Wildfires can be started by a variety of sources — human carelessness, accident or arson — but Mother Nature occasionally sets one naturally with a lightning strike. Either way, limiting the effects of these fires has been a high-priority.
During 2019, Alaska experienced a naturally ignited forest blaze that resulted in the Bergman Creek Fire in the state’s north-central area threatening 45,000 acres. The Ohio Division of Forestry deployed a 20-person multiagency team to the area for a wildfire suppression assignment and to work with other responding specialists.
Stationed 450 miles northwest of Fairbanks in Allakaket, the crew included 10 employees and 10 members from other agencies and fire departments from Licking, Warren, Washington, Ottawa, Cuyahoga and Clermont counties. Additionally, two Ohio Department of Natural Resources employees and one retiree deployed to serve as support dispatchers in Tok, Alaska, while Fire Behavior Analyst and Resource Unit Leaders worked the Swan Lake Fire in the Kenai Peninsula of Alaska.
Ohio’s supporting fire crews are normally deployed for two-week assignments, but duties such as these may be extended depending upon the situational circumstances and staffing.
The Division of Forestry trains ODNR personnel, federal and private natural resource agencies, as well as fire departments. This training is used to prepare for interagency wildland fire emergencies to protect life and property in Ohio, manage prescribed fires for forest regeneration and to provide assistance to other states.
Ohio forestland
You may wonder why so much training takes place in Ohio since we seem to have little risk compared to Alaska or the more western states. Consider that Ohio is home to more than 8 million acres of forested land which includes many privately owned areas.
There are the vast stretches of Wayne National Forest (240,101 acres), Shawnee State Forest (64,978 acres) and Zaleski State Forest (27,822 acres). Those state forest are just a part of the more than 800,000 acres administered by ODNR.
Considering the proximity of homes and property, aging of many forests, how private woodlands are or are not managed and a knowledge of human carelessness and we begin to understand the importance for this preparedness.
Fiery disagreement
Interestingly, the entire issue of forest fires has been a subject of fiery conversations between conservationists, foresters, ecologists and politicians for decades. It’s easy for us to agree that Smokey Bear’s plea of “Only YOU can prevent forest fires” is a great way of marketing the warning of carefully extinguishing fires.
Unfortunately, Smokey’s campaign has caused some major forest management hurdles and may have contributed to worsening fire hazards across the country. The public’s interpretation often fails to separate the difference between a “wild” fire and a calculated controlled burn — a message Smokey doesn’t explain.
In reality, fires play a natural role in forest and Great Plains ecosystems, regularly clearing out old growth and even assisting grasses and trees in their regeneration while controlling the march of successional maturation of the countryside.
Regrettably, many of those indoctrinated by Smokey reside in the halls of Congress, are elected officials in affected areas or are one of their millions of constituents who believe that all fires are bad and should be fought voraciously.
The results have been publicly-owned forests packed with potential fuel that will exacerbate any type of fire, whether set by man or nature.
Experts advise that allowing fires to burn within controlled parameters will help clear this natural debris while improving forest health and enabling a variety of wildlife species to thrive — a theory some Smokey fans find unthinkable.
In 2007, U.S. Forest Service employees Geoffrey Donovan and Thomas Brown submitted a report titled, “Be Careful What You Wish For: The Legacy of Smokey Bear.” They note, “Long-standing policy of aggressive wildfire suppression has contributed to a decline in forest health, an increase in fuel loads in some forests and wildfires that are more difficult and expensive to control.”
Due to the continued political struggle, the public’s misinterpretation of forest management and the rapaciousness with which fires are fought often lull stakeholders into complacency. Moving homes and businesses into these areas has become a popular and lucrative money-maker for landowners, speculators and builders. Living close to these “pristine areas” has great appeal until it’s realized that your neighbor may be a tinderbox.
Risky building
The situation runs a close parallel to flood control. Flood-prone areas have had levies and other safeguards installed to reduce the risk of high water. With that reduction, people become more comfortable building homes and businesses within once flood-prone plains.
In the event of those safeguards’ failures, the cost and damages go up exponentially. The result is a campaign to further expend public funds to prevent future mishaps while ignoring the causative factors that enhanced the potential for increased damages in the first place.
More people moving into regions bordering publicly owned forests bring about the cry for increased fire protection. This can result in misunderstandings about the need to use fire as a management tool to control the very fuel source that may eventually contribute to the area’s destruction.
This disastrous effect was witnessed at California’s 2018 Camp Fire, the deadliest, most destructive and costliest wildfire in California history and the sixth-deadliest to have occurred in the U.S. The blaze devastated the town of Paradise, claimed the lives of 85 people and destroyed more than 18,800 structures which included 11,000 homes.
Scott Berndt traveled from Findlay, Ohio, and served as incident command safety officer near the town’s scarred skeleton, working with recovery and cleanup operations. At the time he noted, “Nearly a year (has) passed since the Camp Fire occurred and the destruction is still clearly evident. We are all helping Paradise to rise from the ashes.”
Residents in Paradise continue to rebuild nearly six years after the Camp Fire destroyed their homes.
Dangers of suppression
The consensus of forest ecologists suggests that the long-held policies of aggressive wildfire suppression have had a direct role in the decline of the health of our forests while increasing the availability of fire’s fuel in the form of dead and downed trees; yet, federal fire-fighting policies that aggressively direct wildfire suppression are still the dictate. Donovan and Brown concluded that “A more tolerant attitude toward wildfire must somehow become institutionalized in federal land-management agencies. Indeed, as wildfires become more difficult to control, we may have little choice but to accept increases in annual burned area. There must be recognition that complete wildfire exclusion is neither desirable nor possible and that maintaining forest health and controlling suppression expenditures necessitates burning large areas of forested land annually.”
These fires have burned in North America since before the arrival of Europeans, receiving little national attention before the 20th century. Even Wisconsin’s 1871 Peshtigo Wildfire, which burned 1.5 million acres and killed more than 1,200 people, was overshadowed by the Great Chicago Fire that began the same day. Wildland firefighters have died in every state except Massachusetts. Over 400 on-duty wildland firefighter fatalities occurred between 2000-2019.
“To the wildland firefighters who dedicate their lives to protecting our wildlands: You are the embodiment of courage, the sentinels of our forests, and the guardians of our natural heritage.” — Anonymous
