Q: "You know what this place needs?" A: "A good fire."

[COEngineer]

I have been hunting, hiking, and backpacking all over CO with my family for 20+ years now and almost everywhere I go (mostly USFS land) I see huge landscapes of decadent growth and/or beetle-killed forests. I always ask my kids, "You know what this place needs?" and the programmed response is, "A good fire."

Most of these places are going to burn anyway, why not do it in a (somewhat) controlled manner? Or at least at a time of year when the fire is unlikely to burn for months.

What is the best way to advocate for more of them? Is RMEF the biggest proponent of prescribed fire? Am I missing the mark and there is a better alternative to fire?

 

[Nameless Range]

I say the same thing to myself often, and when the country south of my house burned last summer it was probably the best thing that could happen for it. I’m not an expert, but my oversimplified take after talking to quite a few folks about it:

It is easier said than done. It is easier said than paid for. It is easier said than not getting sued for . Large scale controlled burning is not easy.


Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t push for and advocate for it. I think it was Stephen Pyne (could be wrong) Who said, “Either we learn to use and live with fire, or fire will control us. Either way fire is in our future.” Wasn’t exactly that but something like it

 

[Harrier]

The Sam Houston National Forest here in Texas has periodic controlled burns.

 

[noharleyyet]

The Sam Houston National Forest here in Texas has periodic controlled burns.

That statement will not go unpunished here Tex...; )

 

[Nicoli7153]

Where I hunt in Colorado there is so much fuel on the forest floor that it will burn hot enough to scorch the ground for a long time ... if it ever starts

 

[RyGuy]

Where I hunt in Colorado there is so much fuel on the forest floor that it will burn hot enough to scorch the ground for a long time ... if it ever starts

I wonder if burning smallish areas in the winter would help this? Perhaps the snow and cold would prevent a massive moonscape type burn and instead help the environment with a moderate burn

 

[kwyeewyk]

I wonder if burning smallish areas in the winter would help this? Perhaps the snow and cold would prevent a massive moonscape type burn and instead help the environment with a moderate burn

Winter doesn't really work (where there's much snow anyways), need ground fire to carry, pretty short windows in fall and spring, and so many factors involved in a burn plan, often have to cancel. I think this sums it up nicely:

It is easier said than done. It is easier said than paid for. It is easier said than not getting sued for . Large scale controlled burning is not easy.

 

[jrabq]

Good plan, poorly timed, huge fires in New Mexico this year were "prescribed burns", and that was not the first time it's happened.

 

[David658]

Good plan, poorly timed, huge fires in New Mexico this year were "prescribed burns", and that was not the first time it's happened.

Yep, look at the 20 largest fires in NM history, and see how many were controlled burns.

 

[Laszlo Cravensworth]

Winter doesn't really work (where there's much snow anyways), need ground fire to carry, pretty short windows in fall and spring, and so many factors involved in a burn plan, often have to cancel. I think this sums it up nicely:

Even small to moderate scale burning has challenges. We have the Ashland Forest Resiliency project here that was spawned from a wildfire threatening town. Local partners have done a great job over the last 10 years of cleaning our watershed and working the urban/ forest boundary. This valley has strong inversions though and people cry every year about the smoke in the winter.

They're willing to deal with smoky summers or smokey winters, but not both. Both is the solution though.

 

[MThuntr]

I comment this every time I walk into just about any forest. I said this exact thing sometime in mid July...currently that forest is burnt under the 107,000 acre Moose Fire.

I'm not sure how to get a prescribed burn system out there that won't get away from them. 120 years of wholesale fire suppression has stacked up some serious woody debris.

 

[westbranch]

The USFS in the Panhandle national forests does rx fires every year and has a plan for future areas that I found online a couple years ago. But that ends up only being a few thousand acres a year across 2.5 million acres. Hard to have the landscape scale impact that is needed and it would take a lot of money and a long term commitment. Some good projects that involve thinning and more rx fires have been proposed locally but it takes a while to get them going. And still relatively small areas.

 

[El Jason]

Hard to have the landscape scale impact that is needed and it would take a lot of money and a long term commitment

This is the pink elephant.

 

[kwyeewyk]

The only feasible approach is to focus on wildland urban interface to increase defensibility of structures and make it somewhat feasible to allow more remote areas to burn with less danger of burning houses, but it only takes one escaped rx or a wildfire that was let burn getting into houses to put an end to that. WA DNR was sued for not putting out the fires that eventually became the Carlton complex that burned into a couple small towns, no more letting it burn where it needs to around here unless it's way in the wilderness.