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The One That Got AwayPrescribed fire can be like medicine for an unhealthy ecosystem. Many consider it a tonic, a restorative, as healthful as broccoli. But if you don’t know what you’re doing or if you make a mistake, it can turn into snake oil, as sour as green persimmons. And even with impeccable training, precise methodology and years of experience, things can go wrong. America’s prescribed-fire program plucked a particularly bitter fruit on May 4, 2000, when the National Park Service torched a patch of the Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico. Winds came up, scattering embers for a mile or more, and 18,000 people had to be evacuated from the towns of Los Alamos and White Rock. By May 10, fire had destroyed 235 homes and damaged many others, and the flames were racing toward the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where scientists once worked to build atomic bombs. Thankfully, the lab escaped unscathed. But $1 billion worth of property was damaged, and an investigation showed that the Park Service hadn’t done its prep work. It hadn’t followed the lesson that Renfro polished that morning at Big Cypress: Do your paperwork. Don’t light the match until you know the conditions are right. That way, you’ll help keep your hair from standing up. The Conservancy isn’t immune to such problems. It has the most active prescribed-fire program of any private entity in the nation, burning about 100,000 acres a year—a bunch of them on preserves throughout the South. At one of those properties, the Green Swamp Preserve in North Carolina, a Conservancy crew conducted two burns on 20 acres of longleaf pine savanna in June 2006. Everything went smoothly during the first burn. It had rained earlier in the morning, and in the wet conditions the fire moved slowly and extinguished itself when it ran into the wet bog that rings the savanna. “But by the afternoon, the fuels in the shrub bog had begun to dry out and were no longer as moist as we thought they were,” says Margit Bucher, the Conservancy’s fire manager in North Carolina. “This kind of burn is very smoky, so we didn’t notice that in one small area the fire had run beyond the firebreak.” Before the fire was contained, flames spilled over into a “spray field” managed by the county, where water from the local sewage treatment plant is released after being treated. The fire burned 20 acres of the county’s land, causing $70,000 in damage to equipment, including PVC pipes, controls and sensors. “Anybody who has conducted a burn has been caught by surprise by something,” says Bucher. “This time it was bad enough to really catch everybody’s attention, but not so bad that someone got injured. Thanks to this incident, we have improved training in communications, contingency planning, and in assessing fuels, weather and other risks. Our preparedness is at a whole new level.” The potential of escaped fire looms large in the mind of everybody who works with prescribed fire. Say the words “Los Alamos” to a firefighter, and you don’t evoke images of nuclear scientists in lab coats. You conjure nightmares of the fire that got away. Renfro’s Final ExamMoments after George Sheppard gives the firing order at Big Cypress, the woods are ablaze, burning steadily, whooshing when a particularly oily piece of shrubbery takes off, but sounding mostly like the ignition of a million sheets of paper, going up with sizzles and crackles rather than a roar. When the fire slops over predetermined lines, somebody jumps on it, slapping it out with a rubber flapper—like a welcome mat on a stick—or spanking it with the blade of a shovel. Some crew members are assigned as lookouts. One tracks temperature and relative humidity; others use drip torches or launch pyrotechnics to fuel more fire. Most of the crew members watch from along the perimeters, with tools in hand, ready to pounce. Everybody is paying close attention to the wind. To the sides of the fire, the smoke is gray. At the treetops, flames belch blue and purple and black, the hues of a terrible bruise. A few hours later, Renfro takes off his hard hat; his thick hair remains flat on his head. The flames moved fast, but everything went smoothly. No structures burned. The fire moved at a trot, then put itself to bed, following doctor’s orders. Backed up by a Big Cypress burn crew, the team from the fire school torched 20 acres. Surrounding the buildings was a circle of black, studded with slash pines and palmetto, standing chastened but still alive. Though it moved fast, the fire didn’t dig deep, so the roots of even the tiny plants hunkered unscathed. In a few days, grasses would poke through the soot and reach for sunshine, without the hindering shade of taller plants. But eventually, those bigger plants would reclaim light and water and nutrition, until flames come again. It’s a cycle, but it doesn’t work without fire. The day has gone well, Renfro learns as the fire crew is debriefed. Cooperation with the local team was smooth. No fire lines were crossed. No tempers flared. The only injury was a bite from a fire ant. Another day’s lessons have been notched. There are no major revelations, Renfro explains, but nobody expects them. Whether you’re fighting flames or lighting them, fire education comes incrementally. “Anytime you see fire, you’re learning, if you’re paying attention,” says Brenda Dale, a crew member from Moab, Utah, and a Forest Service specialist in fuels—that’s trees and grass, not gasoline and diesel. It’s like a crossword puzzle. One answer leads to another, and the more you do, the better you get. It’s a typical day for the team: Long and hot, dirty and effective. It’s time for a hot meal and a cold beer. Nature picture credits: Top photos © Josh O'Connor/USFWS (Fuel, Fire, Regeneration); Photos © Michael Christopher Brown |
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