Prescribed burning can cut down risks in dense forests

By Mary Ann Albright
Gazette-Times reporter

James Agee takes the adage "fighting fire with fire" literally. In a society where most people see all fire as the enemy and Smokey Bear as the champion of fire exclusion, it can take some serious persuasion to convince listeners that intentionally causing fire can actually make forests healthier and more resilient. But Thursday afternoon at Oregon State University, Agee's message was well-received.

Students and community members packed the Construction and Engineering Hall of the LaSells Stewart Center to hear Agee's talk: "Fire and Forest Restoration in the West." Agee, a professor of forest ecology at the University of Washington, was the third lecturer in the College of Forestry's 2004 Starker Lectures series.

According to Agee, the drier forests across the West are in serious trouble. Because historical forest compositions and fire patterns have changed so drastically, wildfires are increasingly devastating to the landscape. Whereas the historical forest had 50 large trees per acre that were widely spaced apart, today's forests have between 1,000 and 2,000 smaller trees per acre that are crammed together. This creates a breeding ground for wildfires.

Agee identified four key principles for minimizing wildfire risks: reduce surface fuels, reduce ladder fuels, keep the large trees and reduce crown density. These goals can be achieved through a variety, and often a combination, of treatment options, including prescribed burns, thinning and mastication, a kind of mechanical brush-shredding.

Prescribed fire is the most cost-effective method, Agee said. It carries a price tag of about $50 per acre. Mechanical treatment runs to up several hundred dollars an acre. Agee advocates two rounds of burns when using prescribed fire alone; the first consumes and creates fuels, and the second cleans it up. Agee acknowledged that intensive forest management is expensive, but he pointed to an even harsher alternative —P footing the bill for suppressing raging wildfires. An effective treatment, followed by routine maintenance, can keep a forest essentially wildfire-proof for decades, he argued.

As part of his lecture, Agee examined several wildfires, looking at the damage done and analyzing how the treatment methods (or lack thereof) employed by forest managers impacted tree mortality and forest recovery rates.

One challenge facing forest ecologists is finding forests on which to test treatment methods. An even greater hurdle is the lack of funding needed to practice active forest management. Agee joked that the Healthy Forest Initiative is in danger of becoming the No Tree Left Behind Act, a reference to the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind Act, which is often criticized for being a good idea without the funding needed for implementation.