Forests burned to revive health
Posted on Wednesday, April 30, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/224293/
HECTOR — Botanist Theo Witsell grew up believing Smokey Bear wanted his help to prevent forest fires.
But Witsell and others charged with managing the state’s forests now believe that fire helps the forest.
Witsell works for the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission, which is partnering with other agencies and organizations working to reverse what most people believe was an 80-year mistake by the U. S. Forest Service — excluding fire as a tool to keep forests healthy.
The result has been a program of prescribed burns that this year are expected to burn 67, 000 acres in the Ozark-St. Francis National Forests and 135, 000 acres in the Ouachita National Forest.
The number of acres burned in the Ozark-St. Francis National Forests is expected to double in 10 years, said John Andre, an ecologist with the Forest Service.
Forest managers are trying to restore the forests to their pre-1920 s condition, before the Forest Service began discouraging fires.
Up to that time, forest fires that occurred every three to five years maintained the forest’s health. It was nature’s way of keeping forests from becoming too dense with shrubs and trees, which provide fuel for forest fires.
As forest fires became more intense over the decades and destroyed millions of acres, scientists looked at forest statistics recorded by surveyors after the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.
“We became students of history when we started having forest health problems,” said Martin Blaney of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.
Some don’t agree with the controlled-burn policy.
Tom McKinney, forest chairman with the Arkansas Sierra Club, said the Forest Service is burning too much Arkansas forest. He said the Forest Service is mistakenly trying to convert the forest from an uplands oak forest to an oak-pine savannah.
Much of the forest doesn’t need fire to rejuvenate itself, he said. The wet climate rots dead trees and leaves unlike Western forests that are in dryer climates.
He said the Sierra Club believes the Forest Service should revert to burn levels of the 1980 s, about 20, 000 acres a year.
“We think their policy is to spend money in the guise of restoring biodiversity,” McKinney said.
The Forest Service says the purpose of the burns is to remove decades of dead leaves and pine needles that have built on the forest floor and have kept several species of native plants from sprouting and prevented hardwoods from growing.
Andre said managers are trying to thin the number of trees per acre from 100 to 30 or less. A dense forest where there is great competition for nutrients is weaker and more susceptible to disease.
Jay Harrod with The Nature Conservancy said scientists blame the dense growth of trees on a major outbreak beginning in the late 1990 s of red oak borer beetle that killed an estimated 1. 2 million acres of red oaks.
“That really woke those scientists up,” Harrod said.
A thinner forest lets in more light so native plants and grasses can grow and provide food and cover for animals. Such forests provide habitats for endangered species like the red cockaded woodpecker, the Indiana bat and the American burying beetle, Harrod said.
On several of the demonstration areas near Hector, where the effects of controlled burns are being studied, the managers have seen an increase in plant and animal diversity and numbers.
As the Forest Service increases the number of acres it burns each year, officials say they are becoming more concerned about safety and smoke.
Roger Fryar, assistant fire team leader for the Forest Service, said officials work closely with the National Weather Service and other agencies to determine the right conditions for a burn that will be safe for workers and keep smoke from drifting into urban areas.
“We’re getting better and better at this,” Blaney said.
Other partners of the forest restoration project are the Arkansas Forestry Commission, National Wild Turkey Federation, Quail Unlimited, loggers and many private landowners, Harrod said.