The Malheur National Forest begins New Fire Information Program

GRANT COUNTY – (Release from the Malheur National Forest) Fire Information 101: The Malheur National Forest presents its first message in a series of Wildland Fire Informational news releases.

Wildland fires are a force of nature that can be nearly as impossible to prevent and as difficult to control, as hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods.

Wildland fire can be a friend and a foe. In the right place at the right time, wildland fire can create many environmental benefits, such as reducing grass, brush, and trees that can fuel large and severe wildfires and improving wildlife habitat. In the wrong place at the wrong time, wildfires can wreak havoc, threatening lives, homes, communities, and natural and cultural resources.

Over the last few decades, the wildland fire management environment has profoundly changed. Longer fire seasons; bigger fires and more acres burned on average each year; more extreme fire behavior; and wildfire suppression operations have become the norm.

Now throw the coronavirus (COVID-19) into the mix- as if it wasn’t challenging enough?

To address these challenges, the Malheur National Forest and its other federal, tribal, state, and local partners seek solutions to wildland fire management issues focusing on three goals:

•Restore and Maintain Resilient Landscapes

•Create Fire- Adapted Communities

•Safe and Effective Wildfire Response

We can restore and maintain resilient landscapes through prescribed fires and mechanical treatments.

Prescribed fire is a planned fire used to meet management objectives.

Did you know fire can be good for people and the land? After many years without fire, an ecosystem that needs periodic fire becomes unhealthy. Trees are stressed by overcrowding; fire-dependent species disappear; and flammable fuels build up and become hazardous. The right fire at the right place at the right time provides the following benefits:

•Reduces hazardous fuels, protecting human communities from extreme fires;

•Minimizes the spread of pest insects and disease;

•Removes unwanted species that threaten native species;

•Provides forage for game;

•Improves habitat for threatened and endangered species;

•Recycles nutrients back to the soil; and

•Promotes the growth of trees, wildflowers, and other plants;

The Forest Service manages prescribed fires and even some wildfires to benefit natural resources and reduce the risk of unwanted wildfires in the future. We use hand tools and machines to thin overgrown sites in preparation for the eventual return of fire.

Mechanical Treatment

Fire can be good for people and the land. Removing fire from the landscape can cause ecosystems that need periodic fire to become unhealthy: trees are stressed by overcrowding, fire-dependent species disappear, and flammable fuels build up and become hazardous. The Forest Service manages prescribed fires to benefit natural resources and protect communities. However, in some places and under some conditions it may be too difficult to safely use prescribed burning. This is where the mechanical treatment of hazardous fuels can be a valuable tool.

Mechanical treatment of hazardous fuels means reducing the amount of vegetation which has built up to dangerous levels or changing the arrangement of these fuels in the environment.

Mechanical treatments can benefit ecosystems and people by:

•Reducing the probability of catastrophic fires;

•Helping maintain and restore healthy and resilient ecosystems;

•Protecting human communities.

Examples of mechanical treatment include the thinning of dense stands of trees, or other fuel treatments that make an area better able to withstand fire. Such treatments might be piling brush, pruning lower branches of trees, or creating fuel breaks to encourage the right kind of fire. Tools that are used to carry out the mechanical treatment of hazardous fuels range from hand tools, such as chainsaws and rakes, to large machines like harvesters, skidders and woodchippers.

Mechanical treatment can be used on its own or together with prescribed burning to change how wildfire behaves so that when a fire does burn through a treated area, it is less destructive, less costly and easier to control. Often, mechanical fuels treatments are followed by prescribed fire to create effective hazard reduction.

Be sure to look for our February Information when we provide an update to our Pile Burn Program

USDA is an equal opportunity provider, employer, and lender.

---

---

---

---

Elkhorn Media Group