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Old 01-12-2002, 03:48 PM
Aozotorp
 
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Default 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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