Wildfire Policy & Science NREM 390

1. Wildfire Policy & ScienceNREM 390 • Historical Context • National Fire Plan • Recent Fire Policy modifications • HFI • HFRA • Class exercise – debate pros/cons • Evidence for effectiveness of fuel treatments for: • reducing fire hazards in the WUI • for promoting ecosystem restoration

2. Wildfire Policy: Historical Context • 1871-1910: small-scale fires • Clearing land for agriculture & wildlife management • Ignitions caused by railroads • 1910 – 1940’s “Great Fires” (severe wildfires) • “10 AM” policy • USFS effective wildfire-fighting capability • Smokey Bear & Bambi campaigns • Severe fire years (1963, 1969, 1988, 1996, 2000) • National Fire Plan (2000) - $10 billion to protect communities and restore fire-adapted ecosystems • Primary goal: reduce fire hazard by reducing fuels • Prescribed burning and fuel reduction • Wildland-Urban Interface programs (FireWise)

3. Modifications to the National Fire Plan • Healthy Forests Initiative (HFI) – 2002 • Recognized fire as a natural process in fire-prone ecosystems, and the need to restore the historic fire regime. • Primary goal: Reduce wildfire risks to communities • Focused on treatment of hazardous fuels to reduce fire risk

4. Modifications to the National Fire Plan • Healthy Forests Restoration Act (HFRA) – 2003 • Response to concerns over delays in implementing hazardous fuel reduction treatments due to legal process • Reduce delays with categorical exclusions from Environmental Assessments (EA) and Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) • Reduce time for environmental analysis of HFRA projects • Limit public involvement in decisions

5. Categorical Exclusion of Hazardous-Fuel-Reduction Actions*exemption from EA and EIS • Prescribed fire: if less than 4,5000 ac • Mechanical treatments (thinning, chipping, etc.): if less than 1,000 ac and: • In the WUI • Outside the WUI: Condition Classes 2 or 3 • Consistent with Natural Management Plans • Not in wilderness areas • No use of chemicals or construction of new roads

6. Condition Classes • Class 1 • Fire regimes not significantly altered from historical ranges (HR) • Historical stand replacement fires on large fire return intervals (>100 years) • Sub-alpine pine-spruce-fir, boreal forests

7. Condition Classes • Class 2 • Fire regimes moderately altered from historical ranges (HR) • Fire frequencies have changed from HR by 1-2 cycles • Moderate risk of losing key ecosystem components from fire • Historically had mixed-severity fires (35-100 years) • Forests of mixed conifer, dry Douglas-fir, wet ponderosa pine

8. Condition Classes • Class 3 • Fire regimes significantly altered from HR • Fire frequencies changed from the HR by multiple return intervals • High risk of losing key ecosystem components from fire • HR: Low severity fires (0-35 years): • Dry ponderosa pine savannas, oak savannas • HR: stand-replacement high severity fires (0-35 years) • Rangeland, grassland, shrubland - chaparral

9. Implementing the HFI and HFRA in practice is complex, complicated, and oftentimes controversial: WHY?

10. Class Exercise: Understanding Fire Policy Complexities • There is growing controversy within the U.S. regarding the effectiveness of the HFI / HFRA in maintaining and restoring healthy forests. • A national debate is organized on the HFI / HFRA issue. • Each group (Pros – Cons) is provided an opportunity to make a case for why these policies are positive or negative for the nation’s forests. • Following the debate, the nation (i.e., “the class”) will be asked to provide opinions and comments on the issues, and reach a consensus regarding the future of the HFI / HFRA.

11. Class Exercise • Pro-HFI/HFRA • National Association of State Foresters (position statement) • International Association of Fire Chiefs (Congressional testimony) • Congresswoman from Montana (Martz) • Policy news (Washington Policy Center, Evergreen Newsletter) • Contra-HFI/HFRA • Environmental news (The Nation) • Sierra Club / Defenders of Wildlife • Colorado Wild / Native Forest Network • Letter from Western Firefighters

12. Structure • 8 min – read your section and take notes on key points supporting your position • 8 min – discuss with another person having same position (same color paper; different number) and construct your argument (pro or con) • 8 min – debate your position with another pair from the opposite position (different color paper) • 8 min – Reach a consensus as an entire team (or state reasons for why you are unable to reach a consensus) • Present your results to the class

13. Discussion questions • How accurate was the information? Did it appear biased? • What were the strongest arguments made for pro and con? • Could you see positive aspects of both sides? • Did you feel strongly about one of the positions? And why? • How would you improve the HFI - HFRA???

14. HFI – HFRA Summary • What were some of the main “Pro” arguments? • Examples: • Reduce time to object to HFI/HFRA (30 day comment period) • Organizations to object must meet eligibility requirements • Objections supported by technical and managerial expertise • Categorical exclusions will help protect the public and prevent wildfires (reduce fuels, wildfire risk) • Positive ecological effects: create seed beds for seedling establishment • Economic benefits: long term savings (health, safety, habitat), funds to private land owners, opportunities to industries • Actions do not have significant (negative) effects on the human environment (therefore don’t require EA, EIA).

15. HFI – HFRA Summary • What were some of the main “Con” arguments? • Cons • Less public involvement in decision making • No analysis or disclosure of EA/EIS’s • No prioritizing of treatment areas for “hazardous fuels reduction projects” • No focus on WUI area • Most benefits to logging companies – unrealistic for ‘logging money’ to pay for thinning • Allows projects under appeal to be implemented immediately for economic reasons • Treatments conducted for the purpose of timber harvesting don’t necessarily reduce fire hazard in the WUI (may actually increase fire hazard).

16. Implementation of National Fire Plan treatments near the WUI(Schoennagel et al. 2009) • Objective: to determine whether treatment locations are consistent with NFP goals of fire mitigation in the WUI. • Relationship between % area treated with distance to WUI and management objective • How treated area within the WUI varies by landownership, state, and treatment type.

18. Distance to WUI of treated areas vs. total land area in West

19. WUI + 2.5km buffer % area treated vs. total area • by location (WUI-2.5 and >10km from WUI) • and by land ownership (federal, tribal, state, local, private) > 10km from WUI

20. % area treated by management objective and distance to WUI

21. % area treated vs. total area by state

22. Conclusions • Only 3% of total area treated was within the WUI, and another 8% was within the WUI-25. • Only 17% of the WUI + 2.5km buffer is under federal ownership • Greater priority should be given to locating treatments in and near the WUI. • This requires shifting management and policy emphasis from public to private lands – How can this be accomplished?

23. Fire treatment effects on vegetation structure, fuels, and potential fire severity in western U.S. forestsStephens et al. 2009

24. Background: Fire and Fire Surrogate Study (FFS) • Focus on seasonally dry, low and mid-elevation coniferous forests that historically experienced frequent, low to moderate intensity fire regimes—fire suppression resulted in: • Increased fuel loads & altered forest structure • More vulnerable to high severity fires (outside HR) • FFS study: tested the effects of prescribed fire and mechanical treatments on surface fuel loads, forest structure, and potential fire severity. • Goal of treatments: survival of mid- and upper canopy trees to wildfire • A replicated, multi-site experiment at 6 different sites in the western U.S…

26. Study Design • Three treatments • Unmanipulated control • Prescribed fire only (in fall, spring, or both) • Mechanical treatment only • Mechanical plus prescribed fire treatment (S or F) • Field measurements: forest structure, duff and litter depth, fueld load (1-hour, 10-hour, 100-hr time lag fuel loads) • Models used to estimate potential fire behavior, crowning index, torching index, and tree mortality • Crowning/torching index = windspeed required to initiate torching or sustain a crown fire, respectively (e.g., high values = high resistance of forest to extreme fire behavior)

27. Site Mechanical Treatments • Southern Cascades (SC): whole-tree harvest • No increase in surface fuels • Central Sierra Nevada (CS): lop and scatter treatment of limbs and tree tops followed by mastication of ~ 90% of standing live and dead trees (2.5-25 cm dbh) • May increase fuel load on the ground • Northern Rocky Mtns (NR), Southwestern Plateau (SP), Blue Mtns (BM): cut-to-length system • tree limbs and tree tops left on ground, increasing surface fuels

28. % Predicted Tree Mortality

29. Torching Index Crowning Index

30. Conclusions • Silvicultural treatments that only remove commercial material and leave high levels of biomass do not improve resistance to high severity fire. • Mechanical treatments followed by prescribed burning = most effective for reducing crown fire potential and tree mortality. • Whole-tree removal systems = most effective mechanical system • Fire-only treatments: greater residual standing dead material left on site  will eventually fall and add to fuel load (unless repeated fires 2-3X) • Controls: most susceptible to active and passive crown fire and highest tree mortality (except: NR)

31. U.S. Policy Response to the Fuels Management Problem: An Analysis of the Public Debate about the HFI and the HFRA (Fingerman Johnson et al. 2006) • Objective of study: to examine the nature and evolution of the public discussion and debate about the the HRI/HFRA policies • Approach: analyze the news media as a means of gauging public attitudes • Coded media discussion in terms of “favorable” and “unfavorable” beliefs • Analyzed a total of 2,800 news stories about HFI/HFRA between 8/1/2002 – 12/31/2004 (5% of volume of all wildfire discussion)

32. Favorable Beliefs about HFI/HFRA

33. Unfavorable Beliefs about HFI/HFRA

35. Conclusions of the Study • Most frequently expressed favorable belief: HFI/HFRA will reduce wildfire risk. • Most frequently expressed unfavorable belief: “stealth logging” (reflects lack of trust) • Success: connecting HFI/HFRA with public perception/understanding of need to reduce risk of catastrophic wildfire and excess fuel buildup. • Growing consensus about the fuel buildup problem and the need to deal with it.

36. Implementation of National Fire Plan treatments near the WUI (Schoennagel et al. 2009)

38. HFI – HFRA Summary • Focus: fuel treatment • Establishing a national regulatory structure to guide forest management, especially in the context of fire • Reducing EA/EIS and streamlining management process • Limiting public appeals • Increase values of forests – biomass & timber markets • Lacking • Prioritize fuel reduction projects: Where, how, and why • Long-term management based on scientific knowledge to restore priority ecosystems (targeted fuel treatments & prescribed burning) • More emphasis on reducing fire hazard in the WUI (too many “loop holes” – economics) • More emphasis on homeowner responsibility/defensible space • Social processes – citizen/public participation