I thought I would write a few more things about the fires in the west because I think it is important to understand why we are experiencing these fires now so we can make good decisions about mitigation and prevention strategies in public policy. From the outset: I do not think that the current fire cycle is preventable. I believe fires will continue to intensify and this will be the “new normal”. That being said I can see a “New Deal” type of program that could pay researchers and workers to work on problems like these. But that would be a political order scarcely imaginable at this point.
What many of us think of as nature or the forest is really something that is being constantly managed, shaped and impacted by humans in ways visible and invisible. European settlers wanted lands in the west for farms and loggers wanted logs from forests. So the land was “settled” by being plowed and clear cut which removed topsoil, increased erosion, and led to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.
Another thing that settlers brought was invasive weeds from Europe and Asia. Cheatgrass came from Asia probably as packing in cargo ships since foam peanuts were hard to come by in the 19th century. Montana State University has some information on the origin and distribution of cheatgrass here.
Cheatgrass spread quickly along with other weeds and native vegetation was wiped out. Yes there are still areas that look like the picture on the right but they are rare and rapidly being eliminated. Here is MSU on the Spread of cheatgrass:
Cheatgrass spread rapidly through the Intermountain
West because it was pre-adapted to the environmental
conditions of the region. Even though cheatgrass is known to
invade intact native plant communities, improper livestock
grazing in the late 1800s, which reduced the vigor of native
vegetation, is also believed to have contributed to cheatgrass
spread. In addition, cheatgrass colonized homesteads that
were abandoned during the Great Depression. By 1950
cheatgrass was widespread and locally
abundant in the Intermountain West. In
Montana, cheatgrass was first reported in
1898 in Missoula County, and by 1980 every
county in the state had reported its presence
.
So in about 100 years the vegetation where we live changed, but cheatgrass is just one of a number of weeds that took over. What does all of this have to do with wildfire?
Cheatgrass takes over and becomes a monoculture by crowding out other species that can’t compete with it. Eventually cheatgrass takes over.
Jennifer Balch researches fire in the Great Basin and in 2012 NPR featured her work in a story on how cheatgrass influences fire. What they found was striking and bolsters research that for years has demonstrated the dangers posed by weeds.
From Balch in the NPR story:
"What we found was that cheatgrass actually doubles the likelihood of fire; that it burns twice as much as any other vegetation type — native vegetation type — in the Great Basin,"
Balch and her team also found that cheatgrass was involved in a large proportion of fire in the Great Basin.
Again From the NPR story:
Balch, who's now at Penn State University, discovered that of the 50 biggest fires in the Great Basin over the past decade, 39 of them involved cheatgrass.
What grows back is more cheatgrass because the intensity of the fire kills and helps cheatgrass further its monoculture.
"So it's able to not only outcompete its neighbors but it literally is able to burn them out."
The prospects for managing this cycle are slim to none. Here is what the cycle looks like:
I’ve given up thinking that the public might care about the endangered Sage-grouse, but if they had sometime in the last 40 years given it some attention the danger posed by cheatgrass might have some chance of being ameliorated, but at this point I don’t see it.
Sage-grouse and other animals rely on native plants to survive. A diversity of plant species makes possible a diversity of animal species. But when it is destroyed there is a cascading effect of uncontrollable downstream consequences that we are only now starting to grapple with. We are quickly losing our land, air, and water that we need to survive.
It is true that fire burned prior to European colonization. But the difference now is the fuels for those fires are different. Prior to European settlement fires burned low to the ground and were of low duration and intensity. These are the beneficial fires that we hear so much about.
But now with a different mix of vegetation and vast monocultures fires burn faster, hotter, and more intense. Many native plants are not evolved to cope with these kinds of fires so they just die off. Sometimes the fires we have now kill everything several inches into the soil. This obviously increases likelihood of erosion and landslides when moisture does return.
So the cycle is cheatgrass (weeds) which lead to catastrophic fire which leads to more cheatgrass and erosion/landslides which lead to more fire. The implication for global warming are obvious to anyone who knows anything about the dips and valleys of atmospheric carbon measurement.
It used to be that carbon in the atmosphere would lessen during the summer due to the growing season and plants taking up carbon from the atmosphere. The reverse was true during the winter: carbon measures would rise as people heated their homes by burning fuels and using carbon based heating sources. Now with global wildfires from Siberia, Canada, US and other during the summer we are increasing carbon pollution at a time of year when we could and should easily reduce carbon pollution.
Any gains in carbon reduction through a carbon tax will not fix this problem and will not stop the clearing of rain forests that continues unabated. Carbon sinks are rapidly being destroyed while carbon emissions increase rapidly. Science has long warned that once these effects are felt they will be difficult, if not impossible, to stop. There really is no way to remove all of this cheatgrass and other weeds that will burn and kill native vegetation every year. Because what grows in the areas that are burned are weeds and more cheatgrass which will burn again and claim more land.
With warmer temperatures, and dry lightning, the Western US in now a tinder box that will burn yearly in ways that we have not experienced in the past. Our health will decline due to months of smoke inhalation which will decrease life expectancy for people in the region. Our culture thought it was so advanced and superior but it was all hubris and myopia. Europeans thought they knew better than the natives so they killed them without learning anything about how to live from them. Now we want to turn the clock back and fix all of the damage but there is no going back from this, it is scary and haunting.