Fostering Better Forest Policy with Science

A widespread notion is that fire suppression has greatly altered fire regimes across the West and is therefore largely responsible for the large, severe wildfires witnessed in recent years. This logic even lies at the base of national policies such as the Healthy Forests Restoration Act (HFRA) and Healthy Forests Initiative (HFI) which emphasize widespread logging and prescribed fire to ameliorate the effects of fire suppression and reduce the likelihood of large fires. However, significant scientific debate exists about the extent and historical causes of forest change as well as the best management responses to these changes.

 Recent studies have begun to highlight many potential dangers of rushing headfirst into widespread logging and burning practices, as is currently advocated by national policies. Just as fire suppression was thought to be a beneficial policy for forest health and public safety and yet we now find ourselves in part the victim of a century of fire suppression policies, we need to be sure that current thinning and burning policies do not, in the long run, actually worsen the very problem they aim to solve. In order to avoid such an outcome, solid scientific principles must exist as the foundation of management policy and practice. Over the last several years, the WildWest Institute has been working with forest ecologists at the University of Montana to help fill the scientific gap at the base of current national forest policies. The following is a brief review of our research and other relevant scientific findings that should help to form the basis for forest management policies and practices on public lands.

At the heart of the scientific debate about the causes of recent large wildfires is whether they are climate driven or the result of altered forest conditions due to past human influences. With increasing clarity, new studies suggest that climate change is driving wildfire behavior, with warmer springs, earlier snowmelt, and longer, drier fire seasons contributing to the increased size and severity of wildfires. However, for some low and middle elevation dry forests, many scientists have hypothesized that dense forest conditions associated with a century of fire suppression play a significant role in fueling recent large wildfires.

While fire suppression has certainly contributed to changes in modern forest conditions, other human activities such as logging and grazing have also contributed to these changes. However, their effects are much less understood.

Our work with University of Montana scientists has attempted to quantify the long term contributions that historical logging has made to forest conditions associated with today's large fires. We have established a network of study sites throughout Idaho and Montana, scattered throughout the Frank Church/River of No Return, Selway-Bitterroot and Gospel Hump Wilderness Areas, the Salmon River of Idaho, and seven mountain ranges in Montana including the Salish, Swan, Coeur d' Alene, and Bitterroot Mountains in the west and the Little Belts, Big Belts, and the Little Snowies in eastern Montana. We have measured forest characteristics at each of these sites, now totaling over 60 sample points, comparing logged and unlogged, fire suppressed and fire maintained forests.

Results show that historical logging has greatly exacerbated the effects of fire exclusion in dry forests of Montana and Idaho, contributing to the dense forest conditions which may be partly responsible for large wildfires in some forest types. This is important for several reasons. Firstly, according to Forest Service studies, 99% of old growth ponderosa pine forests in Montana have been logged. This means that only 1% of old growth ponderosa pine forest has experienced fire suppression alone, without the confounding effects of logging.

Yet, federal forest policies are based largely on the assumption that fire suppression alone has caused the dense forest conditions that may contribute to the size and severity of wildfires. We have found that this assumption is invalid.

Secondly, our research suggests that disturbance associated with many logging methods often results in long term increases in forest density. This finding urges caution in implementing logging techniques for fuels reduction and restoration whose goals are often to reduce stand density. Such caution may be particularly important in previously unlogged forests and roadless areas where logging has not already occurred.

Taken together, the best science-based and economically viable response to large wildfires should include a conservative and targeted approach to fuels reduction and restoration practices. Fuel reduction projects should be placed adjacent to priority communities, where they provide the best protection to human lives and property, can be more easily maintained, and cause the least ecological damage. Ecologically-based forest restoration is a more complicated issue, but it is clear that it should seek to address the full range of human impacts on natural landscapes, not just those associated with fire suppression. Past logging, grazing, roadbuilding, weed invasions, failing culverts, tree planting and the removal of large predators are necessary aspects for restoration to address.

Furthermore, restoration must integrate broad policy changes with project level implementation for it to achieve the best results. For example, forest thinning to restore open forest conditions in areas where forest policy still mandates active fire suppression cannot be considered restoration. This is due, in part, to the fact that ecological restoration must emphasize the return of forest processes, not particular conditions. While structural alterations may be necessary in some cases before natural processes can be restored, if forest policies prevent natural processes from functioning, then these areas should not be priority areas for restoration treatments.

Finally, the current push to thin huge swaths of forest may be very unwise, resulting in many negative, long lasting, and unintended side affects. Thinning for restoration should be viewed as a new, experimental, and untested activity that deserves further study and long term monitoring. Otherwise, we may find ourselves in the same position we are now in with failing federal budgets and a burdensome legacy of degraded wildlands, a result of our failure to look before we leap.

Cameron Naficy is the WildWest Institute's Staff Ecologist