Diane Hoppe
Careful Management, including timber harvesting, can reduce the catastrophic risks
As a result of its climate, topography and vegetation, the Front Range of Colorado has historically been subjected to frequent forest fires. Because of these factors, it is a certainty that there will be frequent forest fires along the Front Range in the future. However, it's also a certainty that with careful management, including well-planned timber sales, foresters can help reduce the risk of catastrophic fires.
A good example occurred in May 1996 with the Buffalo Creek fire, which in one afternoon burned nearly 12,000 acres southwest of Denver. An area on the southern flank of the fire had been previously thinned. When the fire reached that area, it stopped burning in the crowns of trees (a crown fire is the most dangerous kind of forest fire) and became a much cooler, easier-to-control ground fire, which killed only a small percentage of the trees and allowed firefighters to quickly control that section of the fire. This lesson has been learned again and again across the West by firefighters and foresters.
Today, forest fires along the Front Range are a critical issue because of the number of people who have moved into forested areas and because of changes in forest structure that have resulted from successful fire suppression for most of this century. Four years ago, foresters for the U.S. Forest Service, the Colorado State Forest Service and several counties identified a "red zone" along the Front Range, an area where housing density is high and forests are fire-prone. These foresters also identified several steps that would reduce the risk of potential fires in these areas, including the need for more thinning and prescribed burning as means to reduce the potential for fires spreading.
While a number of positive steps have been taken, several factors have prevented more from being done to reduce the risk of catastrophic fires. These include active opposition by groups such as the Sierra Club to all timber harvesting in the national forests, the historic underfunding for national forests in other parts of the country, and the Clinton administration's well-documented bias in favor of prescribed and let-burn fires and against timber harvesting. One of the results of the precipitous reduction in national forest timber sales under the Clinton administration is taht logger and sawmilling families are being put out of business in Colorado. If there aren't any loggers, who will harvest the trees to properly manage the forests?
On the other hand, there are several encouraging trends. In a welcome change of heart since the Los Alamos, N.M. fire, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt has begun to advocate for some thinning prior to prescribed burning. The entire Colorado congressional delegation has worked to improve funding for Colorado's national forests. And several projects are now under way in Colorado testing techniques to reduce fire risk through active forest management. The Pine Zone Partnership near Cortez, the Upper South Platte Project south of Deckers and the Winiger Ridge Project west of Boulder are all examples.
Finally, last month the Forest Service released its Cohesive Strategy for Protecting People and Sustaining Resources in Fire-Adapted Ecosystems. It relies mechanical thinning, timber harvest and prescribed fires. It will be expensive, but the costs of preventive management will clearly be less than the potential costs of fire suppression and resource and property damage.
The public needs to demand that foresters be able to use all available tools in order to reduce the risk of fires, and to have a healthy forest, high-quality water supplies and a diversity of wildlife habitat. Prescribed burns and timber harvest are necessary tools that can be used to complement each other. Prescribed burning cannot replace or duplicate logging; logging cannot replace or duplicate prescribed burning.
There are no management tools or programs that can eliminate the risk of wildfires along Colorado's Front Range. However, by carefully implementing well-planned projects using all the tools in our toolbox, including prescribed burning and logging, we can go a long way toward reducing the risk and achieving the long-term benefits that come from well-managed forests.
If you would like to read the counter-point...