What
You're Missing in our subscriber-only CounterPunch newsletter
Special Issue: the Collapse of America
Paul Craig
Roberts gives CounterPunchers the definitive data on what is
happening to jobs in America. Not just blue collar jobs. Middle-class,
white collar jobs. Roberts'
stunning probe is the first true picture of what the U.S. economy
is fast becoming and of the savage class wars that lie ahead.
Plus Mike
Ferner on what it really means to investigate war crimes in Iraq. CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers
each month! But
remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the
print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription
to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find
anywhere else, or by making a donation towards the cost of this
online edition.
Remember contributions are tax-deductible.Click
here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please:Subscribe
Now!
As several fires burn in the Klamath
Backcountry of northern California and southern Oregon and as
tens of millions of taxpayer dollars continue to be expended
in efforts to "suppress" these fires, the time is opportune
to examine the history of fire and fire suppression in the Klamath
Mountains in order to determine if there are lessons for today
that can be learned from the experiences of the past 25 years
of fire suppression in these mountains.
For local residents and "newcomers"
to the Klamath Mountains our first experience with large fires
and large Forest Service fire suppression was the Hog Fire of
1977. The jobs and income that flowed from that suppression
effort and the salvage logging that followed were seen by most
forest residents as an unexpected boon. But a few of us who
had worked in the suppression effort also were alarmed by the
size and destructive force of the massive backfires which Forest
Service managers ordered lit in a futile attempt to stop the
wildfire. This alarm was reinforced by natives and old timers
who had lived with fire for many decades without resort to bringing
in an army of non-local firefighters and massive amounts of equipment.
We did not know it then but what we experienced with the Hog
Fire was an early stage in the militarization, industrialization
and nationalization of fire fighting. That approach to firefighting
has grown exponentially since 1977. Today any and all semblance
of local control of large fire suppression has been stripped
away. We are left with a massive, incredibly expensive, military-style
forest fire fighting regime complete with no-bid contractors,
air and ground attack components, private mercenaries and a centralized
command structure which views local and traditional knowledge
and local concerns as public relations issues to be managed not
honored.
In spite of the orgies of waste,
all this would arguably be worth the cost to taxpayers and the
disruption of forest communities if it were in fact effective.
But the fire bureaucracies dirty secret is that in rugged mountain
areas like the Klamath Mountains efforts at forest fire control
and suppression have never been successful in putting out the
big fires. Moreover, these failed suppression invasions have
generally resulted in more smoke, more intensively burned land
and significantly more erosion and ecosystem destruction than
would have occurred had the fires been allowed to burn naturally
when, as is typical, they were burning far from forest communities
and residences.
The list of Klamath Mountains
fires larger than 30,000 acres in extent on which massive military-industrial
style suppression failed to put out the fire (fires which fall
rain and snow eventually put out) includes in addition to the
Hog Fire the Grider-Lake, Glasgow, Yellow, Silver, King and other
fire complexes in 1987, the Dillon Fire in 1994, the Specimen
Fire in 1996, the Megram-Big Bar Fires in 1999 and the Biscuit
Fire in 2002. In each of these cases tens of millions of dollars
were spent and massive environmental impacts were generated by
the suppression efforts. In many cases, not only were Forest
Service suppression efforts unsuccessful but they directly led
to increased threat to private land and forest communities.
The best documented example
of the destructiveness of large fire military-industrial suppression
actions is the Big Bar Fire. Extensive analysis of Forest Service
suppression effort records by forest activists revealed that
the fires which threatened Willow Creek, Denny and Hoopa and
forced evacuations of citizens because of smoke-related health
threats were in fact back fires ordered by non-local "incident
commanders." For "safety reasons" these backfires
were lit where road access was available which was many miles
from the actual wildfire. The roads also meant that these administrative
fires were lit near areas that had been logged. When the winds
picked up and reversed direction, the non-natural fires entered
recently logged lands where they "blew up' into fire storms
and began their run toward nearby towns and hamlets. Mercifully,
however, the rains came and the towns were spared.
The Forest Service never acknowledged
that it was the backfires they ordered and lit and not the natural
forest fires in the Trinity Alps that threatened the towns. Instead
they used the threat and the public's fear of wildfire to argue
for massive post-fire salvage logging and against wilderness
designation. Forest Service managers even went so far as to use
post-fire "emergency fire-line rehabilitation" funds
to log the Big Bar fire lines after fall rains had put the fires
out. This logging accelerated the massive erosion which military-industrial
fire suppression had already created in another failed attempt
to suppress a large, backcountry fire.
The largest Forest Service
ordered backfire/burn-out in the Big Bar Fire was 23,000 acres;
GIS analysis indicated that at minimum 25% of the acres that
burned in the Big Bar Fire Complex was Forest Service ordered,
non-natural back fires and burn outs and that these suppression-effort
fires on average burned hotter and killed more trees per acre
as compared to the natural wildfire.
Beginning after the 1987 fires
I have walked and studied all the large fire areas of the Klamath
Mountains. In all cases, what I learned was consistent with what
is reported above for the Big Bar Fire. Even under the most severe
fire-risk conditions as we saw in 1987, Forest Service post-fire
data and other scientific studies reveal that most of the naturally
burned areas had low intensity fire and that most of the trees
especially the large Old Growth trees survived the
fire. Walking the newly burned forests I learned that
at least in the rugged Klamath Mountains - it is not natural
wildfire but military-industrial fire suppression which does
most of the damage to forest ecosystems and watersheds and which
poses the greatest threats to forest communities. The fact that
those in charge do not know the land or the history of fire suppression
in these mountains constitutes a clear, present and on-going
threat to the forests and the communities.
As I write the Forest Service
has already lit or is seriously contemplating lighting large
backfires in the Orleans Mountain Roadless Area in the lower
Salmon River Country. Locals who know the forest's history have
been arguing against the backfires. But the nationalization of
fire suppression and fire fighting's entrenched bureaucracy appears
incapable of acknowledging and using local knowledge and experience.
And so we appear doomed to repeat yet again the cycle of mismanagement
and community conflict we have experienced since the 1987 fires.
There is a better way. I first
experienced it in 1987. Because there were so many fires locally
and across the West that year there was no way the Forest Service
could actively seek to suppress them all. Therefore, a significant
number of 1987 fires burning in the Klamath Mountains were "loose
herded." What this means is that a small locally-led crew
was dispatched to observe the fires up close and, when opportunities
presented, to steer the fires into rocky, sparsely vegetated
and more remote areas and away from towns and homesteads. Allowing
backcountry fires to burn unless and until they move toward residential
areas frees up suppression resources to concentrate on the forest-community
interface areas where fires can and should be quickly and aggressively
controlled. The restrained, local approach also results in reduced
impacts to forest ecosystems and considerably less post-fire
erosion and watershed degradation.
This strategy local leadership
working with rather than against natural, backcountry fires
is both feasible and effective. But it is unlikely to be adopted
on a large scale any time soon. That is because the power and
profits of the massive fire bureaucracy and the army of no-bid
contractors depend on the continuation of the command-and-control
military-industrial approach to forest fire suppression and because
politicians can manipulate the public's fear of wildfire for
their own advantage.
The parallels here with the
US Government's present approach to world problems are real and
striking. As with the US global-dominance-through-war machine,
positive change will only come when the citizens wake up and
demand a return to a rational and measured approach to managing
wildfires. Until that day, forest communities, forest ecosystems
and forest watersheds will continue to suffer from misguided
and destructive Forest Service fire suppression boondoggles.
Wake up folks, smell the smoke, and then contact your senators
and representatives to demand a rational, measured and locally
controlled approach to managing natural forest fires!
Felice Pace has resided in the Klamath Mountains
and has hiked and studied its logged and backcountry forests
since 1975. He is a founder of the Klamath Forest Alliance and
spent fifteen years as Conservation and Executive Director of
that organization before returning to social service work. The
opinions expressed here are his own. He can be reached at: felice@jeffnet.org
Now
Available
from CounterPunch Books!
The Case
Against Israel
By Michael Neumann
CounterPunch
Speakers Bureau Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid?
CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair
are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues,
as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call
CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.
