Western Montana Fires

On April 29, 1910, the largest forest fire in American history occurred. Some would come to know it as the Big Burn, or the Big Blowup. Later others called it the (the one that says it saved American landscape.) This travesty took more than 100 men. The impact it had on Americans was monumental. Timothy Egan’s The Big Burn, he writes about the many people who perished during this disaster. Stories of people who were engulfed by the flames at Bitterroot Mountain who had little chance of escaping their devastating fate. Even though this is still seen as a travesty, some look at it in a different way. Due to how large the fire was and how far it stretched, it made people aware of the importance to protect Americas forests and natural resources. During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, reform was occurring. The United States population was on a rise which had an effect on economic growth. This caused expansion in the consumer market and made way for an enormous amount of advancement in technology. Due to all of this, the demand for natural resources vastly increased. Inventions such as cars and trains consumed massive amounts of fossil fuels. Wood was stripped away from forests to make comfort items such as chairs, tables and other items for the large number of families now setting in the United States from foreign countries. People did not seem to pay much attentions to the effects these changes were having on the land. However, President Theodor Roosevelt had

On March 6,2017, the Panhandle of Texas caught on fire. The wildfire had burned over 500,000 acres of land. Most of this land includes livestock and feed for livestock. Several people had died during this traumatic event, because they were trying to save their livestock and land Cortana (2017). The wildfires burning in Texas can be seen from space, they are that huge Cortana (2017).

Policies regarding the handling of wildland fires continue to change and evolve as new information is learned each fire season. Attitudes have changed between complete wildland fire suppression to no suppression at all. We now seem to have reached a balance between the two schools of thought and fall somewhere in the middle.

The Appalachians span over a distance of 1,600 miles, ranging across 14 states, from Newfoundland in the North, to Alabama in the South. The Appalachians are the oldest chain of mountains on the North American continent. With forest, comes forest fires, some natural and some prescribed by humans. In order to reduce the calamitous damage caused by natural wildfires, the technique of prescribed fires is used. This is done by diminishing the amounts of trees, shrubs, and brush in the intended area. By doing this, new native plant growth is encouraged and it helps maintain some plant and animal species that depend on the periodic fires. With this man made force comes numerous effects on vegetation, wildlife, and the human impact.

The Rim Fire of 2013 ravaged the slopes of the Stanislaus National Forest leaving many areas severely burned and unable to recover. Restoration efforts have been made and 56,000 saplings were planted in 2016 in the most severely burned areas; but the forest still has a long way to recovery. Fires are a naturally occurring hazard in the Stanislaus National Forest, and have contributed to the replenishment, control, and sustainability of the forest; but fires of the Rim Fire's intensity are very rare. The Rim Fire destroyed over 277,314 acres of habitat, harmed many mature trees, and ruined the layers of topsoil, and increased erosion and runoff. The devastation of the Rim Fire would not be have been so intense if it weren’t for past fire

On August 21, 1910, at four pm, a massive wild fire broke out. This Great Fire of 1910, also known as the Big Blowup, spread from Wallace, Idaho to western Montana and into a small amount of Washington. The Great Fire of 1910 lasted for two days and spread because of hurricane winds that shot trees up like flying torpedos ( Quinn ). The cause of the fire was from leftover timber that was heated up from the sparks of the railroad nearby. The timber was from campers, loggers, and homesteaders. The wild fire destroyed over three million acres of forest. Also, 1910 was the driest year and Idaho didn’t get rain since May ( Jamison ). One of the lead firefighters saved all but six of his men while finding safety in an

"There was no damn horse fast enough in the country to keep ahead of that fire.” (546). In 1910, the US Forestry Service was in its infancy. Teddy Roosevelt had put Gifford Pinchot in charge of the foundling agency. For instance during the Presidency of William Taft, his term in office he denied the service and the manpower and resources needed to actually protect the growing quantity of land held in public trust. Then, without notice a drought-parched lands of eastern Washington, western Montana and northern Idaho, the greatest forest fire in U.S. history sparked a major change in public consciousness. This is the Big Burn of 1910.

The fire began as the result of an out-of-control campfire, and because of high wind and drought conditions which resulted in low fuel-moisture spread relatively quickly for an upland fire in the southeastern United States, although not to the scale of western wildfires. Even though the 2000 Linville Gorge fire was mainly a surface fire, the fire burned 4,000 hectares of wilderness area, and forced local management agencies to start paying more attention to upland ecosystems that were not previously thought to be fire-dependent. Considering the magnitude of the fire, it was fortunate that no human lives or homes were lost in the inferno. Vegetative studies show that Mountain Laurel (Kalmia latifolia), an evergreen shrub, reproduced much faster than other understory species (Dumas, Neufeld, & Fisk, 2007). This is attributed to its ability to resprout following a fire. The Linville Gorge Fire has been significant in shaping Southeastern fire mitigation in that it gave foresters an opportunity to study oak-pine forests that had not seen fire for over 50

Background. On June 12, 2011 in Sierra Vista, Arizona – a city near the Mexican border, a suspected human-caused fire was started within the Coronado National Monument Park, along the southern tip of the Huachuca Mountains in Southern Arizona and quickly shot through the canyons south of the city of Sierra Vista. Over the course of 14 days, the wildfire burned to some extent 100% of the park’s acreage; destroyed a total of 62 homes, 18 outbuildings and 4 businesses (Youberg & Pearthree, 2011) and mandatory evacuations were in effect due to the fires moving quickly towards the outskirts along with the danger of the smoke that blanketed the town. The fire was wind-driven spread and was aided by high temperatures and low humidity.

The rising number of high severity wildfires in California has significant ecological, economic, and health impacts. Many western American forests are adapted to frequent low severity fires. However, the majority of these forests, and particularly the mixed conifer forests of California, are not adapted to high intensity fires and do not possess fire resistance adaptations such as serotinous cones to protect seeds. Consequently, high severity fires have significant negative impacts on California forests, and the absence of low severity fires has considerably altered many fundamental ecosystem processes (Miller et al. 2008). Prior to 1900, low severity fires would burn every 6-15 years. Low severity fires are generally non-lethal, have minimal change to the overstory, and kill mainly small trees. In the past, these fires were started naturally by lightning, or by Native Americans who used low severity fires to manage the forests.

According to some critics, official response to the fire was too slow and allowed the fire to grow out of control. In August, it had quadrupled in size on the eastern shore and continued growing in nearby forests. At one point, 35 separate fires had burned across 555 square miles and forced locals to seek shelter from toxic chemicals that were released into the air from the flames. To control possible health threats, residents in smoke-affected were advised to stay indoors.

Prescribed burns are utilized throughout the US to prevent devastating wildfires. The use of prescribed burns provides many benefits and few significant deficits to fire-dependent forest ecosystems, therefore, the implementation of controlled burns should continue.

Yellowstone’s natural fire policy, for the first sixteen years, allowed fires to burn until they natural burned out as long as they were not caused by human activity, and as long as the fires did not threaten human lives, property, endangered species, or natural features. No one anticipated that the 1988 summer would be so drastically different. By June of 1988 Yellowstone was experiencing a severe drought. The early summer thunderstorms produced lighting with out rainfall. The 1988 fire season began when a single lightning strike setting a small group of pine trees aflame on June 22. Officials weren't initially worried. A Yellowstone Public Affairs Specialist said "We knew it had started naturally, and we assumed the summer rains would keep it in check. What we didn't know was that

Humans have been changing the Western forests' fire system since the settlement by the Europeans and now we are experiencing the consequences of those changes. During the summer of 2002, 6.9 million acres of forests was burnt up in the West (Wildland Fires, 1). This figure is two times the ten year annual average, and it does not look like next summer will be any better (Wildfire Season, 1).

In my first semester here at UWSP I took a fire operations course where we did live burns out at a DNR station south of Stevens Point. This was part of our training and was by far the best and most exciting part of the class. So when I got a book from the library called Forestry and Its Career Opportunities I found if quite interesting. The author Ralph Nyland stated that prescribed fire burns are a fast and effective way to manage land (243). I really enjoyed working on the fire line and it was a great learning experience for me to get some valuable hands on training.