
Let Forest Fires Burn - mcone
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/06/science/let-forest-fires-burn-what-the-black-backed-woodpecker-knows.html
======
falcolas
Speaking as a Montanan here.

The policy of "let some fires burn" has been in practice for a few decades now
in our corner of the woods. Ever since the Yellowstone fire in the 80's, we've
focused our efforts on containment instead of extinguishment (i.e. make a best
effort to keep it away from human settlements); letting land lost to the fires
just burn out naturally while stopping them from claiming too much land.
Should we let them burn more? Perhaps.

But it's never so easy. The cost of just letting some go when they're a couple
dozen or even hundred acres can spiral out of control when you're suddenly
attempting to stop a 300,000 acre fire that has already burned out 16 homes
and is threatening towns. Yes, firefighters die fighting fires. Civilians also
die when an uncontained fire goes from a theoretical threat on the horizon to
consuming their house in a matter of minutes.

Fire doesn't respect property boundaries, and can travel a tremendous speeds
(upwards of 10mph). And they aren't really like floods - it's not just the
forests that burn, it's the flat lands with all the nice dead grasses. Grass
fires can move even faster than forest fires, given a wind to push it along.

Humans aren't the only ones affected, either. The livestock which used that
land for feed still has to be fed, or face starvation. Argue all you want
about the inhumanity of our treatment of livestock generally; letting them
starve due to a lack of hay (tied to a lack of money) is worse.

There are some who feel that they should not have to support those affected by
natural disasters. I'm sure others will be happy to return the favor.

(300,000 acres ~= 142,000 ha)

[https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/5399/](https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/5399/)

~~~
coryrc
Firefighters are dying to protect the private property of people who live in
the forests so they can save money not building a fire-safe house. We need
regular burns to keep the brush down, but we can't because rich people's
houses are in the path. The forest was there first; it's time to stop
protecting people from financial loss because of their poor decisions.

~~~
falcolas
Rich, poor, farmers, ranchers, middle class; all kinds have property in
forests. And firefighters work to protect them all pretty much equally.

As for your last sentence, that could apply evenly to any natural disaster.
The [ocean|tectonic plates|flood plains|super cells] were there first. Let's
stop protecting [hurricane|tornado|tsunami|earthquake] victims from loss due
to their poor decisions.

~~~
cakedoggie
> Rich, poor, farmers, ranchers, middle class; all kinds have property in
> forests.

And none of them should.

~~~
Gustomaximus
Why? Have you spent time living outside a city?

~~~
cakedoggie
Yes, but so? We shouldn't just be indiscriminately building anywhere we want,
and risking lives.

~~~
jonknee
Well then we should get rid of a lot of our cities because they are disasters
waiting to happen. California has many millions of people living near fault
lines. Talk about risking lives!

------
SandersAK
_Some_ forests are self-regulating when it comes to fire. _Some_ forests are
not. What defines _forest_ is actually pretty complicated, even for Federal
and state agencies. Controlled burns work in conjunction with thinning
practices and bone-piling (stacking big burns away from other areas).

The root of the problem has been and continue to be that structurally we
separate "fuels" and "prevention" teams in the forest service. Where Fuels
deals with assessing when and how to burn, and Prevention operationalizes it
and also does fire fighting.

Lastly, fire management suffers from a lack of talent and shared learning as
fire career paths involve people moving to different regions which are
geographically incredibly diverse. You don't fight fire in the east side of
Oregon like you do in Florida.

The lack of cohesion, mixed with a serious lack of funding, and a lot of
common misconceptions publicly leads to a mishmash of fire management across
the country.

source - was a firefighter. left because of all these issues.

~~~
namlem
Do you think it would help to hold some sort of conference every year or two
about firefighting techniques and science?

~~~
SandersAK
They do have conferences. I think the bigger issue is that there isn't really
a good budget for this stuff.

Most of the budget goes to handling fires that are really out of control, and
there's more and more of those every year.

If you doubled the budget, hired fuels teams with scientists at the head of
the teams (instead of fire fighters) and applied that budget to thinning and
controlled burns, you'd probably have much safer more defensible forests
areas.

Also, there's a huge gray area around what fires to prioritize and when to
fight them. A good example of "letting it rip" and "let them log" was the
Egley complex fire in 2007 (one of my last fires!):
[https://www.forestsandrangelands.gov/success/stories/2009/nf...](https://www.forestsandrangelands.gov/success/stories/2009/nfp_2009_or_fs_manf_fuels.shtml)

------
warrenm
There are trees that cannot reproduce unless their seed pods are baked open

Animals coming back to scorched areas carry all kinds of seeds with them that
love the mineral- and carbon-rich environment

Some deer can grow beautiful atypical racks only when feeding in areas ravaged
by fire

And burning-out old growth and underbrush allows whole new generations of
forest to start because their impediments to growth are gone

Seems like the best thing to do is to let the fires run their course (at least
the ones started naturally) .. and maybe note the risks of living near
treelines like people who live near water lines know they could be flooded

~~~
hammock
>There are trees that cannot reproduce unless their seed pods are baked open

Aspen and lodgepole pine

~~~
freehunter
Jack pine is another, and a nearly-extinct bird really depends on these trees.
The Kirtland's Warbler relies on large stands of young jack pine trees, and
jack pine cones only open in intense heat of forest fires. Really sad, the
birds can't survive in super cold climates and only like reproducing in jack
pine forests, so the ending ice age and the formation of the Great Lakes
trapped the birds in the northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan. They can't move
into the Upper Peninsula or Canada where jack pine is more common because it's
too cold, and can't move further south because there aren't any jack pine
forests further south.

As the number of wildfires has declined, so has the number of large stands of
young jack pines. This has had a devastating impact on the Kirtland's Warbler,
who already had their natural habitat decimated.

~~~
TommyBombadil
Giant Sequoia is another:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoiadendron_giganteum#Ecolo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoiadendron_giganteum#Ecology)

------
davidbanham
In Australia we do a lot of controlled burning through the winter. They're
called "hazard reduction burns" and are carefully planned operations involving
lots of firefighters and appliances.

The aim is to burn the leaf litter and other fuels, but not let the fire get
hot enough to kill established trees.

You start to see signs of regrowth very quickly. HRs are usually done in the
late winter. By mid spring the landscape is an incredible sight of bright
green new growth out of black tree trunks.

There are a lot of species of trees and plants native to the Australian bush
that need fire as part of their breeding and growth cycles. It's integral to
land management here.

~~~
bamboozled
Not sure if you've ever been to parts of Australia where "fire-stick farming"
[1] is still practised?

It's really amazing to witness being performed. These places don't seem to
ever have wild damaging fires like other parts of Australia, due to a lack of
fuel build up, and the environment in these places always look "immaculate",
almost like a freshly cleaned apartment. The smell of these slow burning fires
through winter is really nice.

I've spent a lot of time on the East Coast of Australia too, where the "bush"
is managed the European way, and there is a lot of problems with wild fires,
invasive species (introduced) and a less healthy looking landscape.

The hazard reduction burning in Australia seems to be more about establishing
parameters to protect property more than anything else?

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire-
stick_farming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire-stick_farming)

~~~
davidbanham
I'm aware of the practice, but haven't specifically sought out fire stick
farmed areas to travel to. I'll have to check some out.

The literature you've read is _probably_ mostly focused on the Rural Fire
Service (RFS) HR program. Their focus is protection of life and property in
settled areas.

The land management burns are undertaken by National Parks and Wildlife
Service (NPWS). RFS often assists with these to provide extra manpower.

I imagine the various State Forestry agencies also have similar programs, but
I don't know anything about them.

------
elihu
I asked a firefighter what she thought about controlled burns awhile back. She
said that one of the advantages of controlled burns is that you can set them
when conditions are favorable so that they won't get out of control and burn
areas they didn't want to burn just then.

So, the "just let it burn" strategy when fires start might lead to a lot more
property damage than a strategy of proactive burning.

Also, from a carbon footprint point of view, it seems advantageous to mix
burning and logging, so that not all the carbon returns straight into the
atmosphere.

~~~
wahern

      So, the "just let it burn" strategy when fires start might
      lead to a lot more property damage than a strategy of
      proactive burning.
    

The U.S. is _huge_. There's too much land to do controlled burning. And an
intentionally set fire is morally perilous, so there are strong incentives to
avoid burning except where it's easy and obvious; that is, _away_ from housing
or in only very small patches to create fire breaks.

    
    
      Also, from a carbon footprint point of view, it seems
      advantageous to mix burning and logging, so that not all the
      carbon returns straight into the atmosphere.
    

But loggers are gonna take the good trees and leave behind the young ones,
precisely the opposite of what a fire would do. I know this isn't how it's
supposed to work on paper, but the incentives aren't well aligned. A natural
fire isn't going to lobby Congress to increase its quota of high-value trees.

I think any practical land management plan that has a shot at restoring forest
health requires letting many more natural fires burn, and to burn more widely.
The dilemma is that things are so bad that these fires are much more dangerous
than they'd normally be. But I don't see how you ever get over that hump
unless you can send out an armada of autonomous, self-replicating robots to
cut down the underbrush. Perhaps we'll just have to wait for that solution.

~~~
discodave
The US is only 25% bigger than Australia and has more than 10x the
population.... soo the argument that the US is too big doesn't really hold
much water.

* 3.797 to 2.97 square miles

* 323 / 24 million

~~~
dennyabraham
This does not take into account the vastly greater proportion of habitable or
treed land in the US than in Australia

------
msla
Letting fires burn is standard policy at this point. We learned it the hard
way, particularly after the Big Burn, or the Great Fire of 1910.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_1910](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_1910)

It is uncontroversial to let isolated fires burn, but fires close to houses
must be contained and fires close to towns must be contained.

~~~
kibwen
I'd say later than 1910, see the 1988 Yellowstone fires:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_fires_of_1988](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_fires_of_1988)

 _" Before the late 1960s, fires were generally believed to be detrimental for
parks and forests, and management policies were aimed at suppressing fires as
quickly as possible. However, as the beneficial ecological role of fire became
better understood in the decades before 1988, a policy was adopted of allowing
natural fires to burn under controlled conditions, which proved highly
successful in reducing the area lost annually to wildfires."_

 _" In contrast, in 1988, Yellowstone was overdue for a large fire, and, in
the exceptionally dry summer, the many smaller "controlled" fires combined.
The fires burned discontinuously, leaping from one patch to another, leaving
intervening areas untouched. Intense fires swept through some regions, burning
everything in their paths. Tens of millions of trees and countless plants were
killed by the wildfires, and some regions were left looking blackened and
dead. However, more than half of the affected areas were burned by ground
fires, which did less damage to hardier tree species. Not long after the fires
ended, plant and tree species quickly reestablished themselves, and natural
plant regeneration has been highly successful."_

I visited Yellowstone a decade ago, and remember seeing the great wide swathes
of equally-sized small trees growing in the aftermath of the burnt-out areas.
I met a few older people who had seen the park before the fire and were sad at
its present state (some even said it was "ruined", though this has to be
hyperbolic, as Yellowstone is one of the most beautiful places I've ever
seen), but to me it was a beautiful thing to get to witness the cycle of
rebirth on such a grand scale.

~~~
falcolas
> some even said it was "ruined", though this has to be hyperbolic, as
> Yellowstone is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen

I visited Yellowstone before, during, and after those fires. The view _was_
ruined from one point of view - a lot of variety in tree size and age was lost
in those fires, to be replaced with uniform coverage.

A large party of the beauty of Yellowstone can be attributed to its wildness -
how untouched by human hands it is. Yellowstone's forests post fire... felt
tamed. No matter how much of an illusion it is, that wildness is something we
all feel and seek while in Yellowstone.

This has gotten better over the decades since, with trees no longer being as
uniform in size and coverage, but it's still possible to make out the scars of
those fires, if you know where to look.

------
aphextron
The problem with this is local politics. "Let wildfires burn" sounds great
when it's not _your_ multimillion dollar vacation home going up in smoke. Yes,
in the long run it would be better for everyone involved. But we humans are
anything but longsighted when it comes to dollars and cents.

~~~
notatoad
I don't think "let wildfires burn" is an accepted strategy anywhere that those
fires could be threatening homes. It's a policy for wilderness fires, where it
threatens a community it's not better in the long run for everyone involved.
It would be disastrous to let a fire rip through a town just to reduce the
fire hazard.

It's entirely possible to do proactive controlled burns and fuel reduction
near towns, and let the fires burn when they aren't threatening a town.
Letting fires burn and controlling, directing, and managing the fire are not
mutually exclusive.

~~~
jlarocco
I think the biggest problem with a "let wildfires burn" strategy is that most
forests in the continental United States are too small (or too populated) to
make it feasible. Any "large" fire will always be near a town or homes.

~~~
maxerickson
A fair number of current active large fires aren't expected to be contained
for weeks:

[https://fsapps.nwcg.gov/](https://fsapps.nwcg.gov/)

(clicking the markers brings up an info window with expected containment
dates)

------
strebler
Sure, sure, let the fires burn. It's an easy argument to make when it's not
your property. What about when the fire does over $3 billion dollars in direct
damages, burns 1.5 million acres and forces the evacuation of over 80K people
[1]? I'm fine with tax dollars going towards trying to prevent that.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Fort_McMurray_Wildfire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Fort_McMurray_Wildfire)

~~~
eesmith
One of the arguments, which the NYT piece mentions, is that decades of fire
suppression causes a fuel buildup so that if/when a fire does occur, it is
much larger, more dangerous, and harder to manage.

For example, [https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2016/0504/Did-
fi...](https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2016/0504/Did-fire-
suppression-actually-help-cause-Alberta-s-huge-wildfires-video) points out:
"In order to prevent fire like this week’s, Alberta has engaged in a robust
fire suppression program, says MacDonald. But because the province has
suppressed natural fires that burn off underbrush ever 50 or more years,
forests are full of fresh tinder.

“Alberta has engaged in a robust fire suppression program that changed the age
structure of the forest,” MacDonald told the Monitor. “Typically, forests in
that part of Alberta would burn every 50 to 200 years. But with strong fire
suppression, there has been a tremendous buildup of fuel.”"

As a politician, would you rather say "we'll have a forest fire in the area
every 10 years" or "we'll make sure there are no fires" .. and conveniently or
optimistically omit the "until after I'm long gone, but then we'll have a real
doozy of a blaze which will be worse than all of the little fires put
together".

In addition, as that Wikipedia article points out, fire fighters came in from
other provinces, the national government, and even South Africa. Do you think
the local people paid for all of that? Effectively this fire fighting acts as
an insurance subsidy.

It's possible to build houses to withstand wildfires, as people have done in
Australia and southern California. These designs work best when fires are more
frequent, because those fires are less intense, with less fuel to burn.
However, these designs are also more expensive.

If people are convinced that the fires will be suppressed, they are not going
to spend the money, and the building codes won't change to require better
wildfire resistance. Nor is it easy for individuals to switch to safer
building designs because when the fires do come they will be much more intense
than it should have been without decades of fire suppression.

~~~
strebler
If the theory were true, then why were the two largest fires in recorded North
American history in 1919 and 1950 (which MacDonald, a wildfire expert,
missed)? 5 and 4 million acres respectively, significantly larger than 2011 or
2016 Alberta fires.

The data does not support the theory, the fires over the past 70 years have
been smaller.

~~~
eesmith
There are two scales: intensity and size. The argument is that suppression
leads to more intense fires when there are fires, and these are more damaging.
Not just to human structures, but also to the forest; eg, high-intensity crown
fires instead of just having the scrub catch fire.

The NYT article gives more concrete numbers to the sizes over the last 70
years: "reams of evidence suggest the acreage that burned was more than is
allowed to burn today — possibly 20 million or 30 million acres in a typical
year. Today, closer to four million or five million acres burn every year."

They are smaller because of fire suppression.

If that fuel isn't being burned now, by regular wildfires, what will happen to
it when there finally is a fire.

------
pvaldes
The problem is that mature trees store things that humans need badly to
survive.

When a forest burn entirely you can say goodbye to a lot of much needed water
for years, and there is also a problem with carbon. We want carbon stored in
the trees, not to be released in the air. And the soil layer needs decades to
be created, but can vanish in a week. You can't just think in terms of 10
years. This creatures can live thousands of years.

What is very good for some animals, plants and fungi can be also very bad for
other animals, plants and fungi. A net of burn areas isolating islands of
intact areas would be a better solution probably providing a patched
environment with lots of oportunities.

And we should remember that some very old forests reach a mature level that is
fire resistent (plenty of humidity in soil). Laurisilva forests for example do
not start burning unless a considerable amount of energy is applied.

------
sizzzzlerz
In a book about the smoke jumpers from several years ago, one of the members
made a profound statement, jokingly, probably, but maybe not. He said that
instead of battling wildfires the way we do now, we just throw money on the
fire and wait until the rains come.

With the continued droughts throughout the west and up into Alaska and Canada
along with the effects of global warming, the forest lands are just dry tinder
waiting for a spark. Having the fires grow so large, they can't be put out
will become more and more common. Maybe letting them burn until the rains come
is the right solution.

~~~
falcolas
One more thing that's really hurt has been beetle kill. There are stands of
trees killed by beetles which have been waiting for the right spark. They've
been working for years to clear out these tinderboxes, but it's hard work
(especially since those efforts have to fight against the anti-logging camps).

[http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2015/04/pine-
beetles/rosne...](http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2015/04/pine-
beetles/rosner-text)

~~~
jessaustin
ISTM that nothing would have been as good a firebreak against the beetle
onslaught as actual firebreaks left by uncontrolled fires would have been?

~~~
falcolas
Depends on how recent the burn was. Within a year, maybe two? Perhaps. After
that? Plenty of new trees to chomp down on.

And unless explicitly directed, forest fires rarely create anything that could
be considered to be a "break" between two sections of forest. Usually more
like a "blob" in the middle of a forest.

------
woliveirajr
Sometimes small and constant fires clean up the area, cleaning up dead leafs
and so on. Constantly stopping those fires can lead to accumulation, until a
great and wild fire comes and destroys more than the "nature following the
natural fate" would have.

------
nitwit005
The missing step is often that we continue to let communities pop up in these
areas that we fully expect to periodically burn down.

Of course, we often still let people build their houses in flood planes, but
we seem to be slowly getting better at that.

~~~
falcolas
Or in zones where there are catastrophic earthquakes on a regular basis. Or
hurricanes. Or tornadoes. Or blizzards.

> we often still let people build their houses in flood planes

The best farmland is on flood plains; good luck with holding them back.

Let's be honest for a moment: there's no place in America which is safe from
every regularly occurring natural disaster. Yet we still live here.

~~~
sizzzzlerz
Absolutely true. But we need to expose the dangers of building and living in
these hazardous areas and make the owners share significant portions of the
costs of protecting them. Here, in California, you can buy earthquake
insurance but at a high premium and high deductabl but everyone is quite aware
of the fact that the earth can shift any time. The same should be the case for
building in areas subject to wildfires, or avalanches, or tidal surge, or
tornadoes, or hurricanes.

~~~
falcolas
> make the owners share significant portions of the costs of protecting them

Well, practically speaking, we do. In the form of taxes, which are
redistributed according to need by FEMA and associated agencies. This is
definitely one place I would not trust a for-profit insurance company given
the typical cautions around fire insurance for a home - use it only as a last
resort or find yourself unable to get coverage.

~~~
sizzzzlerz
In the event of a major catastrophe, it really won't make any difference who
is carrying the insurance. They're all going to run out of money and will only
pay off the early birds or a fraction of the policy's coverage to all. And by
major, here, I'm think an 8 earthquake rupturing the San Andreas fault from
San Diego to the Tehachapis or a multi-state cat 5 tornado swarm in OK, NE,
KS, IA, and MO. Are they likely? Sure but improbable. The joker, however, will
be the effect of global warming and what its going to do to the weather.

------
jessaustin
It seems that USA's War On Fire has had the same results as its other Wars, On
Drugs and Terrorism: more fires with more harmful results.

We will be the laughingstocks of history, if humanity somehow survives us.

------
goda90
It's well known that because of fire fighting, there are build ups of
flammable material causing subsequent fires to be bigger and hotter. I wonder
if theres a point where if we just let the fires burn, they'll be so hot that
the natural benefits will be lost and the forest damaged for much longer than
usual. Maybe we need to ease into it by not putting out the fires, but still
keeping them from getting really intense.

~~~
stephengillie
I was certain this policy had been implemented decades ago. I remember seeing
video of firefighters starting small, controlled fires to consume built-up
debris. I must be having a 1984/Mandela/old moment.

~~~
crunksht
You are correct:

[https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/dbnf/home/?cid=stelprdb528146...](https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/dbnf/home/?cid=stelprdb5281464)

------
smileysteve
I am under the impression that fire departments regularly practice "controlled
burns" to destroy brush and have fires occur "naturally", during damp times
and away from properties.

At least I am under this impression from controlled burns happening in
Talladega National Forest and Cohutta wilderness.

~~~
vkou
They used to do a lot more of them. Unfortunately, with cuts to that part of
their budget, controlled burns in the Pacific North-West are a thing of the
past.

Instead of spending money and time on controlled burns, we now spend money and
time on fighting uncontrollable firestorms.

------
framebit
Jared Diamond discusses western US wildfires in his fascinating book Collapse.
Interesting perspective for anybody interested in this topic.

------
agumonkey
Anybody know websites to discuss ideas and tech about forest fire fighting ?
(be it thermodynamics, organization, monitoring, chemistry etc)

------
ktRolster
This quote from the article is important:

 _Still, considerable disagreement remains among scientists about exactly how
forests should be managed._

~~~
eesmith
Really? I thought that was a wishy-washy statement.

As you crank up the tightness of "exact", you'll always get more and more
disagreement.

Is there any large science-based policy decision where there is 100% agreement
among scientists, or where there hasn't been considerable disagreement between
some of them?

~~~
ktRolster
If scientists who have studied the field for years disagree, then we (who
barely know anything about it) should be careful in choosing sides.

~~~
eesmith
Exactly. There's is no field where that statement isn't true.

Take CFCs in the atmosphere, affecting the ozone layer.

DuPont scientists were against the Montreal Protocol, saying things like "We
believe there is no imminent crisis that demands unilateral regulation"
(quoted from
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Protocol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Protocol)
).

So saying simply that there is disagreement is wishy-washy and unimportant.

------
zamalek
I very much agree with this theory. The problem is that fire does not respect
the anthropocene. We have changed the wilderness in nontrivial ways (e.g.
forestry). Fuel is far more abundant and dense.

Every species (including plants) on the planet evolved to deal with a certain
amount of fire - including the appropriate degree of propagation. We've
unavoidably upset that balance and so a radically different solution is
required. Although I don't know what that solution is, it looks nothing like
what we are doing today.

