Forest Fires & Public PolicyBen McDonough

Political Science & Economics

Arts and Sciences

Overview

• A microcosm of public policy

• What makes a forest fire?

• How do they affect us?

• How do we fight them today?

• History of the fight

• First public institution: US Forest Service

• Evolution of understanding and the Forest Service

• Future of the Service and understanding public policy

A Microcosm of Public Policy?

• What is Public Policy? How we organize a mass effort to execute a specific mission for the will of the people

1. Determine the obstacle: Must be common among people

2. Find the tools: US Institutions

• What are institutions? Bureaucracies designed for a specific mission. Ex. IRS, Federal Reserve, US Forest Service

3. Focus on the goal: Must be realistic

4. Bring it back to the people

Microcosm cont.

The Will of the People

Obstacle: Forest Fires

Institution: US Forest Service

Goal: Control Forest Fires

Understanding Forest Fires: Basics

• Definition: An uncontrolled fire in a region of unmaintained wilderness or countryside

• Unique traits: Enormous size, high speed, ability to change direction and jump obstacles

• Characterizing fires: • Causes• Fuel type• Weather effects• Location

Causes

• Quasi-Natural

• 83% are manmade on average

• Natural (3.4 million acres - 2011)• Ecological fuel: logs, pine

needles, brush• Weather: temperature,

humidity, storms, wind• Topography• Other disasters: Volcanoes,

spontaneous combustion,

rockslide sparks

• Manmade (5.4 million acres - 2011)• Arson• Agricultural burns• Campfires• Power generation

Fuel Type

• Primary way to categorize forest fires, 4 types

• Ground• Buried roots and subterranean organic matter. Very slow burning.

• Crawling• Low lying vegetation: grass, leaves, shrubs. Can move very quickly in dense

conditions.

• Ladder• Between small trees and low lying vegetation. Transition to full forest fire.

• Canopy• Full forest fire with flames reaching suspended matter in the canopy of

forests. High speed burning with full access to wind.

Transformation

Crawling Fire Canopy Fire

Weather Effects

• Global weather patterns have a large effect• El Nino • Heat waves• Drought• Storms and Wind

• Earlier snow melt and longer summers increase fires

• Fires only spread with high wind, making storms a key factor

• All elements must be in synch to bring about a fire

Location

August 2008 February 2008

The Fire Triangle

Fuel

Oxygen

Fire Triangl

e

Heat Source

• All 3 must be present for ignition• Fuel: Any flammable material in the

general vicinity• Oxygen: Air supplies the oxygen

necessary for flames• Heat Source: Helps perpetuate the

fire and heats fuel to the necessary temperature for ignition

Fire Triangle and Ignition

• Grassland Beginning

s

Fire Front reaches tree line

Fire evaporate

s water and

ignites small trees

Increasing temp. dries out

trees

Forest ignites

Flash over and spread

Societal Effects

• 60,000 to 80,000 fires per year in the US

• 83% are manmade

• 4.4 million acres lost due to manmade fires (2006)

• 5.4 million acres lost to natural fires (2006)

• Large amounts of pollutants that damage both personal health and the protective atmosphere

• 34 deaths in 2013

• Billions of dollars from Government and Private funds

Fighting Fires Today

• Modern fire fighting is a multi-billion dollar business

• Tens of thousands of firemen

• Water and fire suppressants

• Digging trenches and cutting trees for firebreaks

• Controlled burning

The Great Fire of 1910

• Spread across Idaho, Montana, and Washington

• Early and intense drought in Summer 1910

• Very hot weather with large crop failures

• Thousands of fires throughout July

• August 8: President Taft authorizes Army support

• August 10: Heat storms move through

• August 20: Huge cold front and the Blowup

• August 21: Peak fire point

• August 22: Cold front with rain puts out majority of fires

A Personal Account

“Then came the fateful 20th of August. For two days the wind blew a gale from the southwest. All along the line, from north of the Canadian boundary south to the salmon, the gale blew. Little fires picked up into big ones. Fire lines which had been held for days melted away under the fierce blast. The sky turned a ghastly yellow, and at four o’clock it was black dark ahead of the advancing flames, One observer said the air felt electric, as though the whole world was ready to go up on spontaneous combustion. The heat of the fire and the great masses of flaming gas created great whirlwinds which mowed down swaths of trees in advance of the flames, in those terrible days many fires swept thirty to fifty miles across mountain ranges and rivers.” Forest Director

Aftermath

• 3 million acres burned in 2 days (Connecticut)

• 87 people died, mostly firefighters and hundreds were injured

• 7 towns and cities were completely destroyed

• Trains had to seek cover in tunnels to avoid the fires

• Hundreds of firemen were injured

• Smoke from the fires was recorded as far as New York and 500 miles into the Pacific

Origin of US Forest Service

• Established in 1905

• Two contradictory missions based on fires:• Maintain forests and engage fires only when

necessary (non-interventionist)• Maintain forests through battling every single

wildfire (absolutist)

• Great 1910 Fire’s effect on ultimate goal

• Absolutist fire policy and its effects on forests

Forest Service Policy

• Introduction of “10 AM Rule” in 1910’s

• Allowed to run a deficit

• Introduction of Smokey the Bear

• Social opinion on fires grows increasingly negative

• Fires aren’t allowed to run their course

• Proliferation of fire fuel and build up for the “Big One”

Fire Policy Results

1909 1949 1989

Yellowstone Fires of 1988

• Lack of preparation and overconfidence

• Driest summer in park’s history

• From July 21 – September 11 793,000 acres were destroyed

• 36% of the Park was burned

• $120 million was spent protecting the park

• 25,000 firefighters worked over the summer

• Ultimately, 7 fires caused 95% of damage

• 3 were manmade and were attempted to be controlled from the beginning

What Have We Learned?

• Fires aren’t all bad• Serotiny: seed germination from fire exposure aka pyriscence• Clears out underbrush• Reduces competition• Kills disease within forests• Brings in new generations

• Without regular natural fire, catastrophic fires occur more frequently

• You can’t fully control the natural cycle• Most fires are initially controlled and then grow out of control

Modern Policy

• Protect the natural world for future generations, but do not try to control her

• Only intervene when necessary

• Fight fires that have immediate potential for danger

• Maintain a healthy ecosystem• Allow beneficial fires to burn

Big Questions for the Forest Service

• Fighting too many fires?• 42% of a $5.5 Billion budget is still used for fire fighting• Many firefighters still die every year fighting fires• Catastrophic fires still occur

• Are you necessary?• Other institutions do the same job• $5.5 Billion is an enormous sum• The absolutist approach to fires was wrong. What makes the new

approach right?

Knowledge is Power

“Only a miniscule portion of once vast wilderness landscapes has been preserved, and the boundaries and spatial extent of these preserved bear little relationship to the natural processes necessary for their preservation. The 1988 fires have laid bare the broad extent of our ignorance of those natural processes.”

- Christensen

Questions?

Sources

• http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/141729/francis-fukuyama/america-in-decay• http://www.smokeybear.com/wildfires.asp• http://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/r1/learning/history-culture/?cid=stelprdb5350165• http://www.arborday.org/replanting/firecauses.cfm• http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/natural-disasters/wildfires/• http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=36220• http://wildfiretoday.com/tag/statistics/• http://www.nps.gov/yell/naturescience/wildlandfire.htm• http://www.fire.ca.gov/communications/downloads/fact_sheets/TheBenefitsofFire.pdf• http://headwaterseconomics.org/wildfire/fire-cost-background• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildfire• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Forest_Service