Hanford blaze unlikey to harm native species

There are plenty of tragedies stemming from this week's Hanford fire and the 20 homes that were lost.

But the burning of native plants important to declining wildlife species isn't one of them, scientists say. Fires are part of life at Hanford, where rain is measured in single digits and summer temperatures in triple digits. It is the hottest, driest place in Washington.

"I've seen Rattlesnake (Ridge) go black four times in 40 years. It always comes back," said Bill Rickard, a botanist and zoologist who has studied Hanford since 1960.

President Clinton in early June created the 195,000-acre Hanford Reach National Monument, partly to preserve the sagebrush and bunch- grass habitat that once was common in Eastern Washington. The fire did not touch the monument, but scorched much of the Arid Lands Reserve, which eventually could be added to the national monument.

Most of the so-called "shrub-steppe" landscape has been plowed, irrigated, grazed, developed and infected with invasive, non-native plants. Land included in the monument generally wasn't subjected to those changes because it was off-limits to the public as part of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.

Scientists studying Hanford in recent years found plants and insects they didn't know existed.

Of the 190,000 acres that burned this week, about 75,000 acres are in the Arid Lands Reserve. That land is the most pristine portion of the area. It includes the eastern flank of Rattlesnake Ridge.

Botanist Sally Simmons said she intensively studied research plots on Rattlesnake Ridge before a 1998 fire. When she returned a year later, "the same plants were there as before."

The timing of this year's blaze bodes well for recovery, Simmons said. Most plants flowered in spring, then went to seed.

"The plants had gone to sleep, most of them," Simmons said. "The tops had burned, but they'll come back.

"These plants evolved with fire."

But the plants didn't evolve with roads and cars, which are the main cause of fires these days.

Jeff Haas of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said that in the two years he's worked at Hanford, he's seen four fires. Three were started by hot brakes, burning engines or cigarettes tossed from car windows.

Thursday's fire, which far larger than any of the others Haas has seen, was sparked by a car accident.

The area does have a history of larger fires, however.

An August 1984 fire sparked by lightning near the town of Sunnyside, 30 miles east, burned about 300,000 acres in roughly the same area that was blackened this week. Winds of 25 mph pushed the flames east onto Hanford, then producing plutonium for nuclear weapons.

The blaze approached Hanford's Fast Flux Test Facility, an experimental reactor that has since suspended operations, and the state's only operating nuclear plant. Neither sustained damage, though both were temporarily shut down.

No homes were burned in the 1984 fire. About 110 firefighters from six local fire districts battled the blaze, which was declared under control 2-1/2 days after it began. There were no injuries.

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