Climate change is beginning to catch the eye of fire planners

PHOTO BY RYAN MYERS

On March 1, firefighters who are usually immersed in wintertime projects will make their way back to snow-covered fire stations around Alaska. The state has opted to bring many of its wildland firefighters back a month early this year after several banner fire seasons started well before the traditional season.

One of the most significant examples of the early season start occurred in late April 2005, when a downed power line sparked a 5,000-plus-acre fire in the wildland/urban interface at the southern end of the Kenai Peninsula. Many Alaska crews were not yet assembled when the fire started, and the state had to scramble to contract with airtankers and other resources, many of which typically don’t come on board until May. The fire, as well as several others early in the season in recent years, prompted the state to change the months it requires burn permits, too. Permits are now required as of April 1, rather than a month later.

"Preseason fires are becoming more and more common in Alaska," says state Rep. Kurt Olson. "I hope this change goes a long way to help protect the lives and property of Alaskans all over the state."

Alaska Leads the Way
Alaska exhibits some of the more dramatic impacts of climate change nationwide, with melting permafrost and changing weather patterns documented by many studies. One report noted the state’s overall temperature has risen 3.5 degrees, while winter temperatures have risen 6 degrees. In 2004, 6 million of the state’s acres burned, the most since 1957. The following year, 4.7 million acres were torched, with fires burning well into September, traditionally a quiet time of year.

"They’ said it would not happen again in 2005, since 2004 was a record-breaking season of wildland fires in Alaska," one state Department of Environmental Conservation report stated as the 2005 season wrapped up. "‘They’ said fire seasons like 2004 happen about every 50 years-1957 was the largest fire season before 2004. After the fire season of 2005, we know ‘they’ were wrong." 

Alaska has also seen changes in traditional weather patterns in recent years. Fire seasons that usually came to a close with wet weather in August have lasted much longer. Some 3 million acres burned in August 2005 alone, nearly 60 percent of the year’s total acreage burned. Coastal areas that have rarely seen dry lightning strikes experienced hundreds of strikes that kept firefighters busy for days. In 2005, some 19 lightning fires burned on the Kenai Peninsula, nearly as many as during the previous 10 years combined. And firefighters who have been in the industry for decades say fires burned hotter and more dramatically than they ever recall.

That’s not to say, however, that Alaska is a hotspot every year. The 2006 season was quiet, with rains falling on much of the state early in the season. Still, fire and climate watchers statewide predict that temperature increases will result in more fires, more acres burned and more severe fire conditions.

A National Phenomenon
Alaska isn’t the only area seeing changes in its fire patterns. Several studies released in 2006 quantified the anecdotal opinion of many in the fire industry that fire seasons are getting longer and more intense across the nation. A paper in the journal Science in August 2006 noted that large western U.S. wildfire activity increased dramatically in the mid-1980s, and the increase has continued with more large fires, longer wildfire durations and longer wildfire seasons.

"The greatest increases occurred in mid-elevation, Northern Rockies forests, where land-use histories have relatively little effect on fire risks and are strongly associated with increased spring and summer temperatures and an earlier snowmelt," the study from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the University of Arizona reports. The study noted that the wildfire season in the Western states has grown as much as 2 1⁄2 months since 1987. The study’s authors did not delve into the controversial subject of what has caused temperature increases, nor predict whether the trend will continue. But if it does, the study said, firefighters can expect more record-setting years in terms of the number of large fires.

Recent years seem to substantiate those claims. In 2005, the United States experienced the worst wildfire season on record, with more than 8.7 million acres burned. At press time, more than 9.47 million acres had burned in 2006, making it the worst season on record. The 10-year average is 6.45 million acres.

Several schools of thought have emerged from those tracking fire figures around the nation. Some feel the current high number of large fires is attributable to land-use changes, such as livestock grazing. Others say decades of extinguishing fires has led to unnaturally high fuel loads in forests that would have traditionally burned every few years. Still others look to the changing climate as the source of the increase in fires.

The Scripps study’s authors assert that in some cases, it may be a combination of such factors that is to blame. "We describe land-use history versus climate as competing explanations, but they may be complementary in some ways," the study says. "In some forest types, past land uses have probably increased the sensitivity of current forest wildfire regimes to climate variability through effects on the quantity, arrangement and continuity of fuels."

The study notes, however, that while increased fuels in some forests may be a factor, climate appears to be the primary driver of forest wildfire risks on a larger scale. Specifically of note: an increase in spring and summer temperatures, which occurred more and more frequently in the last two decades, often leading to heavy fire years. "An earlier snowmelt can lead to an earlier, longer dry season, providing greater opportunities for larger fires due both to the longer period in which ignitions could potentially occur and to the greater drying of soils and vegetation," the study notes. "Consequently, it is not surprising that the incidence of wildfire is strongly associated with snowmelt timing."

A Vicious Cycle
Ironically, fires can actually increase climate change. Burning forests release stored organic carbons, which contribute to the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In boreal forests, where decomposition of hundreds of years of forest litter is limited by the frozen ground, or permafrost, these impacts can be even more extreme.

The Scripps study estimated western U.S. forests make up 20–40 percent of the total U.S. carbon sequestration. "If wildfire trends continue, at least initially, this biomass burning will result in carbon release, suggesting that the forests of the western United States may become a source of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide rather than a sink (a repository), even under a relatively modest temperature-increase scenario," the study noted.

Still, many contend that this risk is far outweighed by the more critical issue of energy management policies in the United States. Tim Ingalsbee, executive director of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology, says the issue of climate change must be addressed nationally. "The most critical issue is we need to bring our fire management and our energy management policies together," he says. Although fires may release carbon, that carbon doesn’t represent a net gain or loss in the environment, whereas the carbon produced from exhuming resources from the earth, such as oil and coal, disrupts the natural process. "Sixty percent of the world’s total combustion load is coming from fossil fuels," Ingalsbee says. "Those are supposed to be stored deep in the earth, and instead we’re pumping them into the atmosphere."

Fire Planners React
In November, leading scientists in the fire world gathered in San Diego to discuss this very topic. Amid talks and scientific papers at the Third International Fire Ecology and Management Congress was perhaps the first collaborative stance regarding how to move forward in fire planning, given the real possibility that dramatic fire seasons will continue. 

"I think the awareness that climate change could have an affect on wildland fire is just really happening in the fire community," says Melanie Miller, a fire ecologist with the Bureau of Land Management in Missoula, Mont. Miller, who was involved in organizing the conference, says personnel in the fire industry may have differing views on what is causing the many large blazes nationwide, but many are starting to see a trend in the numbers. "It’s hard to get a grip on it right now, but it sure seems to be getting warmer and drier," she says.

PHOTO CAREY JAMES The Tracy Avenue Fire on the southern Kenai Peninsula in Alaska burned so early in the year that snow remained on the ground near the 5,000-acre blaze. The fire, which started in late April of 2005, inspired Alaska lawmakers to bring firefighters on a month earlier in 2007 and to begin burn permit requirements in April.

The fire congress issued a declaration on climate change aimed at adjusting fire management strategies nationwide and beyond to help firefighters adapt to the changing conditions. "The science surrounding human-caused climate change continues to strengthen, and the weather patterns that today shape our ecosystems where we work may be altered dramatically over the coming decades," the declaration reads. "Hence, now is the time for us to develop and adopt fire management strategies that will enable us to respond to a changing global climate and thereby reduce potential disruptions to plant communities, fire regimes and, ultimately, the ecosystem processes and service tied to fire."

The congress raises concerns about wholesale conversions of habitats from one type to another. Wet forests could become dry, and dry forests could become grasslands, while high-severity forest fires could limit regrowth. Such changes could have impacts on fragile plants and wildlife, not to mention the human population near forests.

One of the primary actions called for by the declaration is restoring fire-dependent ecosystems by eliminating excess fuels that have built up over years of fire suppression.

Such effects could be produced using mechanical thinning or prescribed fire, and would help reduce the risk of high-intensity fires, especially in areas that once supported a regime of low-intensity fires. The congress declaration does note, however, that climate change will likely limit the ability of firefighters to apply prescribed burns.

Planning and allocating budgets for wildfire seasons should change, the congress declaration says. Rather than basing their plans on historic fire occurrences, fire managers should plan for larger-sized fires, more severe fire weather and longer seasons; policymakers at national or regional levels should explore how fire regimes might prepare for such changes. 

The declaration also notes that land managers should apply a "no regrets" approach to planning for possible climate changes and increased fire season severity. If these climate changes don’t occur, it says, the measures suggested would still improve fire and eco-system management.

Not If, But When
As fire officials attempt to come to terms with the fire world of the future, many say the resources don’t exist to keep wildfires limited to the status quo. Although reducing fuel loads may be helpful, the reality of the resources that exist, combined with climate change trends, mean such attempts will have limited effectiveness.

Ingalsbee prescribes a two-fold approach to dealing with the predictions of increased fire in the future: more resources and controlled use of fire. Using prescribed burns to reduce the fire intensity of the future may include its own set of risks. Some fires this year were sparked by controlled burns from the year before that failed to go out over the winter. But Ingalsbee says the choice is clear. "Fire is inevitable," he says. "It's far better to manage fire under the best of conditions with a controlled burn than to fight it in the worst of conditions. No fire is not an option. The choices are either wildfire or prescribed fire."

Ingalsbee also notes that concerns over increased wildfire have often been exploited to promote logging as a solution, one that does not appear to be historically valid. "Some of the deadliest fires have started in logged-over areas," he says. "So commercial logging is not a preventative measure of wildfire." Ingalsbee’s other recommendation: Stop thinking of firefighters as seasonal workers. "We’ve got to start putting these folks to work year-round," he says.

Basing fire budgets on historic expenditures and patterns won’t work if any headway is going to be made, Ingalsbee adds. "It’s time to get proactive about managing fire instead of continuing to be reactive about fighting fire," he says. "We have a 10-year window of opportunity to get in some [prescribed] fires as a possible way to get things under some semblance of control before we see fires get way out of control. We’re going to have to tolerate a little smoke, and a few more dead trees, and we may have to get to know our neighbors a little better. We as a society are going to have to relearn how to live with and work with fire."

Carey James is a writer and volunteer firefighter based in Homer, Alaska.