National Fire Plan Success Story
Fuels Treatment in Central Oregon Leads to Different Wildfire Outcome
National Fire Plan - Fuels Reduction
Incident #595 was over almost before it started. News reporters did not show up and fill their evening programs highlighting suppression efforts and threats to lives and property. Incident #595 was swiftly held at six acres and did not even get a name. Essentially, Incident #595 was insignificant, and for that, it is remarkable.
History shows us that wildfires burning in the juniper/shrub-steppe habitat in central Oregon can have a very different outcome. In the intermix of BLM, US Forest Service Crooked River National Grassland and private lands northeast of Bend, decades of fuel buildup have led to a combination of rapidly moving range fires augmented by crown fires moving through dense juniper stands, throwing embers miles ahead of the flaming front. For example, in 1996, the Little Cabin Fire above Lake Billy Chinook, burned 2,437 acres and came within 100 feet of homes. In 1999, the Elk Drive Fire burned 538 acres and came within 1-1/2 miles of the Round Butte subdivision. Finally, in complete contrast to the outcome of Incident #595, the Eyerly Fire roared through thousands of acres and consumed 18 homes in the Three Rivers subdivision.
What was the difference between the ferocity of the Eyerly fire and Incident #595? The Central Oregon Fire Management Service and Jefferson County Rural Fire District #1 collaboratively designed a fuels treatment strategy. The goal was to reduce the potential for a high intensity wildfire on the Crooked River National Grassland next to private property on Round Butte. The fuels treatment thinned juniper trees less than 12-inches dbh and limbed remaining trees. By removing branches near the ground, fuels specialists decreased the potential for a wildfire to ignite a tree (torching), and by increasing the distance between trees, specialists reduced the ability of a wildfire to spread from tree to tree (crown fire). Although the increased spacing opened the canopy and fostered an environment to improve understory growth, the prescription called for leaving trees every 30 feet as a means to decrease the surface wind.
On July 29, 2007, lightning touched off a wildfire, thus testing the prescription. Fire crews and a Type I helicopter quickly responded. The fire was contained within four hours of dispatch with no lives or homes lost.
Based on observations and discussions with crews who were on scene when the fire was spreading, the fire remained a surface fire. This changed fire behavior is attributed entirely to the thinning and pruning accomplished with the fuels project. Instead of crowning and spotting as it raced through a near closed-canopy juniper stand, this fire burned in a fuel model 2 (grass) with a sparse juniper overstory. Although rates of spread did increase due to higher surface winds and an increase in fine fuels, there was no spotting from the juniper trees and flame lengths were manageable for engines and hand tools. The opened, savannah-like juniper overstory allowed the aircraft to drop water directly on the fire, helping to extinguish the flames rapidly. The combined efforts of the fuels treatment and the suppression crews prevented the wildfire from not only destroying lives, property and a nearby power substation, but also from costing the agencies time, money and personnel hours for an extended suppression and rehabilitation effort.
Contact: Lisa Clark, Fire Mitigation Specialist, (541) 416-6864; lmclark@or.blm.gov