FIRE! the Word Brings to Mind Wildlife Fleeing Can Towns
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FIRE! The word brings to mind wildlife fleeing can towns. The public demanded that all fires flames, a house ablaze, or a barren, charred be suppressed. Yet, despite the best of efforts American Indians landscape. Or we might recall the pleasure and the latest technology, fires cannot always used fire to clear of watching logs burning in a fireplace or a be stopped, and scientists now know it is not forests, create roaring campfire. Over time humans have always beneficial to stop them. To suppress viewed fire as both friend and foe. Ancient all fire does not preserve natural landscapes; desirable habitats Greeks, American Indians, and farmers gener it changes them unnaturally. for game animals, ally considered fire a friend and partner. The and recycle nutri- Greeks respected fire as a gift from the gods. Today, government policies reflect both a com ents into the soil American Indians used fire to clear forests for mitment to public safety and the understanding to improve crops. easier travel, to elude or fight enemies, and to that fire must be returned to its natural role in create habitat attractive to wildlife. European protected natural areas. Park managers still immigrants cleared land with fire. Today farm suppress fires that threaten lives and property. ers use fire to replenish nutrients in the soil to Now they also ignite fires to recreate or restore benefit their crops. a healthy natural environment. Managing fire supports the National Park Service's mission Fire was seen as an enemy around 1900 when to preserve the scenery and wildlife of parks wildfires, often associated with poor land man unimpaired for future generations. agement practices, destroyed several Ameri- 11:ustration by Antorna Hednck Fire is the combination of heat, oxygen, Life After Fire The diversity of plant and other birds of prey hunt along the What Happens to Wildlife in a Fire? animals escape to ponds or streams, fuel, and an ignition source. Fuels in and animal life you enjoy in national edges of burned areas and find cover Wild animals deal with fire remarkably and rodents return to their burrows. clude grasses, needles, leaves, brush, parks partly results from fire. What in unburned areas. Deer feed on nutri well. Birds fly out of the fire area, large Usually few animals are killed by fire. and trees. Natural ignition sources may look at first like devastation soon tious, succulent new shoots of grasses animals leave immediate danger, some include lightning and volcanoes. becomes a panorama of new life. Fire and shrubs that appear after fire. Fires also can be started by initiates critical natural processes by Natural processes pro vide nutrients for plants human carelessness and arson. breaking down organic matter into _Some plants cannot reproduce without IUStratlOn ey Bob Tope through fire. Fire releas soil nutrients. Soil, rejuvenated with fire. Cones of jack and lodgepole pines es minerals stored in Where and how quickly a fire moves as logs, may take hours or even days nitrogen from ash, provides a fertile in northern U.S. forests are sealed with forest litter and dead trees. Rain m oves min depends on the terrain, weather, and to burn completely. seedbed for plants. With less com pitch. Fire must melt the pitch to re erals back into the soil. type of fuel. Hillside fires preheat petition and more sunlight, seedlings lease the seeds. Fire breaks open the grasses and shrubs on slopes above, While windswept flames can leap into grow quickly. outside coating of mountain lilac seeds so a fire may burn 16 times faster up the crowns of trees and burn entire and stimulates germination in southern hill than on flat ground. Like sheets trees in seconds, many fires merely By burning intensely in some areas California chaparral. Without fire, seeds of paper, grasses burn quickly-up to creep along the ground slowly burn and cooler in others , fire can create can lie dormant in the soil for decades. several miles per hour under extreme ing brush and forest litter. a puzzle-like mosaic of d iverse habi Aspen, birch, and willow sprout from conditions. Thick and large fuels, such tats for plants and animals. Hawks their roots after a fire. llus:ration by Bob Tope Alaska The National Park Service protects a Denali National Yellowstone Park & Preserve National Park Appalachian Potential variety of ecosystems. This map high mixed forest Natural Vegetation lights a selection of vegetation types Boreal forest Con ifers and Broad/eat Forest and representative park sites. Spruce, pine, and deciduous trees fir dominate north mingle in shifting Needleleaf Forest Santa M ornca M ountains ratios as deter Mixed Forest ern areas to iree National Recreation Area -Grand Canyon mined by climate line. Large, in:erise National Park and a mosaic of Forest & Grass/anon~ fires recur e\ ery ' - Island ~ umberl and rare fires. Grassland 25 to 150 years. Chaparral National Seashore Mixed shrubs and - Grassland & Shrub1b ~- ~-:c-~--:-=;-;-":__--'-';-'--~~~~~~~~~~--.=">.--:-:-:-~~~~~~::.....:.=-~--+-nf"l...tt.~H>tnd·~~~~~~~~~~~~ Hawaii low trees grow in onderosa pine Big Cypress Shrub dense masses. Ex Spacious forests National Preserve loblolly pines plosive fires scour of trees hundreds Lodgepole pine Tallgrass prairie Wetlands Southern pines of years old. Fre Dominant tree in Surviving flames Saw grass needs grow in grassy Text 1n this section adapted w th the hillsides bare permission from National Geographic quent fires (5 to 25 the park, this pine better than invasive fire to kill competing park-like stands. Maps' The gift of fire. every 12 to 50 Mild surface fires years. years) clear ground grows in dense brush, the grass is vegetation. Small but seldom kill large stands. Sections renewed by frequent patches burn to the clear debris every waterline every 1 to 3 to 5 years. trees. burn wholly every large fires that can Boreal forest 25 years. 200 to 400 years. out-run a horse. Maria Mina Fire crews (above) extinguish unwanted fires and manage prescribed fi s. Managing Wildland Fire Firefighters often use a Pulaski (right), a tool that is part ax and part hoe. Wildland fire has great potential to change park landscapes damage natural and cultural resources, and be expensive-and more often than volcanoes, earthquakes, or even floods. Such dangerous-to fight. forces of change are completely natural. Many plants and ani mals cannot survive without the cycles of fire or flooding to National Park Service policy stresses managing fire, not simply which they are adapted. If all fire is suppressed, fuel builds up suppressing it. This means planning for the inevitable and pro and makes bigger fires inevitable. Under certain conditions, moting the use of fire as a land management tool. The goal is to large, hot fires can threaten public safety, devastate property, restore fire's role as a dynamic and necessary natural process. Prescribed Fire How Do Parks Prepare For Fires? Prescribed fire is one of the growth. Fuel Planning for the Inevitable In each aircraft, and fire engines, forecasting most important tools used buildups some park with the potential for fire, land weather, or analyzing fire behavior. to manage fire today. A sci times must be managers develop a fire management entific prescription for the cut and removed plan. This planning involves the public Firefighting Tools Firefighters use fire, prepared in advance, by hand. By burn and other agencies and weighs public tools ranging from shovels to heli describes its objectives, ing away accumu safety needs with natural and cultural copters and airplanes th at drop chemi fuels, size, and the precise lated fuels and resource concerns. All decisions about cal fire retardants or water. With shov environmental conditions protecting speci fires will be based on the plan, whether els firefighters extinguish flames by under which it will burn. If fic sites, planned the response is to suppress or to allow mixing dirt with burning material or it moves outside the prede fires make land fire to play its natural role. scraping the ground free of fuels. termined area, the fire may scapes safer for The Pulaski, named for a famous be suppressed. The fire future natural fires. Because fires may cross national park firefighter, is used as an ax or a hoe may be designed to create boundaries, park managers work with to cut and remove fuels. Other equip a mosaic of diverse habitats Prescribed fire private individuals and federal, state, ment includes flame-retardant cloth for plants and animals, to also can be the local, and tribal agencies in developing ing, water pumps, chainsaws, and help an endangered species most cost-effec fire policy goals. No single agency has two-way radios. tive way to main recover, or to reduce fuels the human resources or equipment to Brian Hatris and thereby prevent a de A firefighter uses a driptorch, a can tain such historic manage fire alone. Shared planning Managers predict fire behavior using structive fire. filled with diesel fuel and gasoline, to scenes as the and staffing are essential. computer models that are based on ignite a prescribed fire. open grasslands research of how fuels, weather, and Specific buildings, cultural resources, of the Revolutionary War era at Sara Firefighters Before their first assign topography affect fires. Models help critical natural resources, and habitat toga National Historical Park in New ment, wildland firefighters must meet estimate how fast and far a fi re may can be protected by burning key areas York, oak-prairie savanna of the Civil rigorous physical requirements and travel and how big it might become in advance, thereby removing fuels War era at Wilson's Creek National complete extensive training emphasiz under different conditions. from the path of a future unwanted Battlefield in Missouri.