It was mentioned on another thread, when we have a wildfire it destroys everything. Because of the heavy fuel loading the fires burn that hot. So, how do we solve that problem without destroying all of our forests in the process? I have my ideas, do any of you?

The other thread referenced the Outside magazine's podcast. It really delves into the history of fire and how over the past 100 years we have worked to stop fires. The way out is to let them burn but it might take another 100 years for forests to bet back to their baseline.

Strongly recommended listening: Outside podcast home page

If you are thinking about the BWCA in particular I don't see any evidence of fire destroying "everything". The forest succession in the burn areas is amazing habitat for almost any of the wildlife present. Because of the lakes it is patchy and interspersed with older forest which makes it even better habitat.

The area has seen big fire resulting from blowdown events ever since the glacier retreated. Its not so much fuel accumulation as it is a big pulse of fuel created by a wind event. These burn hot and fast, there is no other way they will burn. Often I hear them called stand replacement burns. Prescribed fire for fuel reduction will not prevent hot fires if the area later has a blowdown event. Lets face it, there is very little soil in the BWCA and trees tip over easily. Blowdown events will happen again. Prescribed fire in the blowdown area was a dicey activity, a dry enough to burn, but moist enough not to get out of control type of situation. It was successful in protecting the settled areas, but not on a large scale.

My last two trips in 2016 and 2018 I planned to be traveling in both older forest and recent burn areas on my route. I enjoyed them equally and birding was better in the recovering areas. I sure did enjoy the raspberries this summer!..

One thing we can do is get comfortable with the changes disturbance and fire bring to the landscape. To do that we have to stop thinking about forests in our short-lifetime time frame and think of them over many centuries or even thousands of years. Think about the process of forest development and how the current condition fits into that. The mature forest is beautiful, no doubt, but so are the changes that got it to its condition.

If you are talking fire in general, as in everywhere, there is no point. Fire is so different in different landscapes.

I'm not sure burning forest is the problem.
In the BWCA area the real problem is protecting the inhabited areas.
How can USFS allow a natural fire burn and yet protect Ely, Virginia, Grand Marais, etc.
That is a very difficult problem.

MHS67: "It was mentioned on another thread, when we have a wildfire it destroys everything. Because of the heavy fuel loading the fires burn that hot. So, how do we solve that problem without destroying all of our forests in the process? I have my ideas, do any of you?"

"destroying everything" is the simplistic view that caused the problem in the first place. Wildfires have been happening for eons and only our misguided view of beauty has ever been completely destroyed.

Fire is the best thing a forest can hope for. Humans don't like a burned forest but the ecosystem requires it..

I used to be a huge opponent of fire but as I've aged I have learned though observation the necessity of fire. It balances the forest. No better classroom can be found than heading out to say, the Pagami Creek burn and stand in awe at the rebirth of the forest.

As was mentioned, one problem is how to let fire burn in a wilderness but not escape to private property. I don't have the answer for that. I live in a heavily forested area and when my forest burns, it's going to go fast. 50 years and no fires in my pine forest that is 1000's of acres. So much fuel in the woods.

Tom

Great Podcast on building design in fire dependent areas for those with a little time on their hands.

And if you like blueberries, a burn area is the place to be in July.

Lot of good posts that I agree with.
There is no one fix all solution and natural burns are good much of the time,not all the time,but the extremes like you have been having in California and the drought and extreme heats creates conditions uncontrollable. There is only so much you can do to prevent them,now and in the future. Their is many tools and methods we can use but mother nature will rule always. Sometimes we mess up mother nature.

I will give a little more later when I can. Good thread.

OCDave: "The other thread referenced the Outside magazine's podcast. It really delves into the history of fire and how over the past 100 years we have worked to stop fires. The way out is to let them burn but it might take another 100 years for forests to bet back to their baseline.

Strongly recommended listening: Outside podcast home page "

Took the time to listen to the podcast, enjoyed it. The one thing that interests me the most is the cost of doing control burns. We just had a wildland fire near Yosemite that burned close to 100,000 acres. To suppress it 116,000,000 dollars. Granted, this area is RUGGED country. Hardly no roads and hasn't burned in 100 years. It would be interesting what the cost would be if they control burned that same area.
Thanks for putting that up OCDave.

I like the Q policy. Don't interfere. Let it burn.

The only challenge involves how much influence we have had in creating the fuel for these fires. They have always been an integral part of the ecosystem, but if now the fires are worse, would it make sense to try to protect the remaining stands of "virgin" forest for future generations? The entire west coast could conceivably burn. That would kill trees that are many centuries old and would have withstood previous fires in times with higher humidity. I'm torn on it.

Just got back from a fishing trip, great day! It sounds like we all agree, there is a problem. It is not just a BW problem or a Calif. problem. This problem is country wide. This is a huge issue. Its mentioned about going back to the way it used to be. Let fires burn the way they use to do years ago. Little or no suppression effort. It's an option. I have worked, slept and been around burned areas my whole working career. I really don't want to backpack or canoe trip in a burned area. That's just me though. When a forest starts to regenerate it usually starts with brush. As sedges mentioned, it may take 100 years for a forest to get back to baseline. What about what mapsguy said about protecting some of our old growth or virgin forests? Can we really do that. In my opinion I think we can, under certain conditions. I believe the podcast said 60% of all new home construction is in fire prone areas. In the fire service we live by a guideline, RECEO. It stands for Rescue, Exposures, confinement, extinguishment and overhaul. With all the people that live and work in the wildland can we help protect them, that would be the rescue part. The exposure part is protecting there houses or business. There is not enough engines to put one at each house. Can we mitigate some of the threat to the exposure issue. Again In my opinion, yes under certain conditions. The, under certain conditions is usually tied to the weather, especially wind. There are still lots of ideas to throw around, but I'm getting really tired of typing! Thanks for all the great responses.
Oh, won the biggest fish today for our group of guys, 17 in Brown! In case your interested.

Logging is one solution. Obviously not for inside the borders of the BWCA. There are millions of acres of dying forests in this country. I’m not saying cut all the trees down but a young forest is a healthy forest. (This statement is an absolute fact). Plus, how great would it be to be able to purchase more wood based products and less petroleum based plastics that are difficult to dispose of or recycle.

Logging : "Logging is one solution. Obviously not for inside the borders of the BWCA. There are millions of acres of dying forests in this country. I’m not saying cut all the trees down but a young forest is a healthy forest. (This statement is an absolute fact). Plus, how great would it be to be able to purchase more wood based products and less petroleum based plastics that are difficult to dispose of or recycle."

Over the years I have seen the logging industry decline year by year. We went from clear cutting in the past to selective cutting, at least around here, on federal lands. It was all about making the most money. The logging company's fought selective logging because it cut into there profit. If I remember correctly no trees over 30 inches in diameter could be cut.
The fires we are calling the, new normal, are also cutting into the logging industry profit.
So I like the idea of bringing back logging in certain areas. This would come with new regulations the industry would have to conform to. To be able to log certain tracks of land, logging company's that win a contract would have to masticate all logging slash. not the old lop and scatter method. Also they would be required to masticate ladder fuels as part of the contract. I have seen this done on a private timber sale. The place looked like a park when it was finished. Is this going to raise the price of a 2x4 at Home Depot? Most likely. But it gets the job done. Will the logging industry go for this? I think so, if it keeps them working. If it was up to me the work would start around towns and subdivisions in what we call the urban interface, that area between houses and the wildland. This would help solve part of the Firefighters problem with rescue and exposures.
Make no mistake, those tracks of land, over the years would still have to be control burned to maintain that thinned park like atmosphere. It will never end.
This method would (help) solve the the problem. It's not the whole answer. What are we going to do with the areas that logging will not work?

Just realized not everyone would know what a ladder fuel is. It's fuels that allow a fire that is burning on the ground, to climb up and burn into the canopy of the trees. If you eliminate ladder fuels the chance of a crown fire is less.

Every Wednesday we go to the local Cal Fire Station for dinner. Been doing this for over 25 years. There is usually 10 working or retired people that attend. We take turns cooking so the station firefighters don't have to cook dinner that day. I brought up what we have been talking about. Now, the guys that were there are working and retired Cal Fire, retired Forest Service and active County Fire. The one thing that came up was, who is going to push this? We all agreed it won't be the general public. Mainly as we have seen in the past, they just don't care. What usually happens is there is tremendous interest and for and against comments, while the fire is burning. It will continue for a few weeks after the fire is out. When we get the first rain or you get the first snow, all is forgotten. I have seen this time and time again.
Funding was brought up. I said how many of you, on your Federal Tax Return, check the box to donate money to the people that are running for office? No one. How many would donate $10 to fund a program that would help solve our fire problem, country wide? About half said they would. The ones that declined, do not trust the government to spend the money wisely. I wonder why!! I checked and there are around 230 some million federal tax returns, I think it was last year, not sure though. You wonder how many would donate 10 to fund our program to save the forests? Also, this would be every year!
Other things that came up, Who is going to do the work, clearing brush, thinning trees, etc. etc. How would the logistics to support all these crews, country wide work? How would you get around air pollution control laws, because all the control burning this would require?
The one thing we all agreed on was it would take a crisis to get our problem resolved! We are very good at Management By Crisis. Again, we have seen this time and time again all over the country. In the end we all decided to............... have one more piece of teriyaki chicken and a big bowl of home make ice cream. The end.

I do check the $1 box for federal funding of elections. But that is a different thing. It changes how my money is spent but not how much tax I pay. If you did that with fire funding at $10/person then that is potentially $2.3 billion from other programs. And should we do that for other goals?

Another model, perhaps what you meant, is the California tax return that gives you the opportunity to reduce your refund by directing money to a variety of programs. So you are voluntarily paying more taxes in order to direct money to causes you find worthwhile. It would be interesting to know how successful those programs are at generating funding.

FYI, especially for the majority of folks who don’t live in CA, the list of funding opportunities is on page 4 of California Tax form 540.

I do like the idea of focusing efforts near the urban-wild land interface. Perhaps air pollution issues can be considered preventative. It’s going to all burn sooner or later. Having just driven a round trip from San Francisco to Eureka, we saw how close some of this years fires came to towns such as Hopland. The signs thanking the fire fighters were very appropriate. Doing these burns in that sort of environment will mean being confident of controlling the fires.

andym, you are right, if people believe in this problem enough they will be able to donate part of there refund, or even if they don't get a refund, they would still be able to add $10 to what they owe the Federal Government.

Speaking of problems, we have another one about 15 air miles north east of us. 150 acres of heavy brush and oak woodland and no containment yet. It will be on Forest Service land in a short time.

Talked to a friend last night. He is a retired HFEO, Heavy Fire Equipment Operator. He has a business now, running heavy equipment. I know he has a masticator on his excavator and a mulcher attachment for the skid steer. After talking to him for awhile to confirm some of my thoughts, I think I will make a stab at helping solve our problem.
If it was up to me, I would hire private contractors that have the equipment that can thin and mulch forest fuels. They would come in after the area has been thinned by logging. These contractors may be part of the company that has done the logging, or a separate contractor. By mulching hopefully it will help hold down new growth for awhile. As new growth comes back, that area will have to be control burned. Using a method like this is going to be costly. My friend charges $1000 per acre, depending on fuel type and how thick it is. With financial help from the Federal Government, I think even private land owners would be more likely to participate. Years ago when we talked to land owners about control burns, they wanted no part of them. Mulching, I really think they would go fore. Especially after what has been going on the last few years. This, over time, would help lesson the impact of fire on towns, subdivisions and even stands of old growth timber we want to save. Create long term jobs and help bring back some of the logging industry. In my opinion this is the only way to bring back the forest to the way it used to look, without waiting the generation we talked of earlier.
Financing would come from the logging industry and we the people would have to donate our share.
A system like this would not work in the BW. Using mechanized equipment in a wilderness isn't likely. In my opinion control burning would be my choice there. Burning holes in strategic areas. This would help slow down wildfires from making long Pagami Creek Fire runs.
I've always told the Firefighters that worked for me, if you bring me a problem, also bring a solution to that problem. This is my solution. Might work, or might not. The one thing this thread helped is, my typing skills!!
Larry