October 27, 2000 Agri-News article by Jim Haslip: Old-time firefighters would turn over in their graves.
CAG Inc. Comment
The public had better wake up to what is going on and demand that our federal lands be managed based on rational forest practices. Warm Fuzzy Just doesn't cut it!
End CAG Inc. Comment
Is the Forest Service doing all That they can to suppress our large Wildland fires?
Here are some facts. Decide for yourself. These facts are based on personal observation and verification from colleagues sent to fight the fire as team members who are experienced in fire fighting.
These remarks do NOT apply in any way to our local initial attack people - Forest Service, DNRC, and volunteer fire departments - who have performed magnificently each fire season.
When Wildland fires escape initial attack capabilities of our local crews, a team is called in to take over the fire. Some team managers do not believe in fighting fire at night or in putting retardant on the fire before noon. Almost all firefighters would agree that fighting fires at night is most effective because, in general, temperatures are lower, humidity is higher, wind speed has lessened, and the level of fire activity has decreased. Putting the fire crews on the line around mid-morning and waiting until afternoon for retardant drops -when the fire has escaped and is crowning - are not conducive to trying to control the fire. These practices have increased the cost in money and resource loss considerably. Retardant in the early morning would cool down hot spots and aid in line building so that fires might not escape during the afternoon.
The same team members who delay retardant drops until afternoon use the excuse that fire fighting is more dangerous at night. I have yet to see any statistics that prove this. This excuse also fails to explain why they do not encourage retardant drops in the morning before the fire is crowning and carboniferous cumulus clouds have obscured visibility.
The same team members that wait until mid-morning to fight the fire also want to evacuate private property owners, leaving homes and land possibly unprotected. Citizens are intimidated by federal, state, and county law enforcement officers and leave, only to return to the new Black Forest and the charcoal remains of their structures.
The Forest Service has policies - such as the Minimum Impact Suppression Tactics - which encourage firefighters to construct fire lines much too narrow to stop a fire and do not permit bulldozers and other heavy equipment in certain areas. Under the Clinton administration/Gore's proposed Roadless Initiative, not only are new roads not permitted in vast areas, but firefighting equipment such as engines cannot utilize existing roads that have been there for decades.
Old-time firefighters would turn over in their graves if they could be aware of what is happening today. Environmentalists have succeeded in stopping logging on federal land and are now at work trying to stop state and private harvest units. They mislead the public into believing that logging units enhance forest fires when the fact is that they greatly reduce the probability that a fire will turn into an inferno. Examine for yourself a scene north of Holter Lake, or look at the pictures on the KCAP website (www.kcap.com) to determine what a modem day harvest unit looks like. With the removal of ladder fuels and a great many mature trees left, these almost resemble picnic grounds, and they certainly deter the spread of fires. Older harvest units (clearcuts); which contain young trees with much higher fuel moisture, protect stands of timber uphill and down wind from them. Again, pictures on the website show how these 15-year-old clear cut units in Magpie and Hellgate Gulches on the Cave Gulch Fire have helped efforts to control wildfires.
Some environmentalists do not want retardant dropped on fires to help control the spread of wildfires because the retardant contains chemicals. Retardant is a fertilizer, ammonium phosphate, which will increase regrowth in the years after the fire.
Environmentalists also say that, because fires have been suppressed in the past, this has led to major fires now. The year 1910 is still the worst fire season on record, but no one says that this was the result of earlier fire suppression attempts. Anyone who would advocate letting a Wildland fire burn during a drought fire season, risking loss of life and property, is not rational.
I am a retired Helena High School earth science teacher with a Master's Degree in the Earth Sciences, have flown for the Forest Service and DNRC for 40 years. and have been an air attack group supervisor for about 35 years.