Fire

[FSburt]

Just came back from a 18 day stint on the Wenatchee Complex as a Field Observer (FOBS). Here is what I observed over that time. These fire on the OW need a alot of things to line up right for them to move. The Byrd fire and the onther front country fires where the only ones to really get with it and the Table Mtn and Peavine fires they got pretty well established on some rough ground in some heavy fuel loaded areas so these fires where able to build up some steam. Now for the rest of the fires in the complex like the upper elevation fires like the Pyramid and Basalt these fires would not move very fast even with high winds. Probably partly due to them being sheltered somewhat and at higher elevations. These fire where actually doing pretty good cleaning up the understory fuels and the smaller vegetation. Must admit this is some of the most beautiful country I have every been in and the timber above Lake Wenatchee is huge in places. The cedars down along the White River along the Sears Creek Fire where huge diameter but short in height and reminded me of the Giant Seqouias how they stood out in size against everything else. Some very steep and rough ground to boot. Nice visit and hope to return some day. On the way home I drove over to Seattle and down the 5 since I have never been down the west side of Oregon and Washington. Wanted to ask how many cuttings some of the forests along this area have been logged over looked like at least 2 to 3 times but it can grow the timber from the looks of the young plantations growing back. Fiberology at its finest.

 

[northmanlogging]

I think some of the I-5 corridor is approaching 3-4 maybe more cuts on it. If ya wanna see some impressive 2nd 3rd growth stuff get about 30-40 miles off the beaten path onto some old dnr/forest service roads, getting hard to tell the difference between old growth and healthy 2nd growth in some places

 

[madhatte]

I know lots of 3rd-growth is being cut now in commercial forests. That'll be most of what you see on the I-5 corridor. Back in the hills, big 2nd-growth is pretty common. I've been marking a lot of ~40" stuff lately that's only about 80 YO. We can definite'y grow 'em here.

 

[RandyMac]

Lots of lightning to our East, it is dry, probably going to see some activity.

 

[Joe46]

Just finished reading a small article from one of our local stations(KOMO). It seems "scientist" are blaming the severity of forest fires here in Washington on global warming. Interesting take on our fires. Locals believe the lack of logging and forest fuels are more the likely problem:msp_ohmy:

 

[slowp]

I do not understand. Seems like the FS has a fire is good, so we'll leave it alone policy. The trouble is, then the fire grows in size, and starts getting out of the OK to let it burn area. Then it is large, and sucks in a lot of money to try to control it.

Here is a good example. The fire is a lightning (not lightening) caused one that started out small. Folks were sent up to observe it--not to work on controlling it, but to observe it.

http://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5391954.pdf

Now it is going where it is not wanted to go.

We also have a more safety conscious FS, where folks are not going to go where we did in the crazy days.
This and a fire from a couple years ago were considered to be too steep to put crews on.

It depends on what you are used to. A group of us were sent to training. It was held locally, and other forests sent people to it. A group from the east side was supposed to walk downhill and look for stuff. We west siders were sent down the same hill. The east siders went down a bit, and then declared it to be unsafe. We locals, did our usual butt sliding, vegetation belay methods that we used everyday, and all made it down to the road without injury.

Anyway, it seems like the policy is let it burn, until it starts heading where we don't want it, and then try to control it by throwing a lot more money at it than it would have cost if it was taken care of when small.

It sounds like fire season will end this weekend anyway.

 

[madhatte]

It sounds like fire season will end this weekend anyway.

Yeah, rain by Friday! Woo-hoo! It's about time.

 

[ForestBound]

Keep the rain i don't want to put the raingear on... Had it too nice this year we're getting spoiled.. The moss on my back is almost dried up...

 

[forestryworks]

Just finished reading a small article from one of our local stations(KOMO). It seems "scientist" are blaming the severity of forest fires here in Washington on global warming. Interesting take on our fires. Locals believe the lack of logging and forest fuels are more the likely problem:msp_ohmy:

It's easily a combination of both, as well as other things.

Every time I see one of those "severity of fire" headlines, I ask myself, "How many times has that happened in the last 20,000 years? Probably nothing new under the sun."

Nature is always complex (too complex for news articles) and always changing, just my opinion.

 

[FSburt]

Your right on a few points here SLOWP we have become a way more safety oriented and less aggresive towards fire suppression than in yrs past. I know when I started in 1988 we put out everything no matter how good it was doing or even if it where surrounded by a rock field and lakes we still put it out. We are now taking a more open approach to fire with natural ignitions being evaluated for their potential to burn into values at risk and the risk to firefighters by suppression actions on a fire that has fire behavior and associated fire effects that are on the positive side since we have had the ability to log taken out of large areas of our land base especially in the NW. When I was up on the Wen/ Okanognen a couple of weeks back I asked how much volume they were logging off the forest and u would think I had asked a foreign question because the answer shocked me that they are doing very little to no logging on this forest anymore. Even on our forest in the central Sierras we are still being asked to produce a minimum of 8 million bf in timber volume to help keep our local mills infastructure intact. Fire is becoming one of the only fuels managment tools available to help keep fuels and vegetation in some form of acceptable condition. I know the fires I was working on up the Wenatchee and Entiat rivers where doing nothing but good from my observations but I can see if they where to get a good warm east wind that would change pretty quick but us that work in this business take all this as part of the risk we look at when the decision is made to let some of these fire burn.

I do not understand. Seems like the FS has a fire is good, so we'll leave it alone policy. The trouble is, then the fire grows in size, and starts getting out of the OK to let it burn area. Then it is large, and sucks in a lot of money to try to control it.

Here is a good example. The fire is a lightning (not lightening) caused one that started out small. Folks were sent up to observe it--not to work on controlling it, but to observe it.

http://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5391954.pdf

Now it is going where it is not wanted to go.

We also have a more safety conscious FS, where folks are not going to go where we did in the crazy days.
This and a fire from a couple years ago were considered to be too steep to put crews on.

It depends on what you are used to. A group of us were sent to training. It was held locally, and other forests sent people to it. A group from the east side was supposed to walk downhill and look for stuff. We west siders were sent down the same hill. The east siders went down a bit, and then declared it to be unsafe. We locals, did our usual butt sliding, vegetation belay methods that we used everyday, and all made it down to the road without injury.

Anyway, it seems like the policy is let it burn, until it starts heading where we don't want it, and then try to control it by throwing a lot more money at it than it would have cost if it was taken care of when small.

It sounds like fire season will end this weekend anyway.

 

[mile9socounty]

Your right on a few points here SLOWP we have become a way more safety oriented and less aggresive towards fire suppression than in yrs past.

Not for us on the State side. The land owners and timber owners pay up to very agressive towards fires. I think so far this season, our largest fire has been 4 acres. Though we haven't had much of a fire season. Which means the local folks are listening. Good on them. Winters we do a lot of contracts for the BLM to cut buffers around their property and private land owners. Precaution. But that is it, not actual thinning on the BLM's land.

 

[slowp]

I believe many districts, and the Wenatchee Okanogan in a big time way, decided to get out of as much timber harvest as they could. They had the big timber/engineering purge in the 1990s. One forest supervisor, who was on a coastal forest gleefully announced that "we are getting out of the timber business", and explained how timber people would be moved and put into different jobs. Unfortunately for her, the election changed things just a little bit, and a timber target still had to be met.

Great ideas abound for fuels treatment or "restoration". But they seldom get beyond the ideas. The most economical method is to have a timber sale, but that is not a politically correct thing to do. So, we'll continue to have big fires when we have dry conditions. There are not many foresters in the Forest Service anymore.

Unfortunately, the major population centers did not get too much of the smoke. The Wenatchee area has no political clout and I doubt if there are enough people who understand fuels treatment to try to have that option restored.

What with budget cutting being so popular, I do not see anything happening on the federal lands, except around Ft. Lewis...where they can still manage the ground.

 

[madhatte]

What with budget cutting being so popular, I do not see anything happening on the federal lands, except around Ft. Lewis...where they can still manage the ground.

You better believe we're doing all we can to hold on to that privilege. Even the Army itself seems to have a hundred ways to shut us down.

 

[ForestBound]

I've been workin on Ft.Lewis/McChord. They definitely keep their land tidy in most spots. They were doing RX burns while it was 95 out. The fires do nothing to the 40"+ Doug's and Ponderosa

 

[slowp]

The Monsoon approacheth:

.HEAVY RAIN POSSIBLE ACROSS WESTERN WASHINGTON THIS WEEKEND
THROUGH EARLY NEXT WEEK...

A PATTERN CHANGE WILL BRING WET WEATHER BACK TO WESTERN
WASHINGTON FRIDAY THROUGH THE WEEKEND AFTER A PROLONGED DRY SPELL.
WEAK WEATHER SYSTEMS WILL AFFECT THE AREA ON FRIDAY AND SATURDAY
WITH WIDESPREAD MEASURABLE RAINFALL EXPECTED. A STRONGER SYSTEM
WILL THEN STEER HEAVY RAIN INTO THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST LATE SATURDAY
NIGHT THROUGH POSSIBLY AS LATE AS MONDAY NIGHT.

IF THE FORECAST MODELS ARE CORRECT...THIS WILL BE THE FIRST
SIGNIFICANT STORM OF THE SEASON. SOME FORECAST MODELS SHOW SEVERAL
INCHES OF RAIN IN THE MOUNTAINS WITH SHARP RISES EXPECTED ON THE
RIVERS. THE OLYMPICS MAY SEE 4 TO 8 INCHES OF RAIN THROUGH MONDAY
NIGHT...WITH 2 TO 5 INCHES POSSIBLE IN THE CASCADES. AS FOR THE
LOWLANDS...THE COAST MAY SEE 1 TO 4 INCHES...WITH 1 TO 2 INCHES OF
RAIN IN THE INTERIOR.

BREEZY TO WINDY CONDITIONS ARE ALSO FORECAST OVER THIS PERIOD. THE
COAST AND NORTH INTERIOR ARE LIKELY TO BE THE WINDIEST LOCATIONS.

MODELS HAVE NOT PINNED DOWN THE EXACT STORM TRACK SO THERE ARE
SOME UNCERTAINTIES IN THE TIMING AND IMPACTS OF THIS SYSTEM. MONITOR
FORECASTS FROM THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE FOR THE LATEST UPDATES.

$$

 

[madhatte]

Bring it on!

Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express

 

[Gologit]

Send some of that rain down here. Not too much...just enough get us out of the red zone.

 

[slowp]

It has to clean out the smoke in our valley first. Cough cough. It isn't horrible, but I'm tired of the smell.
I'm ready for the smell of mildew to replace it.

 

[FSburt]

There are not many foresters in the Forest Service anymore.

This is one of the main reasons we are beginning to see a big decline in the ability to put up sensible projects because or folks now have very little experience with project planning and layout so we end up with muliple problems with our sales not being layed out on to maximize the available ground especially cable ground in which we have thousands of acres of this with tons of 80-100 yr second growth stands sitting around 300-400 basal area with no plans to do anything but let it sit there and eventually die or burn up in a fire. The argument we always get from our Silviculturist and Forest TMO is cable logging is too expensive for thinning and it would not allow for a positive sale. Us younger folks have argued left and right to mix in some tractor ground with this cable ground to help offset the higher costs but these guys have now convinced our ranger to the point that this is the first thing out of his mouth when we start plannng a project with harvesting. Most of our tractor ground sales only averages around 4- 5 k bf /acre removed due to our whole district being in pacific fisher habitat so I figure that kind of limited volume would curtail using more expensive systems. On nearby private ground where they are cable logging they are pulling off around 8-10 K per acre which seems to be enough volume to cut. Oh well "jus load the wagon" is what i say we get it done.

 

[madhatte]

Well, I guess that means our fire season is over. Cool. Now we can start cleaning up the political mess we made. It's the same every year.