Please join us in welcoming two new field organizers, Melisa Stodieck and Emily Southard that will be working on grassroots organizing for Gold Butte in Las Vegas for the months of March and April.  They both come our way through Green Corps, a field school for environmental organizing.  

Melisa Stodieck, a Minnesota native, grew up in the land of ten thousand lakes and her childhood was spent camping and hiking which first sparked her interest in the environment. Melisa is a smart, sassy, and energetic organizer excited to be working on Gold Butte and protecting it for future generations (and herself) to enjoy!

Emily Southard is from the wild and wonderful state of West Virginia and emerges from the battle ground of climate activism.  Filling childhood summer months with hiking trips and adventure, she is excited to get back to her roots to protect Nevada’s most treasured wild areas. Emily is an enthusiastic and gifted environmental organizer, with the ability to take on special interests with wit and conviction.

Happy New Year everyone!  Weethump has been a little slow over the holidays, but that doesn't mean everyone's been sleeping on the job.  We recently received this great shot from Kurt Kuznicki.  It was taken in Mineral County, Nv below Mt. Grant in the Wassuk Range.  We'd love to share more notes and photos from the field, particularly snow reports from those who like to slide around on snow. 

Skip Yowell, the co-founder of JanSport backpacks has a real connection to the land and the beauty that Mother Nature creates. His reverence of nature has led him all over the globe, exploring areas vastly different from his Kansas home. He has ventured all over from Asia, Europe, Africa and Gold Butte, Nevada. Recently, he and his wife Winnie took time to explore Nevada’s piece of the Grand Canyon Puzzle in Southern Nevada with the Nevada Wilderness Project.

Skip’s love for the land is apparent to anyone that spends time with him. He and Winnie have seen so much of our earth that they prefer to explore areas off the ‘beaten’ path; sticking mainly to back roads and obscure trips. Skip was amazed that Gold Butte’s beauty and remoteness was so close to the Las Vegas strip. Out amongst the red, orange, rose, purple rocks, petroglyphs, and Joshua trees, the neon of Vegas feels light years away. Skip recognizes the beauty found in Nevada. He looks forward to future outings with the Project. Meanwhile, his bobble head likeness will be traveling all over Nevada with Project staff. Stay tuned for more ‘Adventures with Skip!’.

10 Burning Questions:

Hawken Fire Photo by Ryan Jerz.

First, it is important to realize that wildfire is a natural ecological [regime] in most of Nevada's vegetative communities. However, not all fire regimes are the same and fire suppression has not altered fire in all plant communities. This is important to understand. Some plant communities such as ponderosa pine forests experience high frequency low intensity blazes (fires perhaps every 5-20 years), while in many other plant communities low frequency (50-100 years or more) high intensity blazes are the norm. Examples of low frequency dominated plant communities includes most of the higher elevation forests in Nevada like aspen, spruce-fir forest and even some of the higher elevation sagebrush/grasslands. Hence, suppression has mostly affected fire in forest communities like ponderosa pine communities. The idea that "fuels" have built up in all forests due to suppression is a misnomer. High elevation forests tend to have infrequent blazes, and fuels naturally accumulate at these elevations because such forests are too wet in most years to burn. It's also critical to understand that big blazes (i.e. ones that burn tens of thousands of acres)do the bulk of all ecological work. The cumulative impact of hundreds of small fires is nothing compared to one or two big blazes. The vast majority of all acreage burned in any year occurs in a few dozen big fires. Government suppression activities began with creation of the US Forest Service. The Forest Service was organized in 1905 and protecting forests from wildfire was one of its chief duties. In 1910 a huge wildfire (3.5 millions acres) burned across Idaho and western Montana. The 1910 Burn traumatized the young FS and they began an aggressive program to suppress fires. Most of the trails, and so forth that lace our national forests were originally created to aid rapid deployment of fire fighters. In 1930 the FS adopted its 10 AM policy--with the goal of containing all fires by 10 AM of the next day. However, fire suppression did not affect fire regimes until after WW11 when the use of air support, smoke jumpers, and the rapid increase in roading for logging increased rapid access and the Forest Service became more effective at suppressing the smaller blazes. Because suppression has only been successful for maybe fifty years at most, most of the vegetation communities that are characterized by low frequency fire regimes like aspen, high elevation forests, and so forth probably have not been impacted that much. This period of increased suppression coincidences with favorable climatic conditions. It's important to note that the FS and other agencies are good at putting out fires when it's relatively wet--but they can't stop blazes when there is extreme drought and high winds. In recent years, we have moved into a climatic era that is drier, with warmer summers, and more wind. For instance, in the Southwest they are experiencing a five hundred year drought--we have never seen such conditions since the Anasazi abandoned their cliff dwellings to move to permanent water along the Rio Grande--so it's natural for us to be seeing large wildfires bigger than anything we have ever witnessed. All these factors favor large blazes. Whether this is due to global warming or natural climatic variation does not matter. In the end these factors create favorable conditions for big blazes.

Hawken Fire photo by Battlmnkey

Yes, to a degree. Ultimately climatic conditions mentioned above--drought, warm temperatures, low humidity, and wind--dictate whether you will have large blazes, however, some land uses have greatly altered fire regimes. Logging of big pines, particularly in the pine forests of the Tahoe Basin, has led to increased stand density which has increased the fire risk. Big pines are more resistant to fire and exist at lower densities (i.e. more spread apart which reduces the chances for a canopy blaze). However, in Nevada as a whole the biggest impact has come from livestock grazing which has increased fires in some situations and/or reduced fire frequency in other situations. Livestock grazing has created more arid conditions on many sites through soil compaction. This has increased run-off and evaporation from soils (due to the loss of mulching effect of vegetation). Grazing has also lead to a dramatic loss of wet meadows (through trampling of riparian areas). In the past, many streams in Nevada were lined with wet meadows and beaver dams. These acted as natural fire breaks that would have reduced the spread of fires under less than severe fire conditions. Today these riparian zones are non-existent or so narrow due to livestock damage that their effectiveness as fire breaks is reduced. But perhaps the way that livestock production has altered fire regimes has been the spread of cheatgrass. Cheatgrass is spread by livestock in several ways. First livestock trampling of soils destroys soil crusts, or what are known as cyptogamic lichens, that bind soil together. Without soil crust cheatgrass small seeds easily can reach soil and become established. Native bunchgrass seeds are larger and have enough reserves to put out rootlets that can find small cracks in the lichen which otherwise prevents establishment of cheatgrass. Cheatgrass is a highly flammable annual. It dries out sooner than native perennials and hence lengthens the fire season. And while native perennial grasses can experience a fire, they can not burn every year or even every 4-5 years. However cheatgrass can burn every year and remain on the site. In the case of sites dominated by cheatgrass, fire suppression may be appropriate to save native species like sagebrush. However, fire suppression without removal of livestock does not permit native perennials to recover. Livestock almost always feed on native perennials before they eat cheatgrass, hence natives get hammered more frequently. Just as they can not tolerate "cropping" by wildfire every year, they can not tolerate getting grazed by livestock year in and out without some sufficient rest--particularly during and after a drought. They need time to recharge their reserves. Grazing can also lead to less fires--which may be just as bad as too frequent fires. If fuels are removed, then there is less likely to be fire spread. Aspen, for instance, depend on wildfire to stimulate new growth. Aspen are characterized by "stand replacement" blazes. In other words, infrequent fires, but fires that tend to kill the above-ground boles. Since aspen groves tend to be highly productive, livestock tend to graze these groves heavily removing the fine fuels that would carry a blazes, effectively eliminating fire from these groves leading to the loss of aspen across the West.

There are few threats to wilderness landscapes from wildfire per se. Wildfires are a natural ecological process that actually preserves wildness. Wildfire is a normal factor in most of Nevada's plant communities. Human impacts include the spread of weeds and altered fire regimes--either more frequent than native plants can tolerate or not frequent enough to stimulate growth (such as stand-replacement blazes that help aspen regenerate).

Hawken Fire photo by Battlmnkey

There are several factors that facilitate fire spread and intensity. Whether vegetation is dry enough to build is one factor. That is why higher elevations do not burn frequency because they are too wet most of the time to burn. So we get big blazes and rapid fire spread under conditions of drought. Fuels is obviously one thing. If there is little or no fuel fires cannot spread easily. Topography is also a factor. Fires spread faster up a hill (because fuels are preheated) than down a slope. And depending on wind, topography can hinder or advance a fire. If wind is blowing up a valley, the topography can act to funnel the wind increasing its velocity. However, the biggest factor in fire spread if there is drought and high temperatures is wind. Wind affects fire spread exponentially. In other words, a 20 mile per hour wind spreads a blaze significantly faster than a 15 mile per hour wind. The higher the wind velocity, the greater the fire spread.

Fire has little direct impacts on most wildlife. Larger animals like deer and elk just walk or run away from a blaze. Small mammals, snakes, etc. hide in the ground (heat does not penetrate deeply). Birds fly away. How animals are affected varies greatly. If you are a sage grouse and the sage brush burns up, you lose. But many species benefit from fires. After a fire, meadows and grasslands tend to grow lush vegetation that can often lead to higher numbers of herbivores. Snags created by fires are important for a lot of bird species, particularly those that depend on cavity nesters. And research has shown that fish recolonize burned watersheds within a few years--often at higher denities than prior to the blazes.

I don't know why without asking them, but I suspect a reduction in forage as a consequence of the fires means they are worried that wildlife may starve. However, it's important to note that drought is more important than fires for forage reduction. In a drought year, you may have one third or less forage than in a "normal" year. So there is naturally going to be less food for herbivores after a dry year. Add in the fact that livestock are seldom removed from public lands in drought years, and therefore consume what little vegetation that does grow and you can see that there would be little food for deer and elk.

If you are talking about people building fires in remote locations, the worry is that sooner or later your home may burn down, and you may even be at risk. Homes scattered about the landscape are most costly to protect and they put fire fighters at greater risk. Sprawl has really increased fire suppression costs.

In native perennial grasslands that are healthy with intact cyptogamic lichens, and healthy native grasses and shrubs, cheatgrass does not usually take over. There are exceptions, of course, but the spread of cheatgrass is typically an indication of poor ecological condition of most grasslands in the state. Even if cheatgrass initially invades, if native grasses are in good conditions (so there is plenty of seeds) they can "expel" the cheatgrass invasion. But if you graze these lands after a fire--when the native grasses are already weakened--then you facilitate the take over by cheatgrass.

The spread of weedy species is facilitating fires. In some plant communities like the joshua tree community, low sage, and others, fire did not naturally occur at all or would never spread over large areas.

The first thing that has to be done is to eliminate the kinds of practices that favor changes in fire regimes. Since livestock grazing is permitted in most wilderness areas, this probably has the biggest impacts on wildfire management. As long as livestock are spreading weed species like cheatgrass, weakening native grasses, trampling wet meadows, destroying cryptogamic crusts, and so forth, you are going to favor the spread of cheatgrass and other weedy species that provides the fine fuels that favors fire spread. The second thing is to use more prescribed burns in the appropriate habitats (i.e. vegetation regimes that had high frequency low intensity blazes) outside of wildlands to reduce fuels. Such treatments have to be done frequently because fire actually stimulates plant growth, so you have be prepared to do prescribed burns on a frequent basis. Right now we spend millions of dollars fighting fires but little on prescribed burns which can help to reduce the spread of fires. However, it must be noted that under severe conditions of drought, wind, high temperatures, and so-forth, prescribed burns will not prevent the spread of fires. The third thing is obvious--we need to let natural fires burn without suppression in wilderness areas so they can play their critical ecological role. And it's important to realize that not all fires will be small ones. Big blazes do most of the ecological work. Forth we need to implement land use zoning. I know these are unpopular, but the spread of sprawl is contributing to not only higher costs for fire suppression, but also affecting the ability of agencies to permit fires to burn in areas that would otherwise not pose a problem--such as the Mount Rose Wilderness. In a sense, county commissioners and state legislatures that refuse to adopt land use planning that promote urban growth boundaries are putting the public at risk. They are creating conditions that will, over time, make it more dangerous for everyone, increase taxes or reduce services as more money is diverted to fight fires that, under other circumstances, would not be fought at all. If you care about saving tax dollars, saving lives, and preserving natural landscapes, then you have to get serious about land use planning and zoning. Oregon has urban growth boundaries that greatly restricts urban sprawl, and hence fire fighting costs. Oregon's model is worth emulating. Fifth, there needs to be more emphasis placed upon homeowner responsibility for home protection. Reducing flammable materials around homes goes a long ways towards reducing fire hazard. A metal roof significantly reduces house flammability.

 

This post was produced by Captn' Redbeard and Wolfy with special help from Smella. Thank you to George for his great responses and Ryan and Maresa for the photos!