Smokey’s Corner: Striking a social and ecological balance towards a healthy forest

The word fuel may bring to mind materials such as coal, oil or gasoline that are burned to produce heat or power.

However in forest terms, fuel refers to live and dead trees, shrubs, grasses and any other material naturally found in the forest that will burn. Hazardous fuels is a term that firefighters, foresters, and other forest resource management specialists use to describe situations where there literally is too much vegetation on a landscape that becomes available to fuel a wildfire. The current management of these forest ffuels involve the use of two primary tools, thinning and prescribed fire treatments.

The combination of these two types of treatments helps to meet the objective of reducing hazardous fuels on National Forest lands, including those managed by the Smokey Bear Ranger District.

Why does reducing hazardous fuels help improve forest health? Trees take a lot of water in through their roots and then some of that water evaporates from the foliage. At higher densities, there is competition for limited resources like water, sunlight and nutrients in the soil. Often, it is the understory vegetation, like grasses and shrubs that lose out. Without these soil holding understory plants, erosion is commonplace. In addition, at high tree densities, trees are weaker and subject to mortality from insect infestations, such as mountain pine beetles, and various tree diseases.

As trees die, the dead material in the forest increases the likelihood that a fire start would then burn with increased intensity making it extremely difficult and dangerous to control. These types of fires can result the loss of timber stands and any kind of fuel that can easily burn. One of the end results can be subsequent soil damage and loss, which translates into many short- and long-term negative effects to the entire ecosystem.

In Ruidoso, it is often difficult to distinguish between private homes and property, village property, New Mexico state lands, and national forest lands. This area that consists of a mixture of urban and forested lands is known as Wildland Urban Interface (WUI).

In 2000, Ruidoso was rated as the highest at-risk community in New Mexico for catastrophic wildfire. It is not a question of whether, but a question of when fire will happen on our flammable New Mexico landscapes. Fires in the Ruidoso area have destroyed many homes and left many landscapes denuded of forest vegetation.

Although many of Ruidoso’s year-round and seasonal residents love their trees, many of those trees are at high enough densities to create hazardous fuels, too many trees in the WUI may actually endanger the safety and welfare of Ruidoso residents and visitors.

The goal of the Greater Ruidoso WUI Working Group is to promote the creation and maintenance of healthy forest conditions. Research has shown that treatments to reduce fuels can significantly modify fire behavior and severity and reduce environmental damage caused by wildfire, which in turn can reduce the risk to firefighters, destruction and cost of fire suppression and post-fire rehabilitation efforts.

A tree has a stem, called a bole, and foliage, called a crown. We know that treatments that reduce tree crown density and continuity, and raise tree crown height are most effective treatments. In other words, the more open area between trees, the less severe the effects of inevitable wildfire.

A few snags, dead standing trees, and down logs are natural and good for wildlife habitat, soil condition and general health of the ecosystem. As with thinning trees, the Fuels Specialist concentrates on removing only the excess snags and downed logs, while minimizing the impacts to wildlife.

We also fight fire with fire. A planned fire is called a prescribed burn. Unlike reacting to a wildfire, a prescribed fire is a planned, a proactive way to reduce hazardous fuels under controlled conditions relative to weather and other variables. A prescribed fire project undergoes an environmental analysis to determine if the project could have undesired environmental or social effects and is consistent with laws and regulations. Then the plan must be approved by the District Ranger and the Forest Supervisor. Once the Environmental Assessment has been completed and approved, the Fuels Specialist prepares a prescribed fire Burn Plan, which undergoes several layers of review and finally is approved by the District Ranger and Forest Supervisor. Prescribed Burn Plans include a prescription for the optimal conditions, e.g., temperature, humidity, wind, fuel moisture, smoke emissions, number and types of firefighters resources needed, and contingency resources that are staged and ready to respond in the event additional firefighting resources are needed to an unforeseen change, to guide fire personnel in conducting a safe and effective burn operation.

Although fire often gets a bad rap, it is a natural part of forest dynamics. It is Mother Nature’s way of cleaning house and also stimulating the germination of desirable plants and adding nutrients to the soil.

Due to the increase in towns and homes in and around forested areas, wildland fires have been aggressively suppressed by fire managers. To try and strike a social and ecological balance, land managers use prescribed fire and thinning projects to mimic the benefits of fire, but in a proactive, rather than reactive, controlled and safe manner.

Become part of the solution, learn more about FIRE ADAPTED COMMUNITIES at http://fireadapted.org/