Fighting fire with forward thinking

When a fire reaches near enough 7000 acres with multiple homes scattered inside its borders on the kind of terrain that's more friendly to flames than human feet, how can it be possible that not a single structure was lost?

There are many reasons that the battle against the recent Fish Fire was an astonishing success, but they all boil down to one thing: collaboration.

The agencies responsible for taking care of Wyoming's lands and the people who call it home have worked together for a number of years to reduce the threat posed by wildfires.

Those same agencies are keen to work with landowners to help them create defensible space around their own properties.

Mitigation doesn't just protect your own land – it also contributes to an overall landscape that is more resilient to fire, and will burn with less intensity.

It's also less of a burden than you might think, according to representatives from local agencies ranging from Crook County Natural Resource District (CCNRD) and Wyoming State Forestry (WSF) to the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS).

Not only can these agencies help you find funding sources to complete the work, it can also be done in a way that preserves the beauty of your land while making it a safer place to live.

"This fire hopefully made people in the county and the area more aware of the fire danger," says Mike Gosse, District Ranger for the USFS Bearlodge Ranger District.

"There are opportunities for county residents to reach out to their federal agencies, to their county agencies, to their state agencies for funding as well as technical assistance. If people have questions about what they can do on their properties, please reach out to the resources you have available."

Pooling Resources

A communal approach has served this area well when it comes to wildfire. When the Fish Fire was first reported – and when it ran the lines on the second night and became a whole lot bigger in a hurry –firefighters from numerous agencies began to arrive in short order.

"Fire does not know any type of ownership boundaries or geographical boundaries," says Gosse. "This fire burned on federal acres of a number of different federal agencies, on private acres, on state acres, on county acres."

The same way of thinking has been applied to mitigation: efforts to make forested parts of this county more resilient to fire long before such an outcome is needed.

"Working together is how we accomplish the best fuel reduction and mitigation of fuels, fire intensity and fire risk," Gosse continues.

"The Forest Service can't manage all of the fire within this area by itself. Working together, pooling our resources and pooling our funding, is how we can best serve the county residents, the state residents and reduce the fire risk and the fire danger as best as possible."

But for this approach to work, the agencies need to hear from private landowners.

"Our programs are strictly voluntary," says Jason Nehl, Resource Specialist for NRCS. "We can promote our programs but for somebody to come and work with us to obtain our assistance – we can provide technical and financial assistance – they have to come to us for help."

Fire Mitigation

The mitigation projects that took place in the months and years before the Fish Fire stand as testament to the importance of wildfire prevention. Multiple agencies, as well as landowners and private industry, were involved in the many different efforts that ultimately helped to reduce the impact of the fire.

Says Gosse, these range from thinning trees to reduce the risk of a fire going up into the crowns to teaming up with private industry on timber sales.

"We certainly rely on commercial timber harvests," he says.

Grazing – both on agency-controlled lands and private property – helps to reduce the finer fuels that carry fire, while prescribed burns can clear out an area with a heavy fuel load.

A lot of the vegetation management that had taken place in this area had a great effect on the suppression effort during the Fish Fire, says Dick Terry, District Forester for Wyoming State Forestry. For example, areas damaged by a tornado were cleaned up, while work with private landowners on the agency's Forest Stewardship Program and timber sales helped stop the fire on its eastern side.

Four or five landowners on the north side of the fire had mitigation plans in place, says Jeremy Dedic, Assistant District Forester, as well as one for a large property on the eastern side.

According to Sarah Anderson of CCCNRD, the agency identified the location where the Fish Fire occurred as one of high fire danger a few years ago due to the homes in the area and the density of the trees. The agency pursued grants to help landowners mitigate this danger and was able to reduce hazardous fuels on a 300-acre area, creating defensible space and fuel breaks and treating fuels.

The residents in the area were proactive, she says, and because of the partnerships between CCNRD and other agencies and the grants they were able to obtain, no homes were lost.

NRCS, too, has pursued mitigation projects in the general area of the fire, including helping landowners improve their conservation, pre-commercial thinning, encroachment removal and fuel breaks to protect structures, says Nehl. This included a 100-acre project a couple of miles from the fire that will be logged again this year and 150 acres about a mile south that was thinned about three years ago.

The Forest Service also plans and implements fuel reduction programs, says Josh Hoffman, fuels specialist, focusing on "defensible thinning". This aims to create space between the trees to keep the fire on the ground, spacing out the canopy to mitigate a sustained crown run.

For instance, he says, the Forest Service hired contractors to remove encroaching pine on the northern area of the fire, which is a historic meadow, and the piles from this work are ready for burning when the weather allows. On the south slope, prescribed fire helps to thin out the steeper slopes.

It's "tough country to implement any kind of plan," he says of the steep terrain. "Topography and fire get along very well."

However, he strongly believes that the mitigation projects prevented spotting of the fire and stopped it from jumping roads. Only in one place did the fire get across the line, he says, and the mitigation projects are probably why.

Protecting Your Home

The public lands around you may have undergone hazardous fuel mitigation, but what about your own property? The obvious goal is to create a situation in which your land and property will be as safe as reasonably possible in the event of a fire, even when it's not possible for firefighters to reach it.

"We certainly encourage everyone to look at their properties from the perspective of unburned fuels," says Gosse.

Through the collaborations already in place, projects are going on all the time around the county to reduce fire risk, and there are also a number of grants available to assist you.

Landowners are strongly encouraged to reach out to the experts for advice on how to best protect your property – and how best to go about it. Local agencies have gotten pretty good at reducing the cost to a landowner for fire mitigation on their property, says Dedic.

"We try to keep [the cost] as low as possible," says Dedic. "We get more success from our programs if we can pay 100%."

The potential practices are so varied that it's hard to put a price tag on the process, he says, estimating that the total cost can be anywhere from $200 to $1900 per acre. Agencies such as WSF and NRCS try to cover at least a percentage of this, Dedic continues, "but it actually might end up being 100%."

For instance, Anderson has recently been able to procure Bureau of Land Management funding that is being used in the Pine Ridge area.

"Residents there can have just about 100% coverage for the work being done," Dedic says.

A concern that landowners often raise when it comes to cutting the trees on their land is that it will ruin the aesthetic.

"They've moved to the forest to live in the forest," says Dedic. "But we can thin these trees out and they're going to get bigger, and they're going to be healthier, and you won't even notice."

Removing trees doesn't ruin a view forever. It's like getting a haircut, he says: a couple of months later, you can hardly tell it happened.

"With your forest, it's going to fill back in – and it should look nice," he says. "Of course you see the impact when you first do the work, but within a year it starts softening up and within two years you forget what you did and it just looks nice."

The proof is very often in the pudding, says Anderson.

"We actually have had landowners who were more resistant, but then we worked with their neighbors and they see how great their neighbor's property looks, and then they come back because they like what they see and they see how beneficial it is," she says.

Above all, says Dedic, it's important that landowners realize the agencies understand their property is first and foremost a home.

"You still want to live there – 99% of the time, you're living there without fire and you still want to have a tree and you still want to enjoy where you live," he says.

"We try to balance that with that 1% chance of when there are sparks flying and embers flying to keep the tree right next to your house from starting on fire."

Solo Projects

Another issue that stops landowners from accessing the available help is the desire to follow their own specifications, rather than the ones outlined by agencies or grant sources.

For some programs, the requirements are chipped in stone, says Dedic, while others have much more flexibility. However, if you want to go it alone so you can do things your own way, he strongly supports you in your efforts.

Creating a defensible space, he continues, involves removing trees from around a house to create a break that makes it difficult for the fire to jump across.

"The cool thing, this isn't rocket science – it's breaking up the continuity of the fuel. If somebody wants to do it on their own, they just have to think how the fire would work," Dedic says.

"For a fuel break, we're trying to break up the crowns enough that, if a crown fire comes in, it's going to stop and drop to the ground – it will be a ground fire, but it won't be burning from treetop to treetop to treetop. Limb the trees from the ground up, so the fire doesn't go up to the crown from the ground, and making sure branch tips aren't touching will help too."

Assistance is still available, says Anderson: "We have forest stewardship plans or forest management plans that can help landowners have a game plan for their forested properties."

"It's geared to individual landowners and their goals. It doesn't tie their hands to it, either," says Dedic.

Private landowners are also able to pursue timber sales of their own. Local timber companies do buy timber from private land, Dedic says.

You can also take measures to protect your structures from fire, such as to choose less flammable materials while building. For example, says Dedic, asphalt shingles are a better choice than wood.

For a home that's already complete, you can take relatively simple measures to improve your fire defenses. Make sure you have screens on your roof vents so embers don't get sucked into your attic, for example; avoid placing firewood under your porch and check for debris under the porch or in gutters.

To make sure your property is as safe as possible if you're planning to be away from home for a while, Anderson suggests taking measures before you leave, such as cleaning gutters.

Even when the fire has already started and is coming straight towards you, there are things you can do to improve the chances of your home surviving intact.

The key, says Dedic, is to move anything flammable from around your house. Doormats, lawn chairs – anything that will easily burn if a spark lands on it.

"It's the little details – try to look at it with a critical eye," he says.

For advice and information about protecting a new or existing property from fire, Terry invites you to contact the WSF office in Newcastle. Brochures are available with further information, and the agency also sometimes hosts informational classes.

Contact the WSF office via 307-746-4261.

Advice is also available via the Firewise USA® website at nfpa.org/Public-Education/Fire-causes-and-risks/Wildfire/Firewise-USA. The site outlines preparations you can make to reduce risk, ranging from landscaping and maintenance to ensuring access for emergency responders.

Find Out More

Crook County landowners who are interested to find out more about fire mitigation on their property, or who would like advice on what might be needed, are encouraged to contact Anderson at CCNRD.

Her expertise lies in figuring out how to utilize grants and programs to make the most of the available funding, connecting you with the right agency for your needs and helping you figure out the best way to get the results you are looking for.

If you are looking to undertake a fire safety project on your own, the agencies are also ready and willing to offer expertise to help you figure out how to get started.

Contact Anderson at 283-2870 (extension 100) or via email at [email protected].