forestry
Harnessing Fire for Wildlife
FuelS MaNageMeNT iN CaliFORNia’S MixeD-CONiFeR FOReSTS
By Malcolm North, Ph.D., Pete Stine, Ph.D., William Zielinski, Ph.D., Kevin O’Hara, Ph.D., and Scott Stephens, Ph.D.
Malcolm North,
Ph.D., is a Research
Forest Ecologist,
USDA Forest Service,
Pacific Southwest
Research Station in
Davis, California.
Credit: Tom Rambo
On a dry afternoon in September of 2007 the “Moonlight Fire” started in a northeastern California mixed-conifer forest that had
been accumulating fuels for over a century. Twelve
days later the fire was contained after burning
65,000 acres, destroying seven structures, injuring
34 firefighters, and costing $32 million. Much of the
forest within the fire perimeter had not been treated
to reduce fuels because the area contained 22 protected areas set aside as habitat for two threatened
species, the spotted owl (Strix occidentalis) and
northern goshawk (Accipiter gentilis). A year after
the fire, one lone male spotted owl remained within
those charred 65,000 acres.
Fire’s Role in Forests
In the early nineteenth century, an estimated 460,000
forested hectares burned each year in California
alone. By the second half of the 20th century, fire
suppression had reduced annual burn acreage by 95
percent (Stephens et al. 2007). As a result, forests
have accumulated large loads of surface fuels (litter,
branches, and logs) as well as ladder fuels, small
trees that allow surface fire to burn up into the overstory canopy where it becomes lethal for trees.
Coauthor
Affiliations
Pete Stine,
Ph.D., is Program
Manager, uSDa
Forest Service,
Pacific Southwest
Research Station in
Davis, California.
Such are the unintended consequences of neglecting fuels management for the sake of threatened
species. The question is, how can forest managers
integrate the needs of both?
This fuel accumulation has changed the nature of
wildfire. Historically, slow burning, low-intensity
wildfires recycled nutrients and cleared out dense
thickets of small trees. Today wildfire often “crowns
out,” quickly burning through the canopy and killing many of the oldest and largest trees. Fire size
has also dramatically increased. Within the last
seven years, Arizona, Colorado, and Oregon have
William Zielinski,
Ph.D., is a Research Wildlife
Biologist, uSDa
Forest Service,
Pacific Southwest
Research Station,
arcata, California.
Kevin O’Hara, Ph.D.,
is Professor of Silviculture, Department
of environmental
Science, Policy,
and Management,
university of
California, Berkeley.
Scott Stephens,
Ph.D., is associate
Professor of Fire
Science, Department
of environmental
Science, Policy, and
Management, university of California,
Berkeley.
Credit: uSFS
Feeding on heavy fuel loads, the Moonlight Fire of September 2007 spread from “ground to crown,” burning 65,000 acres of mixed-conifer forest in northeastern California. Wildlife habitat might have been spared through strategic fuels management.
