A recent series of guest editorials and web postings on the “public health malpractice” in Summit County and Utah forests have appeared and sound compelling if you do not have the entire story or all the facts. One could argue the real malpractice is a doctor from Salt Lake City prescribing to the people of Summit County what should be done in managing our forests and fire risk without considering the longterm consequences. These guest editorials and posts are riddled with wild land fire misinformation, in the form of personal opinion portrayed as science, internet sites that support a certain cause, or comparisons to fire regimes in other parts of the world. It is important to understand that the fire regimes of the Wasatch Back are not the fire regimes of Australia, nor are they the fire regimes in California or elsewhere in the west.
With a 35-year career in wild land fire management, I have seen and breathed my fair share of wild land fire smoke with over 400 wild land fire assignments, as well as sitting around a relaxing campfire. I have worked to reduce my footprint on the planet from installing solar panels to buying an EV and battery-operated snowblower and lawnmower. No one is questioning the desire for clean air and many live in Park City because we do not wish to reside in the Salt Lake Valley with its long-duration winter inversions and air quality issues. When I asked my physician if he saw concerns for pile burning occurring in Summit County, he said where he sees more concern is from emissions with the increase in vehicle traffic.
Whether you hike, ski, or view from afar, one can see the serious forest health issues being experienced in the mountains and forest around Park City. Part of the reason for the dead and dying forest is that wild land fire has been excluded from our ecosystems, be it natural ignitions from lightning or anthropogenic burning the First Nations people used to manage our fire regimes.
Utah has historically had a roughly 50/50 split between human and natural caused fires, although there was an influx of human starts early during Covid. With the removal of fire, our forests have become overstocked with trees competing for finite resources complicated with a 20-year drought and enhanced by climate change. Related to climate change, results show carbon sequestration decreases with forest development, and the decrease is faster in un-thinned forests. Most within the wild land fire community acknowledge climate change is occurring as we are living it out in our daily lives with longer fire seasons and increased fire size and severity.
Although it might sound contradictory, one of the reasons we utilize prescribed fire is to reduce the overall amount of smoke in the atmosphere. The smoke produced from a wildfire can be two to 18 times greater than that of a prescribed fire. With wildfire, there is no control of the production and transport of emissions and there is less planning and strategies available to minimize smoke. While these short-term exposures from prescribed burning are an inconvenience and can be irritating, the long-term exposure is most concerning, especially for particulate matter at the 2.5-micron level.
As a substitute to fire, mitigation projects also known as fuel treatments are an option in areas where forest health concerns exist. This is particularly true in the Wildland/Urban Interface (WUI) where the wild lands meet with human development. These treatments are not “logging in disguise,” “denuding of our forests,” or “silviculture by stealth.” Northern Utah has a limited market for timber and there is little value for bug-killed white fir trees, thus logs are not going to a mill with someone making money off any material produced.
Creating resilient forests able to withstand fire and other disturbance and more representative of historic conditions may open the canopy. Reducing the canopy density diminishes the probability of a crown fire becoming established. Once fire is established as a crown fire, there are limited opportunities to suppress fire and spotting potential increases. While opening the canopy may increase solar radiation and wind exposure, it typically does not change the wind reduction factor. Open canopies allow more snow to reach the ground and eventually be absorbed into the ground vs. sublimated into the atmosphere, while encouraging species, such as aspen, that have been encroached out to re-establish.
There are numerous examples across Utah where vegetation treatments, many supported by the Utah Watershed Restoration Initiative, have restored watershed function to the landscape. Some questions have been posed as to the effectiveness of fuels treatments and during my tenure with the Bureau of Land Management in Utah, 371 wildfires were reported as starting within or burning into fuel treatments. Data supports treatments worked with 11% of all treatments being intercepted by a wildfire to reduce fire behavior and they made management by firefighters safer and easier while protecting communities and landscapes.
Most are not aware of how close we came to losing structures from the Parleys Canyon Fire as many elements came together in a perfect storm for a successful suppression outcome. I served as a Division Supervisor with the Northern Utah Incident Management Team while my neighborhood and 8,000 residents were evacuated and the area experienced heavy smoke. Fire behavior modeling showed the fire had potential to reach Summit Park and even Kimball Junction; toxic emissions from homes burning would have been significant and carbon sequestration lost from forests experiencing stand-destroying effects. While holes are poked at attempts to mitigate the wildfire risk along the Wasatch Back, little is provided for alternatives to prevent the next Parleys Canyon Fire.
Understanding and managing wildland fire and fire surrogates based upon scientific principles in a holistic approach is important in truly “seeing the forests for the trees.” As the need is realized and opportunities increase, the pace and scale of fuel treatments will expand, addressing our forest health issues and threats from wildfire. These needs have been supported with the Wasatch identified as a Landscape in the Wildfire Crisis Strategy and various other federal and state wildfire mitigation grants. The downstream effects of these colloquial based efforts in managing wild lands can be realized while supporting the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy vision: “To safely and effectively extinguish fire, when needed; use fire where allowable; manage our natural resources; and collectively, learn to live with wild land fire.”
As I look at the forest and fuels management treatments occurring in our neighborhoods around Park City, I could not be more excited and prouder of the work ongoing to touch upon the Cohesive Strategy tenets of providing for safe and effective firefighter response, creating resilient landscapes, and developing Fire Adapted Communities.