Prepared Fire™
August 13th, 2006
We have many names for fire types: wildfire, prescribed fire, wildland use fire, controlled fire, etc. None of these is easy to define, because these words are used indiscriminately. In general they refer to fires that burn forests indiscriminately, too.
We need a new word for fires that actually benefit forests instead of destroying them. Ergo, we take this opportunity to introduce a new fire type and a new word to describe it: Prepared Fire™.
Prepared Fires™ are fires that burn in forests prepared to receive them.
Most North American forests arose during millennia of frequent, human-set fires, i.e. anthropogenic fire. For millennia, anthropogenic fire was so frequent that it engendered open, park-like forests wherein individual trees grew to great ages.
During the last 150 years (more than that in eastern regions) anthropogenic fire has been eliminated (along with most of the humans who set them). The absence of anthropogenic fire has allowed our forests to accumulate an abundance of fuel in the form of duff, debris, litter, dead trees, etc.
Now when fire enters the forest, it combusts hugely and decimates the forest. Vast tracts formerly covered with trees are now covered with shrubbery because of the intense heat and raging flames fueled by extreme fuel accumulations.
It does not matter what ignites fires; when they burn in thick fuel, modern fires kill everything, heritage old growth trees included.
Fire itself has been suggested as a tool to reduce fuel loadings. Sadly, prescribed, wildland use, or other common intentional fire types often do more damage than good. They add to the fuel loading by killing all the green trees. They do not reduce fuel loading; indeed such fires often increase fuels. Modern forest fires encourage beetles and fungi that kill any trees that made it through the flames. Forests are less healthy and more prone to catastrophic fire after the “treatment” than before.
There is a solution: Prepared Fire™.
Preparing a forest to receive a beneficial fire requires the removal of most of the 150 years of fuel buildup prior to ignition. At the very least, excess fuels must be piled and burned in winter before any attempt is made to broadcast burn the forest floor.
If a forest is prepared to receive it, it doesn’t matter if people set the fire or lightning. In either case, the prepared forest will not be devastated.
We have done it, and we know Prepared Fire™ works. Others have, too. Underburning a prepared forest is actually kind of fun (if you are not the guy in charge sweating bullets). It is more like smoky gardening than going to war (which is what modern catastrophic fire suppression is similar to).
We need new institutions and a new cadre of foresters and fire tenders who have been trained in Prepared Fire™. We need a School of Prepared Fire™ where the subject can be studied. Forests are diverse, and each patch on each forest requires careful, informed guidelines for fire preparation. A School of Prepared Fire™ could educate students about how to do that in different forest types and conditions.
We need a movement, a national discussion about the role of Prepared Fire™ in our forests, and how Prepared Fire™ can reduce firefighting costs, prevent catastrophes, and protect, maintain, and perpetuate our priceless heritage forests.
We invite that discussion right here. If you have anything cogent to say about Prepared Fire™, please feel free to submit it to SOS Forests, and we will post it for the world to see.
Prepared Fire™ is the future. Either that, or the continued devastation and destruction of our public forests.
April 5th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Does “Prepared Fire” include timber harvest?
April 5th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
Depends on the forest. The goal is to leave a fire-safe forest able to thrive with frequent, light fires. The means are to remove the built-up fuels that cause light ground fires to become devastating crown fires.
If the removed fuels can be sold for sawlogs, biofuel, mulch, compost, or goat fodder, I say do it. Whatever money comes from the sale of the unwanted debris can only help to defray the costs of the restoration.
But the point is not to create timber farms. That’s a private enterprise, private land undertaking. The point of prepared fire on public land is to protect, maintain, and perpetuate native forests, and particularly native, old-growth, heritage forests.
April 5th, 2007 at 6:20 pm
Was President Roosevelt talking about “public land” when he said this? I am inclined to believe he was, which is the reason for the agency known as the Forest Service. What other reason would he explain “our forest policy,” if not regarding “public lands?”
“And now, first and foremost, you can never afford to forget for a moment what is the object of our forest policy. That object is not to preserve forests because they are beautiful, though that is good in itself; nor because they are refuges for the wild creatures of the wilderness, though that, too, is good in itself; but the primary object of our forest policy, as of the land policy of the United States, is the making of prosperous homes. It is part of the traditional policy of home making in our country. Every other consideration comes as secondary. You yourselves have got to keep this practical object before your minds: to remember that a forest which contributes nothing to the wealth, progress, or safety of the country is of no interest to the Government, and should be of little interest to the forester. Your attention must be directed to the preservation of forests, not as an end in itself, but as the means of preserving and increasing the prosperity of the nation.” - President Teddy Roosevelt, speaking to the Society of American Foresters in 1903.
July 22nd, 2007 at 1:47 pm
I just had two questions. But first, a disclaimer. I’m by no means an expert on forest management. I like to hike and camp. That is the extent of my knowledge of forestry management. My questions are genuine and out of curiosity.
First, the following paragraph makes a lot assertions. Do you have references that support these opinions? I think the statistical data you used would be useful.
Also, I can’t help but wonder how all of the nations forests could possibly be prepared for fire. What an incredible and massive undertaking! Even if the landscape was level and access to remote forests was easy, the task would be daunting, if not impossible. At what point do you draw the line on the cost of prepared fire work? At what point are forests untreatable, keeping in mind the complexity of managing such practices, safety factors, and of course costs?
Thanks for your time!!
July 22nd, 2007 at 2:25 pm
The best single source of information regarding the deficiencies of prescribed fire is (in my opinion)
Pyne, Stephen J. Tending Fire: Coping with America’s Wildland Fires. 2004. Island Press.
This is quite possibly the single most important book to read if you want to save forests. The author is World’s Foremost Authority on fire.
Re your second question, restoration forestry pays for itself. The number of acres needing treatment is daunting but not impossible. The job is very doable. It is not a question of money or manpower; it is a question of national will and intent.
July 22nd, 2007 at 5:47 pm
Just to make what I wrote more clearly clearer, Prepared Fire is one aspect, or technique, of Restoration Forestry.
The goal of Restoration Forestry is to restore modern, living forests to sustainable, heritage conditions. Prepared Fire is one of the treatments that will help us to get there, not the whole picture.
More about Restoration Forestry may be found here.
July 19th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
“We need new institutions and a new cadre of foresters and fire tenders who have been trained in Prepared Fire™. We need a School of Prepared Fire™ where the subject can be studied. Forests are diverse, and each patch on each forest requires careful, informed guidelines for fire preparation. A School of Prepared Fire™ could educate students about how to do that in different forest types and conditions.”
Don’t these already exist? How about the national Interagency Prescribed Fire Training Center in Tallahassee, Florida, or the Southwest Fire Use Training Academy in New Mexico?
These programs, especially PFTC, balance field trips to public and privately managed forests around the country, classroom topics on the very subjects you discuss, and burning opportunities for training in various types of Fuel, with private, state, and federal landowners.
So maybe the training already exists, just need more people to take it and become informed. The PFTC program takes Federal, State, Local agency, and Private participants….
Just my two cents..