Burn ban holds seeds of trouble

Fires intended to rejuvenate thousands of acres of Inland Northwest forests will have to wait because of a federal moratorium on prescribed burning.

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman announced the 30-day ban on Friday in response to destructive fires in the Southwest.

The moratorium, which is to end June 12, effectively puts an end to the spring burning season in the Inland Northwest. Without burning to clear out underbrush, seedlings can't be planted in some clearcuts this year, the threat of forest fires will be slightly greater this summer and the cost of eventually conducting the burns may increase.

"The weather this week is like an ideal window for prescribed fire. This is the best week we've seen all spring," said Peggy Polichio, silviculturist for the Idaho Panhandle National Forests. "Usually by (June) we're out of the window of opportunity" because the forest is green and the weather uncooperative.

A fire set May 4 by the National Park Service escaped the Bandelier National Monument. As of Tuesday, it had burned 260 homes and caused the evacuation of 25,000 people from Los Alamos, N.M.

On April 25, the Park Service lighted a fire in Grand Canyon National Park to clear brush and grasses from about 1,500 acres. By Tuesday, high winds had spread the blaze to 8,400 acres. While it had not threatened structures, the fire was far from contained.

Throughout the West, agencies have burned thousands of acres this spring, mostly without incident. Now, they've temporarily lost a tool that's been gaining prominence as logging declines and managers more fully understand fire's importance to a healthy forest.

Polichio said the Panhandle forests have burned more than 3,000 acres this spring and planned to burn several thousand more. Now that work must wait until fall, when the woods are drier, and both the costs and risks are greater.

In Idaho and Montana, some clearcuts that were supposed to be replanted this year will wait until next year, said Byron Bonney, Forest Service fire specialist in Missoula. The planting can't be done until the underbrush is burned, he said.

In Washington, the Colville and Wenatchee national forests will put off burning about 1,700 acres and 2,400 acres, respectively, until this fall or next spring. Most burning was completed on the Spokane Indian Reservation, but the ban has snuffed plans to torch 1,800 acres on the Yakama Indian Reservation.

Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge burned 250 acres in April. Refuge officials planned three more this spring, and want to torch several brush piles as well, said Doug Frederick, acting fire management officer. Unlike other fire managers, he's hopeful they'll get some of that done in June.

Forest managers say fire is a natural part of the ecosystem. Left alone, ponderosa pine forests would burn about every 15 years, Frederick said. But for most of this century, federal land managers followed Smokey Bear's advice and promptly snuffed any wildfires. The policy created forests that are choked with underbrush and saplings, making them ripe for catastrophic fires.

Babbitt and Glickman released the first nationwide policy on prescribed fires in 1996. It directed land managers to "integrate wildland fire into land and resource management plans."

Three years ago this week, Babbitt again touted the benefit of fire by helping Boise National Forest crews ignite 750 acres of grass and shrubs.

"By using fire at the right time, we are preventing a big, catastrophic fire (later)," said Babbitt, who called for a 10-fold increase in the federal budget for controlled burns.

The current moratorium does not indicate a shift in policy, said Babbitt's spokesman, John Wright.

"This is an opportunity to step back and look and see if our policies are sound. That's all," Wright said.

In the past five years, the use of fires in forests east of the Cascades has "doubled, easily," said Tim Rich, Northwest fire fuel specialist for the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service.

The two agencies planned to burn about 160,000 acres in Washington and Oregon this year, Rich said. While some of the work will have to wait, Rich said he thinks the total acreage will change little as a result of the moratorium.

"Underburning," in which ground cover is torched but large trees remain, is especially important in roadless areas or others that can't be logged, Rich said.

At least one Eastern Washington land manager expects more red tape as a result of the Los Alamos review.

"We already have to juggle so many balls to burn, it's incredible," said Kevin Ritzer, forester for the Spokane Indian Reservation. "I'll bet the paperwork is going to double."

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