Lessons from the Wildfires of 2000
by Bill Loftus, photos by Yvonne Carree Barkley

It was a summer of fire for Idahoans, hot with drama that reached into the realm of terror and heartbreak for many. Livestock producers saw range fires consume vital pasture. Woodland owners watched their forests disappear in firestorms. Cabin and homeowners fought valiantly to protect their property from the march of flames.

University of Idaho Cooperative Extension System educators and specialists mobilized as the fires died and the smoke cleared to help repair the immediate damage and in some cases to help lessen the effects of future fires.

In the dry forests and the sagebrush plains of Idaho, fire is a force of nature that must be reckoned with. Like history, those who ignore wildfire and its role are doomed to be repeated victims.

In September, UI forest extension specialists Yvonne Carree Barkley and Ron Mahoney were called in by the residents of the Middle Fork Ranch to help them deal with the devastation caused by the wildfire that blazed out of Pistol Creek in August.

The association of cabin owners, some of whom had been visiting their wilderness outpost along the Salmon River’s Middle Fork for four decades, wanted help in assessing the damage and forming a recovery plan. The scene, even in September when only a few isolated stumps still smoked, was hellish. Long lines of sparse, light-colored ash marked where downed trees once lay, their imprints as vague as the specters of atomic bombing victims.

"I called them log ghosts," Barkley said. "It was eerie seeing them marking the blackened hillsides as we flew into Pistol Creek." A warped steel wheel rim and frozen rivulets of aluminum marked where a vehicle once stood. A beautiful fireplace and chimney of river cobbles, complete with andirons in the form of leaping trout, marked the remains of a vacation lodge.

Ponderosa pines that once shaded a wild retreat are blackened, their needles and limbs flashed to charcoal by a rolling thunder of superheated flame. The fire arrived so quickly it consumed all of the oxygen before the trees could burn. Barkley continued, "And it was weird. In some places the grass was still green while a cabin right next to it was burned to the ground. Near other buildings, you could see where the fire had swirled to within 6 inches of a deck pier, then moved in a different direction and left the cabin untouched."

Barkley knows a thing or two about protecting buildings from wildfire as the lead author on Landscaping for Wildfire Prevention: Protecting Homes on the Wildland/Urban Interface. Along with UI extension educator Chris Schnepf at Coeur d’Alene and UI horticulturist W. Michael Colt at Parma, the trio gave property owners a comprehensive look at how they could best protect their homes when they choose to live in or on the fringes of the North-west’s dry forests.

As in business, the best choice often boils down to location. When a home already stands in a draw or other landscape feature that could direct wildfires its way, fire protection strategies range from trimming shrubs and trees to create a defensible space for firefighters to choosing plants that resist flames better than others.

The bottom line for homeowners, woodland owners, and all Idahoans, however, is that the region’s forests are shaped by fire. Fire is as elemental a part of the ecosystem as rain. Barkley is leading another effort to produce a guide to help landowners recover from fire. The guide examines what people can do to protect the land from fire’s worst effects while recognizing its benefits.

Her advice for property owners, once the smoke clears, is to take a deep breath. The charred and moon-like scene that confronts visitors is often emotionally wrenching, Barkley said. Fires can bake the soil so severely that water cannot penetrate it. Erosion often ranks as one of the most severe problems following fires. Less severe fires can sterilize the soil, stretching the recovery time. Damage to soils might even be slight or nonexistent. A low-intensity fire can even benefit the soil and trees by releasing the nutrients that had been bound in grass, twigs, or fallen needles.

Plants, however, almost always appear to be the losers after fire sweeps through an area. Intense fires that race through the crowns of trees leave behind a threadbare forest of blackened trunks. Grasses needed for grazing allotments are gone. Plans for grazing sheep or cattle in traditional areas must be abandoned at least temporarily. But as black as the outlook is, Barkley said, the post-fire scene can also be deceptive.

Light fires may burn away cured grass but stimulate roots to produce tender and nutrient-rich new growth. Fires can reset the clock for shrubs that had grown too tall and unpalatable for wildlife. Fire can provide landowners with a chance to replant with trees better suited to a site, or to begin the process of restoring western white pines to areas the trees once covered before white pine blister rust devastated stands.

Rangeland fires raise a different set of complicated questions. Ken Sanders, a UI rangeland ecologist, suggests that standard practices may need rethinking. On the subject of perennial grasses, Sanders said it may not be necessary to wait two or three years to return livestock to burned ranges. Timing of the burn may be the most important factor. Bluebunch wheatgrass showed no significant loss of vigor in the year following a late-season fire that burned off old vegetation. Early season fires did reduce the vigor of both wheatgrass and squirreltail grass.

Choosing the best grass to reseed rangelands following fires can be tricky. Crested wheatgrass and bottlebrush squirreltail grass are the only perennial grasses that can compete successfully with annual grasses in the intermountain region. Even then, giving perennial grasses the jump on cheatgrass and medusahead can necessitate the use of mechanical or chemical controls. An option, Sanders suggests, may be to use carefully controlled grazing to crop the annual grasses before the later-growing perennials take hold.

Even as the smoke cleared from summer range fires, UI College of Agriculture faculty were addressing impacts on grazing. Ag economist Wilson Gray, at the request of the Idaho Cattle Association, pioneered the use of an Internet-based exchange to help those who lost pasture to fire to find others with excess pasture. College web specialist Don Pierce had the website open for business by early September at http://www.ag.uidaho.edu/pasture/, giving buyers and sellers a free forum on the Internet.

Because fire is a frequent visitor in many of the region’s dry forests, extension educator Chris Schnepf has authored a guide to help woodland owners better manage their lands. Schnepf’s guide, Logging Selectively, covers the basic concepts of forestry with a goal of lessening the risks of fire, insects, and disease.

The pocket guide’s intent, Schnepf said, is to help landowners decide which trees to cut or leave when logging or thinning. "One of the things being talked about this year after the fires is going out in the forests and doing more thinning," Schnepf said. "This will give people a better idea of which trees to choose to leave a healthy, resilient forest. And resilience includes fire resistance, insect resistance, and drought resistance."

Fire plays an elemental role in Idaho’s forests and ranges. The charred aftermath of a fire can seem devastating to property owners or terrifying to those who witness a firestorm. What happens next, how people and the lands under their care respond, can itself play a major role in whether a fire can produce benefits or whether it will register as a loss.

Publications mentioned above are available from UI Ag Publications, (208) 885-7982.