Smokey Says: " Only You!"
75 years of wildfire prevention 2018's Maple Fire near Hamma Hamma, believed caused by carelessness, burned over 1500 acres. The fire burned until winter rains finally extinguished the flames. As summer approaches, the choking air still raw in residents' minds, aprehension grows as to what the 2019 season bodes . With help from local agencies and Smokey Bear, anthropologist, Stella Wenstob, deconstructs the history behind "forest fires," wildfires," and how we can affect change on the disturbing statistics.
Maple Fire, Olympic National Forest photo
By Stella Wenstob There is truth to the old adage, “fighting fire, with fire.� Not only is it a good fire suppression technique, as it eliminates fuel from the path of future fires, it also creates a more biodynamic forest. Many plants and trees found within the Olympic National Forest rely on fire for promoting growth by reintroducing nutrients to the soil through ash, and opening up sunlight to the forests’ understory. Douglas Fir, Pseudotsuga menziesii, a predominant tree in the Pacific Northwest has specially adapted bark that tolerates extreme heat from burns, allowing Douglas Fir to be one of the first plants to recolonize the landscape after a fire.
Before European settlement, Native Americans had established practices of fire management to shape the landscape. Their controlled burns cleared meadow areas for important root crops such as camas and opened up the forest floor allowing sun-loving berry bushes to flourish. They also used low-impact burning to encourage fresh growth of useful plants such as beargrass used in basketry. Fire management also supported hunting as new green shoots would attract grazing animals such as deer, elk and bears. This regular burning discouraged lightning fires from occurring as the accumulation of volatile forest floor surfaces made up of dry twigs, needles and leaves (often called duff) would be minimal since they were regularly burnt away leaving a fairly fire resistant surface behind. According to Kay (2000) the whole natural landscape of North America (not just Washington State) was carefully maintained by Native American burns such as these, and the mid-century practice of non-interventionist forest
management, which discouraged controlled burns, has been more harmful to the forests biodiversity and has likely fostered a greater flammability of the forest. Since the Olympic National Forest was established in 1938, lightning has accounted for starting about half of the fires and is responsible for almost two thirds of the total burned acreage. Conversely human-caused fires have covered less area, but they have been more frequent. This is likely because human caused fires are usually detected and doused more quickly than lightning strike fires, which often burn in remote locations for quite a while before they are spotted. The longest running public service advertising campaign in the U.S. has been combatting this problem of human caused fires for 75-years. The Smokey Bear Wildfire Prevention campaign began during the Second World War in 1944 when most able bodied men were away fighting and the threat of wildfires could not be easily put out. It was also feared that enemy incen-
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