COMMERCIAL LOGGING FOR WILDFIRE PREVENTION:
FACTS VS FANTASIES
by Timothy Ingalsbee, Ph.D., Western Fire Ecology Center for the
American Lands Alliance, mailto:fire@efn.org
The notion that commercial logging can prevent wildfires has its
believers and loud proponents, but this belief does not match up with
the scientific evidence or history of federal management practices. In
fact, it is widely recognized that past commercial logging,
road-building, livestock grazing, and aggressive firefighting are the
sources for "forest health" problems such as increased insect
infestations, disease outbreaks, and severe wildfires.
How can the sources of these problems also be their solution? This
internal contradiction needs more than propaganda to be resolved. It is
time for Congress to heed the facts, not fantasies, and develop forest
management policies based on science, not politics.
FACT: Commercial logging removes the least flammable portion of
trees--their main stems or "trucks," while leaving behind their most
flammable portions--their needles and limbs, directly on the ground.
Untreated logging slash can adversely affect fire behavior for up to 30
years following the logging operations.
FACT: Commercial logging reduces the "overstory" tree canopy
which
moderates the "microclimate" of the forest floor. This reduction
of the
tree canopy exposes the forest floor to increased sun and wind, causing
increased surface temperatures and decreased relative humidity. This in
turn causes surface fuels to be hotter and drier, resulting in faster
rates of fire spread, greater flame lengths and fireline intensities,
and more erratic shifts in the speed and direction of fires.
FACT: Small-diameter surface fuels are the primary carriers of fire.
Current fire spread models such as the BEHAVE program do not even
consider fuels greater than three inches (3) in diameter because it is
mainly the fine-sized surface fuels that allows fire spread. Commercial
logging operations remove large-diameter fuels which are naturally fire
resistant, and leave behind an increased amount of fire-prone
small-diameter fuels.
FACT: Timber plantations comprised of densely-stocked, even-aged stands
of young conifers are extremely flammable and vulnerable to catastrophic
fire effects. When plantations burn they normally result in 100%
mortality of trees, yet have no native seed sources to naturally
regenerate stands. Thus, burned plantations require expensive and
repeated management inputs to achieve successful reforestation.
FACT: Commercial logging spreads invasive weeds and stimulates the
growth of "chaparral" brush which are much more flammable than the
original forest cover. Once the commodity timber outputs have been
removed, federal agencies have no economic incentives to manage the
vegetation that colonizes sites disturbed by logging operations; thus,
fires will continue to burn through logged areas.
FACT: Watersheds that have experienced extensive logging and
road-building also experience greater fire severity than unlogged and
unroaded watersheds.
WHAT THE GOVERNMENT'S OWN SCIENTISTS SAY ABOUT LOGGING AND WILDFIRES:
"Timber harvest, through its effects on forest structure, local
microclimate, and fuels accumulation, has increased fire severity more
than any other recent human activity."
--Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project, 1996. Final Report to Congress
"Logged areas generally showed a strong association with increased rate
of spread and flame length, thereby suggesting that tree harvesting
could affect the potential fire behavior within landscapes. In general,
rate of spread and flame length were positively correlated with the
proportion of area logged in the sample watersheds."
--Historical and Current Forest Landscapes in Eastern Oregon and
Washington. Part II: Linking Vegetation Characteristics to Potential
Fire Behavior and Related Smoke Production (PNW-GTR-355)
"As a by-product of clearcutting, thinning, and other tree-removal
activities, activity fuels create both short- and long-term fire hazards
to ecosystems. The potential rate of spread and intensity of fires
associated with recently cut logging residues is high, especially the
first year or two as the material decays. High fire-behavior hazards
associated with the residues can extend, however, for many years
depending on the tree. Even though these hazards diminish, their
influence on fire behavior can linger for up to 30 years in the dry
forest ecosystems of eastern Washington and Oregon."
--Historical and Current Forest Landscapes in Eastern Oregon and
Washington. Part II: Linking Vegetation Characteristics to Potential
Fire Behavior and Related Smoke Production (PNW-GTR-355)
"It appears significant that many large fires in the western United
States have burned almost exclusively in slash. Some of these fires
have stopped when they reached uncut timber; none has come to attention
that started in green timber and stopped when it reached a slash area."
--G.R. Fahnestock, 1968. "Fire hazard from pre- commercially thinning
ponderosa pine." U.S. Forest Service
"Fire severity has generally increased and fire frequency has generally
decreased over the last 200 years. The primary causative factors behind
fire regime changes are effective fire prevention and suppression
strategies, selection and regeneration cutting, domestic livestock
grazing, and the introduction of exotic plants."
--Integrated Scientific Assessment for Ecosystem Management in the
Interior Columbia Basin (PNW-GTR-382)
"The high rate of human-caused fires has generally been associated with
high recreational use in areas of higher road densities."
--An Assessment of Ecosystem Components in the Interior Columbia Basin
and Portions of the Klamath and Great Basins--Volume II (PNW-GTR-405)
"Mechanically removing fuels (through commercial timber harvesting and
other means) can also have adverse effects on wildlife habitat and water
quality in many areas. Officials told GAO that, because of these
effects, a large-scale expansion of commercial timber harvesting alone
for removing materials would not be feasible. However, because the
Forest Service relies on the timber program for funding many of its
other activities, including reducing fuels, it has often used this
program to address the wildfire problem. The difficulty with such an
approach, however, is that the lands with commercially valuable timber
are often not those with the greatest wildfire hazards."
--GAO, "Western National Forests: A Cohesive Strategy is Needed to
Address Catastrophic Wildfire Threats" (GAO/RCED-99-65)
Sincerely,
John A. Keslick, Jr., Tree Biologist, Tree Biological Laboratory,
Allegheny Defense Project, Keslick and Son Modern Arboriculture,
West Chester, PA.
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