ST. GEORGE — As fire restrictions ease and wildfire season comes to a close, Southern Utahns can collectively sigh in relief. But what strategies are being implemented to mitigate next year’s risk?
Because forests are fire-dependent ecosystems, creating healthy forests “where fire that occurs naturally has little impact on local communities and ensures the cycle of a healthy ecosystem” is essential, the U.S. Forest Service states.
“Fire always has and always will have a natural role in maintaining ecosystem health and resiliency,” the agency adds.
Sierra Hellstrom, a public information officer with the agency, compiled answers from multiple Forest Service experts and representatives to address questions sent by St. George News via email.
Planned forest treatments include thinning trees, prescribed burning, pruning and mechanical understory treatments like mastication or mowing to treat and stabilize a forest’s ecosystem.
Logging is a “delicate scientific method,” the agency states. It involves the removal of enough trees to create an ideal fuels balance while leaving sufficient cover for a healthy ecosystem. The strategy focuses on clearing the overstory. If too much of the canopy is removed, the increased sunlight can dry surface fuels, increasing the risk of fire spread.
Logging and other mechanical treatments are not considered a replacement for wildfire but are necessary in preparing an area to allow it back into a system, according to the Forest Service.
The most commonly used method of fire prevention is education, the service said, adding the leading cause of wildland fires is people. The agency seeks to teach the public how to prevent fires and understand landscape ecology by providing “crucial education tools.”
Additionally, the Forest Service aims to educate communities about new tools and resources they offer to support their efforts to “confront the wildfire crisis in partnership with them.”
“A wildfire does not know boundaries; it does not stop when it reaches the border of a national forest, private land, or city limit,” the agency wrote. “Working with federal agencies, communities, and individual landowners will be essential to creating fire resilient forests on a national scale.”
Another method is aspen restoration. Aspen tree stands “provide a myriad of benefits” to forests, the agency states, and are primarily used in the West as wildlife habitat, livestock foraging, watershed protection, esthetics and recreation.
The species’ deep root systems are interconnected and act as a single organism. The Forest Service said the roots filter runoff and decrease sedimentation, which keeps streams clean. Additionally, healthy aspens don’t burn as easily as pine trees and can act as a barrier to wildfire. These trees require fire or other disturbances to stimulate sprouting and control the number of conifers, which grow taller and reduce the amount of sunlight that reaches aspen groves.
“The suppression of forest fires has replaced aspens with conifers and other vegetation that burns faster,” the agency wrote.
The Forest Service said that key components of their work include when and how each wildfire mitigation method would be implemented.
Additionally, the agency said a single organization can’t change the “severe fire conditions we are experiencing” alone. Partners, such as states, Tribes, private contractors and local nongovernment organizations are “force multipliers” and are required to achieve land treatment goals at the desired pace and scale.
“It won’t happen overnight, but long-range success will depend on completing and maintaining this work over time, at a large scale, across all boundaries to create a healthier forest we can enjoy and protect,” the agency said.
For more information about how the Forest Service seeks to create more fire-resilient landscapes, read this recent article on St. George News. To learn more about how the Forest Service is “confronting the wildfire crisis,” click here.
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