[ With the warming and drying climate, and with a multitude of
other stresses on forest ecosystems, the best course is less is more
— much less. We cannot actually fix ecosystems, we can only support
their natural healing process.]
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FOREST MANAGEMENT: LET’S RECLAIM OUR INTENTIONS  
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Sarah Hyden
November 3, 2023
CounterPunch
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_ With the warming and drying climate, and with a multitude of other
stresses on forest ecosystems, the best course is less is more —
much less. We cannot actually fix ecosystems, we can only support
their natural healing process. _

Cerro Pelado Fire in the Santa Fe National Forest, caused by a Forest
Service escaped prescribed burn , (photo: US Forest Service).

 

Dear fellow conservationists,

I recently came across the 2022 article, “Crowning Fury,”
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Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire, which was ignited by two separate
escaped Forest Service prescribed burns. In it, Alicia Inez Guzmán
describes the effects the fire had on a rural community in Mora
County, New Mexico. Pola Lopez, whose family’s entire 160 acres was
burned to black poles, said that she was “brokenhearted by the loss
of the old-growth forest, the ‘grandfather trees,’ as she calls
them.” Members of her community felt “defenseless and lost” as
the fire burned through, and are now trying to reclaim their lives and
livelihoods in the fire’s aftermath, with little help so far from
the federal government.

I know the wildfire analyst who is assisting the Lopez family with
their claims concerning the damages to their land. He said there are
grasses and weeds growing back, but no living trees for a large
distance and therefore no clear seed source for conifer regeneration.

This is the result of USFS forest management policy truly run amok. I
believe this issue is being understated by almost everyone, except by
those who are living it. Many residents impacted by the fire are now
periodically experiencing post-fire flooding, which is causing damage
to waterways and erosion. And their lives have been turned
up-side-down.

Time, maybe many decades, will bring some kind of regeneration, but
due to the warming climate I have no reason to believe that in some
areas regeneration will necessarily include substantial amounts of
conifers. Many are concerned that some sections of the fire scar may
type convert to predominantly shrubland. Invasive weeds are often
taking hold.

Supporting the Forest Service in continuing with forest treatments,
both cutting and prescribed burns, at anything resembling the levels
they have been attempting to implement, will almost certainly lead to
more of this. Despite an acknowledged lack of agency capacity and a
steadily decreasing number of safer burn windows due to the warming
climate, last year the Forest Service committed itself to increasing
fuels treatments up to 4X current levels. Also, the efforts by the
agency to implement fuels treatments with no NEPA at all, by expanding
and even igniting fires during wildfire containment and suppression
activities
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can only lead to even more adverse consequences, some catastrophic.
This is occurring across the West.

The Forest Service’s primary justifications for these wildfire
expansions and ignitions is that they are being done for resource
management objectives and for firefighter safety. During New
Mexico’s 2022 Black Fire, the second largest fire in state history,
the Forest Service ignited fire with helicopters and drones over 10
miles to the south of main fire, and 6 miles to the north (this has
been verified by the agency.) The size of the fire was approximately
doubled. Larger fires often mean more danger for both firefighters and
local residents, along with more collateral damage.

The agency caused the ignition of wildfires that burned over 387,000
acres in the Santa Fe National Forest during the past decade, compared
with less than than 57,000 acres burned from fires ignited by all
other causes
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the same period. This should be enough to require the Forest Service
to stop entirely what they are doing until a rational approach can be
developed, appropriate for the current and future climate. Anything
less seems unreasonable to me. The conditions that caused these
events could easily play out in any national forest. The agency’s
stated purpose is to moderate fire behavior, protect communities and
to increase forest health. I think it’s clear they are failing, and
what occurred in the Santa Fe National Forest last year is an
illustration of what can happen when an agency has gone out-of-control
in response to their forest management mandates. It’s a lot about
quotas.

Whatever purposes the conservation community has hoped to accomplish
by supporting fuels treatments (thin-from-below and prescribed burns),
and by supporting allowing wildfires to burn for resource benefit,
have been almost entirely co-opted by the Forest Service. What is
being done to our forest by the agency, without knowing what the
effects will be, is just wrong – and damaging communities is clearly
also wrong. We should not in any way be complicit by supporting
strategies that may result in the severe multi-generational impacts
which agency-ignited wildfires such as the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon
Fire can have on communities, especially low-income traditional
communities.

Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire burn scar. Photo: Patrick Lohman, Source
NM.

Isn’t it possible the Forest Service has taken a beneficial strategy
(genuinely allowing natural wildfires to burn when safe to do so, and
utilizing limited prescribed fire when/where it is not safe to allow
wildfires to burn) and turned it entirely on its head, causing
destruction? By destruction I mean purposely or recklessly igniting
wildfires given that we don’t know what will regenerate, and in the
process killing endangered and sensitive animal and plant species,
burning old growth, damaging wildlife habitat, precipitating post-fire
flooding and damage to waterways and acequias, damaging
infrastructure, and devastating livelihoods and lives. Three people
died from post-fire flooding as a direct result of the Hermits
Peak/Calf Canyon Fire. The agency is also in process of putting the
final nails in the NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) coffin by
circumventing it as they hugely abuse emergency authority during
wildfire suppression, and ignite fire miles away.

A cost/benefit analysis of Forest Service burning practices must be
done, which includes consideration of aggressive thinning, as many
slash piles get left behind which must be burned. Such analysis should
be as free as possible from prior assumptions and biases. Why is there
such a strong focus on the small “fire deficit” relative to the
average historical fire return? What is the downside of having less
than average historical amounts of fire on the landscape? The FS has
stated that the purpose of their interventions is to avoid megafires
by igniting “good fires.” But since, at times, they are igniting
full-fledged wildfires and megafires by their interventions, that
purpose has effectively gone out the window.

Perhaps we should not try to close the “fire deficit.” Too much
goes wrong when we try to “fix” the ecosystem, and problems often
seem to get worse overall instead of better. What we do know is that
as the climate becomes warmer and drier, wildfire will naturally
increase. We just need to get out of the way when we can. The
collateral damages from the Forest Service’s ever-increasing
intentional burning spree may be far worse than any impacts from a
historical fire deficit.

And how do we know that in our warming and drying climate less than
the average historical fire return isn’t optimal? Wildfire reduces
tree canopy cover, at least for quite awhile. Tree canopy cover holds
moisture into the ecosystem and reduces the drying effects of the
warming climate. Our strategy should be to do everything we can to
support more moisture in the ecosystem which would result in
vegetation being naturally more fire resistant, and that would include
not purposely putting even more fire onto the landscape that
substantially burns tree canopy.

The Forest Service’s current efforts to “put fire on the
landscape” has the appearance of a war on the natural world, as they
utilize new “artillery” capable of putting incredible amounts of
heat on the ground, including drones and helicopters that drop
incendiary devices over large tracts of landscape during fire
suppression and containment activities, sometimes many miles from the
fire front. These actions belie any kind of “natural” wildfire
regime.

We have little input at this point on how intentional firing
activities are conducted. When the Forest Service ignited the Las
Dispensas prescribed burn during a spring high-winds pattern, which
caused the Hermits Peak Fire, part of the largest wildfire in New
Mexico history, the locals’ protestations were ignored. When the
Forest Service expands wildfires anywhere from double to 100X the
original size during fire suppression and containment operations,
effectively as fuels treatments, it is not done with any kind of NEPA
analysis process or with public input. Forest management strategies
supported and condoned by the conservation community have been
hijacked, and taken to an extreme. A strategy that is beneficial can
become destructive when excessively and recklessly applied.

Smokey Bear is so confused at this point he is in danger of having a
mental breakdown. The Forest Service has gone from preventing and
suppressing wildfires, to allowing fire to burn for resource benefit,
to deliberately or recklessly igniting wildfires, in an effort to put
more fire on the landscape. We need to be clear about what we actually
want. Do we want major wildfires, including megafires, or not? Even
though some high severity fire is natural on the landscape
historically, I think the answer to that question is —  we should
not want them to the extent that we acquiesce while the Forest Service
ignites and deliberately expands wildfires. We will have enough
wildfires, including high severity fire, without the agency igniting
them.

Conservation organizations and scientists should reclaim their
original intentions from the Forest Service, since the agency has
turned them into destruction. It’s gone too far to say it’s partly
right, and maybe just needs some moderation. And although the Santa Fe
National Forest has recently been the epicenter of the damage, impacts
will most likely increase across the West.

With the warming and drying climate, and with a multitude of other
stresses on forest ecosystems, the best course is less is more —
much less. We cannot actually fix ecosystems, we can only support
their natural healing process, which will adjust to current conditions
as best as possible. We have strategies that can help keep forests
cooler and wetter, in order to increase the fire-resistance of
vegetation.
[[link removed]] Allowing
some wildfires to burn naturally when safe to do so can help to bring
forests to a state of ecological balance. It’s all an experiment
now, so interventions, including deliberately putting fire on the
landscape, should be carefully considered within a comprehensive NEPA
analysis process, and be light handed, site specific and limited.

_Sarah Hyden has been working to protect the Santa Fe National Forest
for well over a decade. She was a co-founder of the Santa Fe Forest
Coalition and was the WildEarth Guardians’ Santa Fe National Forest
Advocate. In 2019, she co-founded The Forest Advocate, a
not-for-profit organization dedicated to protection of the Santa Fe
National Forest and all western forests. The Forest Advocate
maintains an active website that publishes forest advocacy news and
resources — theforestadvocate.org [[link removed]]._

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* conservation
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* Climate Change
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* US Forest Service
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