Western Mass. Blaze Serves As Reminder Of State's 'Rich History' Of Wildfire
Amid scorched tree trunks, crews from MassWildlife survey the recently burned forest in Leverett, MA. Daniel Ackerman / for GBH News
By Daniel Ackerman, September 8, 2020
On June 24, John Ingram, the Fire Chief of Leverett, Mass., got a call from a resident who noticed a plume of smoke rising from the forest on nearby Joshua Hill. “From the first crews on the scene, we knew it was going to be a pretty large incident,” said Ingram. In the coming days, that fire would grow to consume a 56-acre tract of forest, slightly larger than Boston Common. “It was just impressive to see how much area was burned,” said Ingram.
Compared to arid western states like California, wildfires in Massachusetts are few and far between. But they do happen. This summer has been an especially active wildfire season by Massachusetts standards—the Leverett blaze was one of more than 800 ignitions documented so far, thanks in part to drought conditions across the state. While fire has always been part of New England’s ecology, some experts expect climate change to prime the pump for more wildfire in the future. “We should live with it and understand how it works and manage it,” says Boston University ecologist Pamela Templer.
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LANDFIRE Remap Marks Major Improvements for Essential Resource Management Dataset
Release Date: July 29, 2020
Rick Stratton of the USDA Forest Service remembers life before LANDFIRE.
A fire would ignite, setting Stratton and his fellow fire analysts to work gathering data on slope, elevation, weather conditions and vegetation types in hopes of modeling where the fire might go and how large it might get.
Graphic showing LF Remap GeoAreas.
If the fire was contained within a National Park or other well-studied area, the vegetation data were easier to come by. If it moved outside well-mapped boundaries, however, Stratton and his colleagues spent days cobbling together disparate sources of information on vegetation and fuels to do the job—time that fire crews didn’t have to spare.
LANDFIRE’s first release in 2005 put an end to those desperate days. It offered consistent data on vegetation and fuels from one end of the country to the other for the first time, and quickly became indispensable.
Results came faster, models improved, treatments grew more useful.
“And every year, LANDFIRE improves,” Stratton said. “It’s one of the greatest success stories in our realm that I’ve ever been a part of. It’s like milk, gas, or electricity for us—it’s essential to what we do.”
This week, the multi-agency partnership released the most significant upgrade in its 15-year history—the most comprehensive land cover dataset the partners have ever produced. The LANDFIRE Remap for the conterminous U.S. (CONUS) includes new national base maps across the product suite, as well as a promise of improved accuracy and ease of use for what has become one of the most widely-cited data sources in the Nation, both in and outside of the fire science community.
USGS Landsat satellite data, light detection and ranging (lidar) data and over 1 million ground control plots were used to create base maps that reflect 2016 conditions.
The time had come for an update, according to Henry Bastian, the LANDFIRE Business Lead for the Department of the Interior. LANDFIRE products are refreshed periodically to reflect changes on the landscape consistently across all data layers, but each version had been built atop the original base maps from c2001.
“It’s kind of like your wedding picture,” Bastian said. “When you first get married, you get that picture taken. That’s what LANDFIRE National did. Now it’s 15, 16, 17 years later and you need to take a new picture, because there are probably some kids that have been added and a few other things that have changed. LANDFIRE was at the point in time where we needed to take that new picture. Now, that new picture can start to show us what has changed and what’s important.”
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The Challenge:
Managing wildfires in Wisconsin requires a collaborative effort among agencies and communities to reduce the risk to lives and property. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WI DNR) protects half the state’s lands, and local fire departments protect the other half. Over the last 30 years, WI DNR averaged about 1,200 fires each year that burned an average of 3,200 acres on the lands they protect. Spring is their primary fire season when about two-thirds of their fires happen. Burning debris on a property owner’s land is the primary cause of wildfires in Wisconsin. Dumping yard debris along roadways and on public lands, including National Forests, is a contributing fire risk factor there. There are 1,800 municipalities within Wisconsin and 574 of them are on the state’s Communities At Risk list which tracks places at higher risk of wildfires.
The Solution:
The sheer number of communities on the list and limited staffing prevents forest managers from working with all the at-risk communities. In turn, WI DNR picks the highest risk communities to work with on a Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) or to become a recognized Firewise USA site to reduce fire risk and prepare for fires. Both are national programs that require community involvement in the program to reduce their risk. WI DNR used a $178,000 USDA Forest Service Eastern Region cooperative forestry assistance grant along with staff hours and matching services to complete fuels reduction projects around targeted communities at higher risk from wildfire. Firewise and CWPP partners provided local match by contributing volunteer labor, town employee time and equipment usage, and sometimes a cash contribution.
Resulting Benefits:
Between 2017-2019, 29 projects were completed in Firewise sites and municipalities with a Community Wildfire Protection Plan. All locations were within or adjacent to the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. About 4,790 acres received hazardous fuels reduction treatment in all. Fire department members and WI DNR staff offered home ignition zone assessments to property owners. Brush collection sites were created and maintained to give residents a place to take their leaves and woody debris instead of dumping it on the National Forest or burning it and potentially starting a wildfire. Roadside brush chipping was offered to various homeowner associations. Roadside right-of-way brush/small tree removal projects were also completed. In 2019, a summer storm left thousands of acres of broken and downed trees on and near the National Forest. Grant funds made it possible to assist these community partners with the reduction of this fuel load.
The Forest Service funding served to:
- Reduce hazardous fuels on the landscape;
- Decrease debris burning and dumping on public lands;
- Increase community awareness of the fire risk, and;
- Enhance the partnerships with the WI DNR, Forest Service and local fire departments and communities.
Sharing Success:
Educational postcards and newsletters were created and mailed to property owners to inform them about forest fire hazards and how to mitigate those hazards, availability of brush collection sites, Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) accomplishments, and other local interest articles. One newsletter created in 2018 for the Town of Washington was sent to every property owner in the town. Washington CWPP working group members wrote the articles to highlight the work being done in the town to reduce wildfire risks and make residents aware of the brush collection site.
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Regional Drought Updates
Northeast Drought Information
Midwest Drought Information
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Nominations Requested for the 2021 Wildfire Mitigation Awards
The Wildfire Mitigation Awards are jointly sponsored by NASF, the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC), the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), and the USDA Forest Service. The program includes three awards: (1) the National Wildfire Mitigation Award, (2) the National Mitigation Hero Award, and (3) the Wildfire Mitigation Legacy Award.
Effective community fire adaptation efforts can take many shapes. Creating a local mitigation coalition, implementing community wildfire protection plans, conducting community-wide assessments, promoting defensible space and home hardening, treating for hazardous fuels, and engaging fire departments and building code officials to reduce wildfire risk are ALL great examples of wildfire mitigation work.
You can submit a nomination and view the nomination guidelines and selection criteria here on NASF’s website. Please note: the nominations deadline is November 13, 2020.
Have questions? Please contact Meghan Marklewitz at meghan@iafc.org or (703) 896-4839.
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NOTABLE UPCOMING EVENTS
September 15-17, 2020: Prescribed Fire Science Workshop [North Atlantic Fire Science Exchange]: 3-day intensive workshop
September 21-22, 24-25, 29, 2020: NE RSC Wildland Fire Management Tools Webinar Series [LANDFIRE, NE-MW Wildfire Risk Assessment and Portal, InFORM]
September 30, 2020: Prescribed Fire: Forest History and Today’s Implementation [Minnesota webinar sponsored by Dovetail Partners]
October 28, 2020 – 1-4 pm EDT: The Cohesive Strategy in 2020: Dynamic Adaptation in a Novel World
COHESIVE STRATEGY WORKSHOP MOVES TO 2021
After careful consideration we've made the decision to postpone the 4th National Cohesive Wildland Fire Strategy Workshop to 2021.
It will be held in Asheville, North Carolina on October 4-8, 2021.
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Meetings and Trainings
Regional
September 15 - 17, 2020: Prescribed Fire Science Workshop [North Atlantic Fire Science Exchange]: 3-day intensive workshop
September 21-22, 24-25, 29, 2020: NE RSC Wildland Fire Management Tools Webinar Series
September 30, 2020: Virtual and Interactive Workshop on Prescribed Fire: Forest History and Today’s Implementation
Fueling Collaboration Panel Discussion Series - REGISTER
- Pairing Historical Fire Regimes with Silvicultural Practices - November 19, 2020 at 12 - 1:30 PM Eastern
- Using Fire Seasonality to Open the Burn Window - December 17, 2020 at 12 - 1:30 PM Eastern
- Fire and a Changing Climate - January 21, 2021 at 12 – 1:30 PM Eastern
- Timber Management and Prescribed Fire - February 18, 2021 at 12 - 1:30 PM Eastern
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The Northeast Regional Strategy Committee (NE RSC) delivers articles and stories each month that demonstrate the collaborative efforts of agencies, organizations and communities supporting and promoting the three goals of the Cohesive Strategy: Restoring Resilient Landscapes, Creating Fire Adapted Communities and Responding to Wildfire.
This news update is our primary communication tool with our partners and the public. Looking for more Northeast Region Cohesive Strategy information or past published news update issues? Go to: http://northeasternwildfire.net
| GOT NEWS? Does your agency, organization or community have a wildland fire management project or event you'd like to see featured in the NE RSC News Update? Tell us about it! Submissions should be sent by the end of each month to appear in the next monthly issue. Just email to Larry Mastic. |
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