A Reporter's Guide to Wildland Fire
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A Reporter's Guide to Wildland Fire by Timothy Ingalsbee, Ph.D. Published by FUSEE Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology January 2005 ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Timothy Ingalsbee, Ph.D. is the executive director of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology (FUSEE), and is a former wildland firefighter for the U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service. Ingalsbee is a nationally recognized writer and speaker on wildland fire ecology and management issues that link firefighter safety with community protection and ecological restoration. Ingalsbee directed the Western Fire Ecology Center for the American Lands Alliance from 1997 to 2004. In 2002 Ingalsbee was appointed by former Oregon Governor Kitzhaber to serve on the Western Governors' Association's collaborative stakeholder group that developed the Implementation Plan and Performance Measures for the Ten-Year Comprehensive Strategy and National Fire Plan. In 2003 he was elected to secretary of the board of directors for the nonprofit Association for Fire Ecology. Ingalsbee is also an adjunct professor in the Environmental Studies Department at the University of Oregon, and teaches a seminar on Forests, Fires and Society. ABOUT FIREFIGHTERS UNITED FOR SAFETY, ETHICS, AND ECOLOGY (FUSEE): FUSEE (pronounced FEW-zee) is a national nonprofit organization founded in 2004 that is dedicated to uniting wildland firefighters to promote safe, ethical, and ecological fire management. FUSEE members include current and former wildland firefighters, other fire professionals, rural homeowners, and other citizens supportive of the mission and activities of FUSEE. A "fusee" is a quick-igniting, handheld torch used by firefighters to secure firelines, create safety zones, reduce hazardous fuel loads, and restore fire- adapted ecosystems. FUSEE's acronym announces vital parts of its organizational mission: Firefighters: reforming wildland fire management from the ground up. United: championing firefighter solidarity and workplace issues. Safety: empowering firefighters to assert their rights to health and safety on the firelines. Ethics: serving the public interest by promoting the highest professional standards and conduct, and exposing waste, fraud, and abuse of public resources. Ecology: restoring fire to wildlands and ensuring that fire management policies and practices meet authentic ecological objectives. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: The author would like to thank the following FUSEE members for their thoughtful reviews of the manuscript: Tom Ribe, Rich Fairbanks, Joseph Fox, and Stephen Clarke. Thanks also goes to Catia Juliana for formatting the photos and text for this publication. All photos are courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management For more information or to receive hardcopies of the Reporter's Guide to Wildland Fire: FUSEE, P.O. Box 51016, Eugene, OR 97405 phone: 541-302-6218 email: [email protected] website: www.fusee.org 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Section I: Introduction 4 Section II: Incendiary Rhetoric: Getting Beyond Hype and Hysteria 5 War Metaphor 5 Catastrophe Mentality 6 Usual Suspects: Fire as Villain, Homeowners as Victims, Firefighters as Heroes 7 Section III: Fireside Chats: Getting Beyond Official Sources for Information and Interviews 7 Wildland Firefighters 8 Fire Scientists and Fire Ecologists 8 Local Homeowners and Community Members 9 Small Business Owners 9 Conservation Volunteers and Timber Workers 9 Section IV: Burning Issues: Essential Fire Ecology Terms and Concepts 10 Fire Ecology 10 Fire Triangle and Fire Environment 10 Fire Behavior and Fire Effects 10 Fire Risk and Fire Hazard 11 Fire Types: Ground, Surface, Crown Fires 11 Fire Intensity and Fire Severity 11 Fire Management 12 Fire Regimes 12 Fire Return Interval 13 Fire-Adapted Species 13 Section V: Blowing Smoke, Venting Heat, or Shedding Light? Myths Versus Facts 13 Myth: Firefighters Can Physically Put Out Large Wildfires 14 Myth: We Can Prevent Wildfires or Fireproof Forests 14 Myth: Large Wildfires are Caused by High Fuels Loads and Dense Forest Stands 15 Myth: Commercial Logging Helps Prevent Wildfires 16 Myth: Livestock Grazing Helps Prevent Wildfires 16 Myth: Road-building Helps Prevent Wildfires 17 Myth: Recent Summers Have Been the Worst Fire Seasons in History 17 Myth: Most Wildfires Burn in Densely Forested Areas of National Forests 18 Myth: There Are Only Two Responses to Wildfire: Totally Suppress It or Let It Burn 18 Section VI: Smoke Reports: Covering Underreported Issues 18 Risks to Firefighter Safety: Near Misses 19 Taxpayer Costs of Fighting Fire 20 Environmental Impacts of Firefighting 21 Benefits of Prescribed Burning and Wildland Fire Use 22 Role of Climate Change in Prevalence of Large Wildfires 23 Role of Past Commercial Logging and Livestock Grazing on Wildfire 23 Section VII: All the Words Fit to Print: New Fire Management Terminology 24 Section VIII: Questioning Authority: Asking Critical Questions of Government Fire Officials 25 Firelines 25 Retardants 26 Firing Operations (e.g. Burnouts and Backfires) 26 Fire Costs 27 Suppression Strategy and Rationale 27 Post-Fire Rehabilitation 27 Section IX: Conclusion 28 Section X: Comprehensive Glossary of Wildland Fire Management Terms and Concepts 28-38 3 Section One Introduction Every summer thousands of wildland fires, both large and small, ignite across the U.S. The largest, most severe wildfires provide reporters with all the elements needed for exciting news stories: Crisis and conflict, drama and suspense, death and destruction. Wildfire stories also carry a readymade template for framing the story, identifying the main characters, and describing the unfolding events. However, wildfire stories often follow a standard script that sometimes verges on sensationalist hype and hysteria. This tendency is rooted in the dominant cultural attitude toward fire, and can be exacerbated by the intense commercial pressures of the news business. The net result may produce riveting stories, but this misses an opportunity to more accurately and fully inform the public with the whole story. In addition to being inaccurate and incomplete, year after year of the same boilerplate wildfire "shtick" is getting boring. This Reporter's Guide to Wildland Fire is intended to help improve the accuracy, quality, and value of press accounts of wildfire events. It is hoped that this Guide will inspire more alternative and investigative reporting on wildfire events as well as coverage of a broader array of important fire management issues beyond the typical focus on firefighting. This Reporter's Guide includes constructive criticisms of the typical problems of wildfire reporting: Overused angles, unexamined assumptions, ecological illiteracy, inaccurate terminology, biased sources, unasked questions, and underreported issues. These critiques are then followed by suggestions for new story angles, better word choices, more challenging questions, expanded information sources, and alternative issues to cover. Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology (FUSEE) trusts that some journalists will be motivated to break out of the trite story line that, to-date, has framed the vast majority of wildland fire articles. Using the tips and tools in this Reporter's Guide to Wildland Fire will help journalists produce more powerful, informative, inspiring news stories that reflect the best ideals of the journalistic profession. Firefighters using fusees to ignite controlled fires. 4 Section Two Incendiary Rhetoric: Getting Beyond Hype and Hysteria War Metaphor One of the biggest problems is the overused story frame that has become the boilerplate script for reporting on wildfires: The depiction of firefighting through the rubric of "war." Along with this standard storyline comes a predictable cast of characters: Wildfire is portrayed as a heinous villain, homeowners are its hapless victims, and firefighters are heroic victors. Journalists are not solely to blame for repeatedly using these hackneyed angles, for they represent dominant cultural attitudes about forest fires often perpetuated by government agencies. Military models and metaphors are pervasive in the discourse of fire management, beginning with the concept of fire fighting and extending to the array of suppression strategies and tactics all defined as various kinds of attack. When journalists use language like "fighting fires" or "battling blazes," though, they are actually utilizing terms loaded with ideological content. What exactly are the implications of a society that is perpetually making war on wildfire, essentially a war on nature itself? And what are the political and economic interests of the firefighting establishment who have vested stakes in perpetuating the so-called "war"? These are tougher questions that hard-hitting journalists should be asking. Overheated rhetoric about the "war on wildfire" is both inaccurate and irresponsible. Please refer to Section 7 of this Guide for suggested alternative terminology that more accurately portrays the nature of wildland fires and their social and ecological effects. In fact, the federal government's antagonistic stance towards wildfire in the last century stands in stark contrast to our species’ vital relationship with wildland fires spanning millennia. This cultural and ecological legacy, as well as a broad range of contemporary fire management activities aimed at restoring historic fire regimes, are obscured by the media's "war on wildfire" metaphor. By essentially militarizing fire management issues, conventional news stories inhibit informed