The North Rim of the Grand Canyon forest stands are dominated by ponderosa pine, which tends to have a low-severity/high-frequency fire regime. However, occasional high-severity blazes are normal and not mutually exclusive. Photo by George Wuerthner
The recent Los Angeles Times article “How a good fire in the Grand Canyon exploded into a raging inferno” perpetuates a false dichotomy about wildfire.
The basic theme of the article is that there are “good fires” which burn at low severity at frequent intervals, and do not kill trees. By contrast, the “bad” fires, such as the Dragon Bravo blaze that charred the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, burn extensive regions, often killing most of the vegetation, whether trees or shrubs.
This simplistic thinking has led to poor forest policies, and a failure to see the forest through the trees.
A destructive fire burns your home, but otherwise, wildfire is a critical element of most western ecosystems.
In some dry forests, frequent fires were the norm. However, that does not preclude the occasional large blaze.
A good analogy can be found in rivers. Most western rivers flood in the spring from snowmelt or rain. These annual flood events are sometimes overwhelmed by the occasional large-volume torrent, characterized as 100-year floods. The hundred-year floods are just as natural and normal for most rivers as the annual floods, and yearly floods don’t preclude the occasional large flows.
The same concept applies to wildfire. Even in forest stands where low-severity, frequent fires may dominate, climate and weather events, including extensive drought, high temperatures, low humidity, and wind, can result in large, high-severity blazes.
And just as hydrologists will tell you the occasional 100-year flood helps to flush sediments, rearrange channels, and otherwise rejuvenate river systems, large high-severity blazes serve a similar purpose in our forests.
Large episodic fires like the Dragon Bravo conflagration on the Grand Canyon’s North Rim create snags and downed wood that are critical habitat for many plants and animals. For instance, as many as 50% of the bird species in the region may depend on snags for foraging, nesting, and roosting. High-severity blazes stimulate aspen reproduction through new growth from root suckers. Intensive blazes can also help maintain meadows from forest encroachment, again maintaining habitat diversity that would otherwise disappear.
These are only a few of the “benefits” that result from the “bad” fires.
It’s also important to note that most vegetation communities in the West are characterized by less frequent, but more severe fire regimes. This includes chaparral, sagebrush, fir, spruce, cedar, hemlock, and many pine species. In all these plant communities, wildfires tend to be episodic and rejuvenate the landscape.
Perpetuating the “good fire-bad fire” paradigm leads to poor public policy. The West has always had both low-severity and large high-severity blazes. What is new is that increased human ignitions and human-created climate change are shifting fire regimes.
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This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by George Wuerthner.