Wilderness and Fire Embracing complexity (and uncertainty) Applying Wilderness Science in the real world

Wilderness Act DEFINITION OF WILDERNESS (c) A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain. An area of wilderness is further defined to mean in this Act an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man's work substantially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation; (3) has at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value.

“untrammeled by man”… “affected primarily by the forces of nature”

Beaverjack 2005

Magruder with 2005 Beaverjack fire

August 10 to Sept 8, 2005

Assessing Risk

Risk Management - Accountability HIGH High Moderate Low Personal experience with fire use Comfort with uncertainty Professional Liability Insurance limits Proximity to retirement High Moderate Low High Moderate Low LOW HIGH Public Acceptance or support for WFRB Support / understanding of your Supervisor HIGHLOW Relative Risk Rating from guidebook LOW High

July Gold Pan

1630 July 21

ISPAM July 26 th

July 27

Gold Pan Fire Complex Programmatic/Cost Fire Review Bitterroot National Forest, U.S. Forest Service Objective of this Review The primary objective of these Programmatic/Cost Fire Reviews is to evaluate and document risk management decision processes and actions taken on incidents and their direct or indirect effect on costs. The review and objective analysis provides recommendations to management for incident- specific and programmatic process improvements based on comprehensive analysis of incident documentation. This allows for improvement of program performance, operations, evaluation of costs, and facilitates the application of focused improvements. In addition, the reviews provide an opportunity to evaluate the clarity of communication of the Chief’s Leader Intent and the effectiveness of implementation in the field. The results of the reviews provide information crucial to the well-established learning environment and continued improvement in fire management in the U.S. Forest Service.

Review outcomes Although this was a wilderness incident, and may be perceived as expensive, the overall outcome had many successes. The outcome of this fire was at a lower than average cost per acre for past wilderness fire’s on the Forest. There also was a close attention to sound risk management with no major injuries or death, many acres treated, and contingency barriers in place for future incidents which contributed to the overall success.

Future Challenges Get better at telling the story – of wilderness as a self regulating system “A fire put out is a fire put off” (Stephen Pyne) Risk Aversion in agency decision makers – Many decision makers are new – the first rodeo is the hardest Elevating decision making away from qualified field personnel (choosing political vs. resource risk to manage) Smaller Wilderness areas – fire doesn’t respect boundaries….

More Challenges Making Agencies more adept with changing media, Twitter, Facebook, the next big thing Climate Change – tell the story of fire adaptation Finding inspiration – encouragement for taking the right risks

Aldo Leopold Thinking Like a Mountain We all strive for safety, prosperity, comfort, long life, and dullness. The deer strives with his supple legs, the cowman with trap and poison, the statesman with pen, the most of us with machines, votes, and dollars, but it all comes to the same thing: peace in our time. A measure of success in this is all well enough, and perhaps is a requisite to objective thinking, but too much safety seems to yield only danger in the long run

Fires call of the wild – Stephen Pyne The 40th Anniversary celebration was a modest affair, three people and a pilot in a 182 aircraft flying a reconnaissance back through time as they viewed countless fire perimeters of earlier free- burning fires. One of the passengers on the July 2 flight was fire historian Steve Pyne who opined in a later essay: “If Americans had a National Register of Historic Places for fire, the Selway-Bitterroot region would rank among the early entries.” The White Cap project was the brainchild of Bud Moore who commented one day: “The Wilderness Act says that natural processes should proceed. While in light of that, to put out a fire was almost illegal.” Recently a journal article by University of Montana professors Casey Teske, Carl A. Seielstad, and Lloyd P. Queen concluded in a study of satellite maps of fires in the Bob Marshall, Selway-Bitterroot, and Frank Church-River of No Return wildernesses that past fires were regulating the size of new fires; confirming what many witnesses had observed over the years.