A Smoky State
29/08/12 04:57
My home state of Montana is a smoky place. We entered the state over Lolo Pass, south of Missoula in a cloud of smoke from a fire that was burning off to the southeast. The winds were calm and the mountains and valleys were filled with smoke. We saw several brush trucks and caravans of hotshot crews in the area. It appeared that the Taho Hotshots were either headed toward a break or heading home. The Flathead Hotshots seemed to be heading toward the fire. The fire camp, east of Missoula, is large with a city of tents and equipment.As we crossed the continental divide out of Butte the winds began to pick up, but they weren’t blowing from their usual direction. By Three Forks the wind was out of the south and the temperatures were rising. It was 92 degrees with a strong south wind. There was an enormous smoke plume from a fire in the Spanish Peaks that enveloped Bozeman. People were wearing scarves over their faces to filter the smoky air.
It was nearly 100 degrees by the time we got to Big Timber and we started to notice people with tire problems on the highway. High temperatures and high speeds are not easy conditions for tires, especially trailer tires. We kept our speed down to about 65 mph and had no problems ourselves. The high temperature that we saw was 102 at about Reed Point.
We left the Interstate west of Columbus and followed the frontage road into town and from there headed down to Red Lodge through Absorkee. We were following another smoke plume. It is difficult to judge distance with fires and this one proved to be a bit farther than we first thought. I suspected that it was somewhere on the Stillwater and then revised my estimate to the Fishtail-Nye area. It turned out to be a bit farther down the road, but as we topped a high hill, we were afforded a good look at the fire and the firefighting operations. The wind was still out of the south at that point and the fire was burning away from the high country and the tree-filled steeps. It looked like they had a great chance of making significant progress in the night cools. By Red Lodge the temperature was down to 85 degrees and the cool breeze blowing off of the creek promised even cooler temperatures for this morning. The forecast calls for one more hot day in the high country before cooler temperatures later in the week.
Folks around here have been dealing with smoke for days. There is an 8,000+ acre fire in the Absaroka Wilderness area. Yesterday was a relief for them as the wind cleared the air and the mountains emerged from their smoky pallor.
If you read the history of the forests of the west, you hear reference to bad fire years. The United States Forest Service experienced the first really bad fire year in its history in 1910. There were numerous fires throughout Colorado and Montana that burned until the fall weather and snows extinguished them. It was in response to that year that the Forest Service made fighting fires a top priority. For some, like Bill Greely, fire fighting was thought to be the first priority of the service. The result of that philosophy was the gradual build-up of fuels throughout the forests. Forests that previously had experienced regular fires that decreased fuels now went for decades without fires. Lodgepole Pines grew more and more densely until there were hillsides with double and triple the number of trees than before. After the Second World War, the technology of fire detection got a big boost from light aviation. My father flew fire patrol over the Gallatin National Forest and Yellowstone Park for 25 years. They spotted virtually every fire within the first 24 hours. As the ‘50’s turned to the ‘60’s they were getting better and better at dropping smoke jumpers close to the fires and backcountry firefighting became a science. Retired Air Force Bombers became retardant bombers and the aerial attack on fires got more and more effective. In the ‘70’s the first high-altitude helicopters began to show up in the west and added quick response water dropping to the arsenal of weapons used by firefighters.
It was the summer of 1988 when we first saw the result of decades of intense fire suppression. By then the fuel loads had built to extremes. Three fires in Yellowstone National Park became a single conflagration that was unstoppable by the crews. A virtually unlimited budget was insufficient to stop the flames. Only the snows of October brought an end to the fires. To the credit of the firefighters the loss of buildings and historic sites was minimal. Near West Yellowstone the fires were so intense on some hillsides that the soil was sterilized and it too years before even grass would grow on the slopes.
Much to our surprise, however, the fires didn’t ruin the park. They opened up new vistas and a fascinating opportunity to see the forest at work rejuvenating itself. Within 5 years the fire scars had turned into lush greenery and verdant habitat for animals. Deer and elk populations boomed with the new feed opening up. The park once again regained its balance and forest managers began to understand the role of fire better.
These days the mountains of the west are filled with acres and acres of dead trees. The mountain pine beetles have killed a lot of trees and their devastation is spreading. Those dead trees provide rich fuel for fires and once the fires get going they quickly burn through the dead and dying trees. Conditions are different than we have seen before and no one knows for sure what will happen.
A forest is a complex ecosystem and the cycles of life in the forest are best understood in terms of centuries, not decades or years. We understand only in part and there is much that remains unknown.
But for now it is a season of fires throughout the west and it doesn’t look like the end will come soon. Temperatures have been higher than normal and a late fall is being predicted. Snows may not come until November and then they may be lighter than usual.
We still have much to learn from the forest.