceive "management-created competition" of unwanted shrubs with "crop trees," something that does not equate to sustainable forestry, unless "forestry" is defined as having nothing but crop trees on all acres all of the time.

But then, forests do not operate in the same linear trajectory that product-oriented foresters want them to. Nature's forests go through "autogenic succession"—self-generated, self-determined development. This "self-directed" progression can be characterized by the stages a forest goes through from bare ground to ancient trees, but not in nice, discrete steps. A forest has many potential states of momentary equilibrium and many potential patterns of recovery after a disruption, even on a single acre.

2. Fire will destroy the many invertebrates required to build soil, together with their food. True forest biodiversity is below the soil surface, as there are at least 1,000 species of such organisms per square yard.

Lavender is again correct, but forest fires rarely burn so intensely overall that they leave nothing but scorched, "dead" soil. Instead, forest fires create mosaics of habitat diversity on a landscape scale due to the variable intensities with which they burn. I bring this up because landscape-scale diversity is critical to both the health of the forest as a whole and to the maintenance of "genetic stepping-stones" (local populations adapted to specific habitats). The maintenance of such genetic plasticity may one day be critical to the ability of forests to migrate up in elevation or north in latitude in the face of climate change.

Consider that large fallen trees partly buried in the soil tend to retain their inner moisture and so can, and often do, act as refugia, which allow the tiny organisms necessary to the governance of the soil to survive the flames and heat. As conditions become favorable once again, they reoccupy the surrounding habitat. As a side note, one of the things I was never able to do was study the ecological relationships of casehardened wood or charred wood in terms of forest processes. As far as I know, this research still needs to be done.

3. A map of Oregon forest soils shows that low nitrogen levels coincide largely with areas that have been repeatedly burned. Even supposedly harmless ground fires can be very destructive to vital soil processes and the soil (not trees or other plants or vertebrates), which is our basic resource. The use of fire that can vaporize the majority of soil nitrogen is not compatible with sustainable forestry.

If by "sustainable forestry" Lavender means a continual cover of "crop trees" on all acres all of the time then, by his definition, he is correct. To view a "forest" in this way is to attempt to make the crop trees into an independent, economic variable—a physical impossibility.³

To me, there is much more to a forest as a living system then simply one crop of trees after another. As I think of sustainable forestry, it can be constructed on two premises:   (1) within some limits, a forest will persist, provided the existing disturbance regime is compatible with its continuance and (2) given the chance, a specific condition within an ecosystem, plant community, or successional stage will recur in some approximation of its predecessor. By accepting the first premise, the second is allowed to fulfill itself, but not on all acres all of the time and perhaps not even on our timetable all of the time.

Bear in mind that we can gently guide Nature, but trying to force Nature will surely result in resistance, unwanted outcomes, and situations over which we have no control. Nature, after all, is not our servant, but rather, given a chance, may become our partner.

The first part of Lavender's last statement in his number 3 above (The use of fire that can vaporize the majority of soil nitrogen is not compatible with sustainable forestry.) is true. Fire does "vaporize" the nitrogen in the material that is burned, but that does not mean nitrogen is absent from the soil. Besides, plants that establish early on a burned site, such as lupine, snowbush, and red alder, readily replenish depleted soil nitrogen.⁴ Omitted from the above statement is that "tree-farm management" also tends to deplete nitrogen from the soil in which the crop trees are growing.⁵

Finally:  A procedure preferable to fire would involve any one of a range of chippers and the use of herbicides. The above is ecosystem specific.

First, chipping large woody debris homogenizes it in small pieces that destroy its function as habitat for those organisms, such as nitrogen-fixing bacteria, that perform critical processes within the dead wood itself. In addition, creatures that are vital to forest health because they disperse viable spores of ectomycorrhizal fungi, such as red-backed voles and northern flying squirrels, depend on the large, dead wood for habitat—which chipping destroys. Chipping also destroys the water-holding capacity of large woody debris. In essence, chipping as a means of controlling the amount of flammable fuels on the forest floor in the name of "fire management" renders it all but impotent as functional, biological capital to be invested in maintaining the overall health of forest processes.

In this case, I am using the term "biological capital" to include the diversity of organisms that used large decomposing wood on the forest floor as habitat and food, the diversity of processes these organisms perform, and the large wood as the "storage organ" of elements and water. These fallen trees allow nutrients to be cycled from the old trees through the soil into new trees, all part of the roll-over accounting system of a biologically sustainable forest.

Second, despite our current level of knowledge, no one can be certain of what happens to chemicals once they're introduced into the environment, be it through intensive farming or intensive forestry. Once we have introduced something into the environment, it's almost immediately out of our control. Such introductions include the estimated thirteen million pounds of pesticides applied each year in Oregon alone, which it seems no one in authority really wants to monitor. Nor does anyone know where the chemicals travel, how they behave in their journey, or how long their effects persist.⁶ To help you understand what I mean, let's consider how chemicals affect salmon, which are highly adapted, unlike humans who are highly adaptable. Here, adaptable means the ability to adapt to change, whereas adapted is a fait accompli with respect to given circumstances, so they are not the same thing. Being highly adapted means salmon are rigid in their habitat requirements.

On top of all the obstacles (dams, improperly placed culverts, degraded habitat, etc.) that salmon must today face in their journey from the forest to the sea and back again, modern humanity has added the effects of herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, rodenticides, fertilizers, gasoline, oil, and other pollutants to the once clean waterways the salmon of old knew as their domain. Moreover, the salmon's life cycle is a chain with many links, which includes the diverse continuum of habitats required to fruitfully fulfill their life functions, from the tiny-forested streams wherein they spawn and hatch all the way to the sea. Saving the salmon, therefore, is a process of locating all the broken links in the chain of their life cycle and fixing them again.

For example, a primary problem affecting salmon is the non-point-source pollution coming from intensive agriculture, including intensive forestry, which laces the soil with toxic pesticides, herbicides, and synthetic fertilizers. This combination of pollutants not only kills fish and other aquatic life but also damages marshlands in more than a third of the nation's coastal areas, according to the National Academy of Sciences.

Every autumn, this "toxic cocktail" means Monte Graham gets nervous because, as a soil and water conservation officer for Marion County, in western Oregon, he knows that tons of farmland soil—and its myriad synthetic chemicals—will erode with each inch of rain. As the soil moves, it carries the poisonous compounds into ditches and streams. In addition, the pollutants leach through the soil into the groundwater, and from there into the same ditches and streams.

Once in the waterways, the chemicals can cause bone deformities in the baby salmon, damage their reproductive systems, destroy their food supply, and block their adaptation to saltwater. These contaminants can also prevent migrating adults from finding their home waters in which to spawn. Not surprisingly, a study by the U.S. Geological Survey found that the Willamette River Basin of western Oregon to be among the most degraded in the nation, due in part to chemical runoff from cities, farms, and intensively managed forests.

The persistence of many pesticides in the environment has "sub-lethal" effects on biota and is a possible culprit in the escalating crisis of salmon in the Pacific Northwest. Once in the soil and/or water, some herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers may break down and combine with other compounds to form new combinations that are even more toxic than the original ones. Under certain conditions, tiny amounts can accrue high toxicity. In addition, the only part of a pesticide that is tested for toxicity is the active ingredients that, by themselves, usually form a tiny portion of the solution. This means the larger, untested portion of most pesticides, containing other, so-called "inert" chemicals, can be even more toxic than the active ingredients.

Chemicals are a potential problem that we cannot afford to overlook because their effects on fish are seldom visible or directly lethal, according to Jim Martin, whose career as a fishery biologist spanned thirty years, many with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. Martin's concern is that focusing on the chemical effects as they relate to people may eclipse their possible effects on salmon. After all, says Martin, "salmon are a lot more sensitive than people to water quality. They have to meet the most stringent survival requirements imaginable."⁷ Here, the upshot is that, while salmon and forests are adapted to the effects of fires, neither is adapted to the environmental effects of the chemical compounds in herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers, which includes those used in exploitive forestry, as recommended by Dr. Lavender.

The real question is whether the current administration understands the ecological role of fire in our forests, and if so, is ignoring it and simply using the fear of fire to feed industrial mills.

ENDNOTES

  1. Robert Gehrke. Bush seeks to bypass courts in name of thinning. The Associated Press. In: Corvallis Gazette-Times, Corvallis, OR. September 6, 2002.

  2. Dennis P. Lavender. "Burning is the wrong way to fire-proof the forests." Letter to the editor in the Albany (OR) Democrat-Herald, Corvallis (OR) Gazette-Times. September 8, 2002. (Note:  In the following discussion, the sentences in italics are from this letter to the editor.)

  3. (1) Jeffrey R. Waters, Kevin S. McKelvey, Daniel L. Luoma, and Cynthia J. Zabel. 1997. Truffle production in old-growth and mature fir stands in northeastern California. Forest Ecology and Management 96:155-166 and (2) J.E. Smith, R. Molina, M.M.P. Huso, and others. 2002. Species richness, abundance, and composition of hypogeous and epigeous ectomycorrhizal fungal sporocarps in young, rotation-age, and old-growth stands of Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) in the Cascade Range of Oregon, U.S.A. Canadian Journal of Botany 80:186-204.

  4. (1) B.T. Bormann and D.S. DeBell. 1981. Nitrogen Content and Other Soil Properties Related to Age of Red Alder Stands. Soil Science Society of America Journal 45:428-432 and (2) Barnard T. Bormann. 1988. A Masterful Scheme. University of Washington Arboretum Bulletin 51:10-14.

  5. Bernard T. Bormann and John C. Gordon. 1989. Can Intensively Managed Forest Ecosystems be Self-Sufficient in Nitrogen? Forest Ecology and Management 29:96-103.

  6. (1) Jeff Barnard. 2002. EPA study finds toxins in Columbia Basin Fish. The Associated Press. In: Corvallis Gazette-Times, Corvallis, OR. February 15, (2) Michelle Cole. 2003. Pesticide reporting plan stalls. The Oregonian, Portland, OR. September 29, and (3) Fred Biddle and Jeffifer Goldblatt. 2003. DuPont's troubled chemical [C-8]. The News Journal. November 23.

  7. The discussion of salmon is based on:  (1) Josef Hebert. 2000. Farm runoff killing nation's coastal fish. The Associated Press. In: Corvallis Gazette-Times, Corvallis, OR, April 5, (2) The Associated Press. 1999. Agricultural pollution worries area officials. Corvallis Gazette-Times, Corvallis, OR, November 9, (3) Scott Stouder. 1999. Pesticides are overlooked part of salmon decline. Albany (OR) Democrat-Herald, Corvallis (OR) Gazette-Times. May 9, and (4) Jeff Barnard. 2001. Environmentalists sue EPA over pesticides and salmon. Corvallis Gazette-Times, Corvallis, OR, January 31.


This essay is excerpted from my 2005 book, "Our Forest Legacy:  Today's Decisions, Tomorrow's Consequences." Maisonneuve Press, Washington, D.C.

I have included it on this page because our national forests are still under siege by industry to the great and potentially lasting impoverishment of every generation heretofore unborn.


©chris maser 2006. All rights reserved.

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