Late winter and early spring in the West can be snowy and rainy one minute, sunny and 70 degrees the next. Seasonal shifts are everywhere: bright green new growth, the first wildflowers, birdsong and … periodic plumes of smoke?
Depending on where you live, spring can be an ideal time to light intentional, controlled fires. Land managers do this for many reasons: reducing vegetation that might spread wildfires or intensify subsequent blazes, cultivating fire-loving foods, restoring fire to landscapes whose ecology depends on it. Land-management agencies, tribes and nonprofits often take advantage of seasonal windows of moist, cool weather to safely burn wide swaths of forests and grasslands.
The West needs more prescribed and cultural burning. And even this year, despite much of the region experiencing an abnormally dry season, land managers are finding ways to make that happen.
But it takes planning to do it safely: The West is already hot, dry and dangerously fireprone. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis activated the state’s drought task force in mid-March, stating that “Colorado is experiencing the warmest year so far in our 131-year record, and one of the driest.” At least three wildfires sparked in the southern part of the state in mid-March, including a 7,300-acre fire south of Colorado Springs. Several smaller fires also started in Montana, Wyoming and New Mexico.
Despite the unusually dry March, prescribed fires haven’t fully halted in Colorado, said Parker Titus, fire program manager for The Nature Conservancy in the state. Numerous factors help fire managers decide if a particular burn is a go or a no-go. If a proposed prescribed burn is planned for a high elevation or in a north-facing area, the landscape might be cool and wet enough to safely ignite. “Conditions can vary widely across a relatively small geography,” Titus said. Some places have been burned in the past, meaning a new fire is likely to be less intense; others have buffers that make a fire easier to control.
“Prescribed fires are all about the right place and the right time.”
Fire managers and practitioners are used to weighing those and many more factors, including weather and climate fluctuations, Titus said. “Prescribed fires are all about the right place and the right time.”
This year in the Klamath Watershed, which spans the Oregon-California border, late winter was actually wetter than normal, said Bill Tripp, a Karuk tribal member, cultural fire practitioner and director of natural resources and environmental policy for the Karuk Tribe. Two or so weeks of sun are common in February, but this year they never materialized, and rain kept the tribe from burning the larger areas they’d hoped to, though they still managed to treat some smaller areas.
People living in and near the watershed might notice that the Klamath National Forest is ramping up prescribed burn operations. The tribe is pausing for now, though. “We don’t like to call it spring burning,” Tripp said. “We don’t burn during reproductive cycles.” Speaking on March 20, he said it would probably be the last day the tribe burns until mid-June. The landscape is greening up and leaves are appearing, he said. “We’re right there at the indicator; it’s showing us it’s time to stop.”
Beginning the same week, California and much of the Western U.S. experienced an exceptional heatwave, with temperatures up to 30 degrees Fahrenheit above average, fueled by climate change. Even so, public-land management agencies in Montana, Oregon and Idaho all recently announced plans to execute more prescribed burns soon, as conditions allow.
The Bureau of Land Management, for example, is planning burns on about 1,000 acres near Missoula, Montana, where potential smoke impacts will be carefully monitored. Agencies can choose to burn less, or not burn at all, if wind might carry smoke over densely populated areas or when stagnant conditions keep smoke from dispersing.
Near Bend, Oregon, the Forest Service is preparing to burn 11,600 acres. Smoke is expected to be most visible at night and in the early morning. The Caribou-Targhee National Forest recently completed a small prescribed fire using drones near Swan Valley, Idaho, and more prescribed fires are planned through May if the weather cooperates. And the Payette National Forest estimates burns could continue into July. Agencies communicate with communities surrounding burns to let them know when to anticipate smoke, and whether any trailheads or public access points might be temporarily closed.
Looking ahead to summer, land managers say they’re worried about how the wildfire season could shake out, given the lack of snow across the region. Thick, widespread snow cover helps hydrate soil and vegetation more deeply and for longer than rain does, keeping plants from drying out and becoming fuel for early wildfires in spring or summer. But Utah, Oregon and Colorado all reported their lowest annual statewide snowpack since the 1980s, and research shows that a low snowpack both extends the fire season and increases the severity of wildfires.
According to the National Interagency Fire Center’s fire outlook, the potential for significant wildfires across the West is normal in April, increasing to above normal in parts of New Mexico and Arizona in May and also Utah and Colorado in June. Drought conditions are projected to worsen or develop across the West from April through June.
With spring precipitation far from over, it’s too early to know for sure just how dry it will get, and when. But it’s probably going to be a busy wildfire season. “Every year, we have a big fire year these days,” Tripp said.
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