Assignment task:
Frequent, low-severity fires (often caused by lighting) were the norm in many dry forests across the Western United States, prior to Euro-America settlement. These fires kept accumulated fuels, such as fallen branches and dead trees, to a minimum. They cleared out many younger, smaller trees while older trees in these fire-adapted ecosystems developed thick bark that protected them from the heat of periodic fires.
A century of ardent fire suppression, as well 20 years of declining timber harvest, have left many Western forests over-stocked with small trees competing for water. Add drought to the mix and the trees become even more vulnerable to insect outbreak. Forests of stressed trees surrounded by heavy fuel loads are vulnerable to wildfires that are hotter and larger than would have burned historically.
The philosophy behind forest management in the United States has evolved over time. Sixty years ago, federal forests were primarily seen as a source of timber. Today, they are managed to provide a range of benefits to society, including recreation, timber, water, and wildlife habitat. It is recognized that fire plays a critical role in nature, serving as an agent of change and renewal. Given current conditions in many forests across the West, however, it is generally thought that some treatment is needed to help restore beneficial fire to the ecosystem. Without intervention, current fuel loads leave many areas at increased risk of catastrophic fire.
In the Westmount area, Euro-American settlers changed the historic fire regime in several interrelated ways. The nature of vegetation (fuel) changed because of land use practices such as homesteading, livestock grazing, agriculture, water development, mining, and road construction. Livestock grazing reduced the amount of fine fuels such as grasses and forbs, which carried low-intensity fire across the landscape. Mining activities lead to large scale deforestation and removal of individual stands that formed the historical forest mosaic. Homogeneous stands of same-aged lodgepole replaced these diverse stands and then fell under decades of fire exclusion management policies. Today these aging contiguous stands lack species diversity and are very susceptible to widespread infestation.
The removal of the natural vegetation also facilitates the invasion of nonindigenous grasses and forbs, some of which create more flammable fuel beds than their native predecessors. In addition, more than a century of fire-suppression policy has resulted in large accumulations of surface and canopy fuels in western forests and brushlands. Fuel loads also increased as forests and brushlands encroached into grasslands as a result of fire exclusion. This increase in fuel loading and continuity has created hazardous situations for public safety and fire management, especially when found in proximity to communities. These hazardous conditions will require an array of mitigative tools, including prescribed fire and thinning treatments.