FIRE NEWS 

August 22, 2003

Salmon, ID – With the excitement and urgency of suppressing a large wild fire, the need to protect important natural resources and values sometimes can be overlooked.  It is the role of a resource advisor to represent those voiceless values and resources, ensuring their protection, while not hindering the fire suppression effort.

As the Muir Incident Management Team assumed responsibility for the Withington Fire, Terry Hershey, the Forest Service’s Salmon/Cobalt District Ranger, assigned a resource advisor to work with the team.  This is standard practice in large-fire suppression efforts.  Liz Davy is the U.S. Forest Service resource advisor working with the Muir Team on the Withington Fire.  Since the fire also affects public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management’s Salmon Field Office, BLM Weed Specialist Chris Tambe has been assigned as a resource advisor to represent the BLM’s Field Manager.  Both resource advisors have similar roles and concerns, including public and fire fighter safety.

Davy, a forester, is the North Zone Fuels Specialist on the Salmon-Challis National Forest.  According to Davy, her job is to represent the Forest Service and offer recommendations to the Muir Team about resource protection and rehabilitation techniques that can be blended with suppression tactics to extinguish the fire, while reducing residual damage to the land.  She attends crew briefings each morning and evening, and watches the progress of the fire and of fire fighters during the day.  She works with the Team’s Planning Section to ensure instructions are provided to fire fighters about techniques to use in certain circumstances, the locations of important resources, and the rehabilitation practices that must be used to mitigate the effects of the fire and of suppression efforts.

Fire managers on the Incident Management Team consult daily with resource advisors.  For example, says Davy, the Team checks with her before building dozer lines on the National Forest to ensure that important resources are avoided, if possible.  Similarly, she recommends locations for the spike camps established near the fire line where some of the crews stay overnight instead of returning to the base camp in Salmon.  Asked her concerns, Davy responds that noxious weeds, bull trout, and roadless characteristics are high on the list.  An unusual, but important, concern is protecting the vegetation on K Mountain that actually defines the letter “K,” an important local landmark.  Davy was instrumental in establishing washing stations so that fire vehicles are cleaned of dirt and vegetation that could spread noxious weeds.  Vehicles are washed each time they come and go from the fire.

Noxious weeds are high on the list of concerns for the BLM, as well.  At crew briefings, Tambe regularly echoes Davy’s message that fire fighters must avoid spreading weeds.  Another concern for Tambe arose when the Withington Fire burned public lands in the Seven Mile Creek drainage that are included in an Area of Critical Environmental Concern.  The ACEC emphasizes the management of soil and vegetation in an area of sensitive soils.  Fire crews were planning to burn-out vegetation in the area to slow the spread of the fire.  Had the burn occurred, fragile soils would have been damaged and the management of the ACEC would be compromised.  Tambe was able to alert fire fighters to the sensitivity of the area before substantial damage occurred.

Tambe’s knowledge of both the area and the fire is proving valuable to ranchers.  A number of ranchers had cattle grazing in BLM or Forest Service allotments when the fire started.  Some ranchers were able to open gates to allow livestock to drift to lower elevations, ahead of the fire.  Others have cattle near the fire and are concerned about the safety of their livestock.  Some cattle have remained at higher elevations, in or near the burned area.  In his role as a resource advisor, Tambe has been helping ranchers locate their cattle and providing assistance by escorting them through fire lines to reach stranded cattle.

Resource advisors also recommend practices for rehabilitating damage caused both by the fire and by the suppression effort.  Before fire crews are finished with the Withington Fire, they will have knocked-down berms created along fire lines, spread brush and slash cut during line building, and pulled-apart “dozer piles,” which are piles of vegetation and soil created when dozers build fire line.  Crews will have built water bars on steep stretches of fire line, picked up flagging and trash, cleaned-up spike-camp sites, and retrieved hoses, pumps and other equipment.  It is Davy’s job, and that of Tambe, to transmit the desires of agency administrators and resource specialists for rehabilitation standards to the Incident Management Team, and to observe the work of fire fighters to ensure the suppression’s effects have been mitigated.

Long-term rehabilitation efforts will be the responsibility of the local Forest Service and BLM offices.  A Burned Area Emergency Rehabilitation Team (BAER) has been established at the Salmon/Cobalt Ranger District Office to assess resource damage caused by the fire.  The BAER team will prepare a long-term rehabilitation plan and oversee the start of soil stabilization, repair of damaged fences, revegetation, and noxious weed control efforts.  The BAER Team will seek the advice and recommendations of resource advisors Liz Davy and Chris Tambe as the rehabilitation plan evolves.