UP Project
Prescribed fire can be a valuable tool to treat vegetation to improve wildlife habitat, enhance watershed condition, and reduce the potential for catastrophic fires in the future. All wildlife species rely on their local habitat to supply them with food, water, and shelter. As the vegetation within their habitat ages it becomes more dense and continuous, effectively crowding out the grasses, forbes, and shrubs that many species depend on for food. These dense stands of timber also utilize more water than areas dominated by grasses and shrubs; this often results in decreased spring flow in areas with dense timber. The amount of shelter, or hiding cover, often increases with the age of stands but, without food and water in close proximity to this cover, it does not meet the entire needs of the species and subsequently has little value. Prescribed fire can be used in many older vegetation types to reduce the amount of decadent, unusable vegetation and increase areas where younger grasses and shrubs can grow. These areas can be small or large depending on the needs of specific wildlife species. In some instances the openings created by the prescribed fire are seeded using a mixture of native seeds designed for the specific needs of a variety of species.
Older stands of timber or brush often have significantly more bare ground beneath the older trees than younger stands of timber or brush because of the increased competition for both water and nutrients. This bare ground is subject to erosion during heavy rains or rapid snow melt, resulting in loss of soil from the area and increased loadings of sediment in downstream areas. As with wildlife habitat, prescribed fire can be utilized to create openings and reduce the density of these older, decadent stands, allowing grasses and shrubs to move back into the area. The increase in grasses and shrubs can help hold both water and soils in place, reducing the overland flow of water, the loss of soil, and the sedimentation of streams.
Over the past several years most of the catastrophic fires in the Western U.S. have occurred in stands of dense, continuous timber These fires are very hard for firefighters to control because of the high intensity with which they burn. Long flames, temperatures of a 1000 degrees or more, and smaller ‘spot’ fires started by embers blown ahead of the fire all make control difficult. By breaking up these dense stands of timber with carefully planned prescribed burns, managers can decrease the intensity of a timber crown fire to that of a grass fire. Spot fires are also less likely to occur in grass fuels. These changes in vegetation and the subsequent fire behavior give firefighters a safer place from which to fight the fire and a significantly better opportunity to control the fire before it destroys valued natural resources, subdivisions, and private property.
By carefully planning and implementing prescribed fires across the landscape, managers can improve the value of both wildlife habitat and the watershed while increasing our ability to protect valuable resources, adjacent subdivisions, and private property. In order to increase their capability to utilize prescribed fire on public lands, the federal fire agencies, which include the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, and United States Forest Service, have recently hired additional expertise in both the planning and implementation of prescribed fire.
Dan is the Fire Ecologist for the Montrose Interagency Fire Program. Prior to that he spent 9 years as the Fire Management Officer for the Socorro Field Office in New Mexico where he concentrated both on protecting Wildland Urban interface areas through fuels reduction and enhancing habitat and watershed condition through prescribed burning. His knowledge and expertise are a great asset to UP. Dan can be reached at daniel_hiusjen@co.blm.gov
Editor’s Note:
Any tool which humans use to manage the land (fire, grazing, technology, etc) can result in positive or negative effects on its integrity. They all have the potential to restore ecosystem health. At the same time, if inappropriately used, they can be very harmful.