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Prescribed Burn stopped Colorado's Hayman Fire - not Thinned Areas!
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,...019803,00.html
editorial Fight fire with fire Agenda 2002: Public lands Sunday, December 01, 2002 - Last summer's horrific Hayman wildfire didn't wreck Roxborough and nearby subdivisions - because the voracious flames first reached an area the U.S. Forest Service had deliberately burned months earlier, thus starving the later wildfire of fuel. But the Forest Service came uncomfortably close to not being able to do the Polhemus controlled burn, partly because of the state's political posturing. A recent U.S. Forest Service report analyzed why the Hayman fire grew so large and intense, and what factors stopped it. Cooler weather and lighter winds greatly aided firefighters. Areas where unnaturally dense underbrush and other potential wildfire fuel had been cut or thinned also slowed the fire, but didn't stop it entirely. Instead, what stopped the Hayman blaze were two large sections of previously burned forest. One was the 3,500-acre, lightning-caused Schoonover fire, which occurred just weeks before the human-set Hayman blaze erupted. The other was the 8,000-acre Polhemus prescribed fire. Unlike smaller areas that had only been thinned, the larger, controlled burn completely stopped the flames. The upshot: Burning sizable chunks of forest under controlled circumstances mimics the natural fire ecology of ponderosa pines, and is a highly effective tool for preventing catastrophic wildfires. What the report didn't analyze, though, was the political trouble the Forest Service had in getting the Polhemus burn job done. In 1998, the state legislature passed SB 145, requiring federal agencies to get air-quality permits from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment before setting any prescribed burns. Prescribed fires can be done only under specific circumstances: adequate humidity in the air, moisture on the ground, calm or very light winds - and plenty of firefighters and equipment on-site in case the flames threaten to get out of control. Yet Colorado's politicians made the already complicated process even more cumbersome, by adding another bureaucratic layer. In June 2000, Gov. Bill Owens, using SB 145, ordered the health department to stop issuing burn permits to federal agencies. Owens acted after the National Park Service badly bungled the prescribed burn at Bandolier National Monument, charring parts of Los Alamos, N.M. So for a whole precious season, the Forest Service couldn't do any prescribed burns in Colorado. Waiting near the top of its to-do list: Polhemus. Conditions in the Polhemus area weren't ripe again until autumn 2001. The state did finally issue the permit. By then, however, the Sept. 11 attacks had happened, so the Forest Service also had to get permission from the Federal Aviation Administration to fly airplanes to monitor the project. Had the delays lasted a few days longer, the window of opportunity would have slammed shut, and the project would have been postponed until spring 2002 - when extreme drought conditions made any prescribed burning impossible. Under that scenario, nothing would have stood between the Hayman's fury and the south metro area. As it was, the Forest Service still had trouble completing the Polhemus job. Weather conditions shifted and smoke from the controlled burn rolled into the metro area, triggering numerous public complaints. At one time, state health officials even talked to the Forest Service about shutting down the project. In retrospect, those complaints of minor smoke seem petty. Colorado shouldn't further complicate the difficult job of prescribed burning. The legislature should repeal SB 145. The public must accept smoke from the projects as a temporary but necessary annoyance. Colorado should fight fire with fire, not politics. |
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