Nature Conservancy Magazine: Spring 2008

Go Deeper

The Conservancy's Global Fire Initiative
The Nature Conservancy is working to restore the natural role of fire in our landscapes.

Q&A: California Wildfires
Nature.org spoke with Scott Morrison, a biologist with The Nature Conservancy in California, about the potential impacts, whether climate change played a role, and why conservation is crucial in minimizing such disasters.

The air was still acrid from California’s devastating October wildfires when Trish Smith, an ecologist with The Nature Conservancy, surveyed the Irvine Ranch Land Reserve in Orange County. The blackness of the scene was heightened by the few touches of green that remained, mostly the top-most leaves of otherwise charred oaks. The Irvine Ranch reserve was just one of an unusual number of Conservancy properties across the nation hit by wildfires in 2007.

To varying degrees, fire is a natural ingredient in nearly every landscape, and the Conservancy is one of the global leaders in setting controlled fires—called “prescribed burns”—to help manage and restore its lands. But recent wildfires have highlighted the huge challenges facing land managers who would like to restore lands and the natural fire regimes of years past. Many fires today threaten homes or pressure species already hemmed in by sprawl.

At Irvine Ranch, there have been many wildfires in the past 15 years in an area adapted to fire every 30 to 50 years. Smith worries that if frequent wildfires continue, the rare coastal cactus wren will not be able to find the cactuses it needs for nesting, which could lead to its local extinction.

Recently, the natural effect of wildfire on many ecosystems has been influenced by drought, development, past fire suppression, climate shifts and the potential for non-native plants to colonize areas left barren by fire.

After a fire blackened the Conservancy’s Garden Creek Preserve in Hells Canyon last July, western Idaho conservation manager Art Talsma raced to seed the area with native bunch grasses before the invasive weeds that plague the canyon could get an upper hand.

In the upper peninsula of Michigan, the Conservancy owns 2,500 acres affected by August’s Sleeper Lake Fire. A profusion of native pitcher plants and other carnivorous plants are already growing in the burned areas, but the challenge, says Jack McGowan-Stinski, the Conservancy’s Michigan fire manager, is restoring peat mats that were bulldozed to contain the fire but that are now a fire risk themselves.

Florida ecosystems are adapted to frequent wildfires, and the staff of the Betty and Crawford Rainwater Perdido River Nature Preserve had just finished a second year of prescribed burns on the new preserve in May when a wildfire struck. The previous work allowed firefighters to let the fire take its course in drought-stricken swamp areas far from people or property.

Lushness returned to the preserve almost immediately, says preserve manager Adlai Platt. Last summer, the panhandle lilies—orange, maroon-spotted flowers found only in that area—bloomed in profusion not seen in years, he reports.

Scott Morrison, senior ecologist for the Conservancy in one of the areas of San Diego County hardest hit by the wildfires, says the fires highlight the importance of large-scale conservation. He explains that natural areas need to be as big as the phenomena that affect them, such as fire, with a little room left over to provide a refuge for wildlife. Fires will happen and are generally beneficial to the natural landscape, he adds, and “we need to plan our communities and our conservation accordingly.

—Madeline Bodin