Your National Forests Spring/Fall 2017

YOUR NATIONAL

The Magazine of the National Forest Foundation

Summer | Fall 2017

Drawn to Flame WOMEN FIREFIGHTERS

Living With Fire COMMUNITIES AND FIRE

Smokey Through the Ages THE ICONIC BEAR IN ART AND IMAGE

Board of Directors Executive Committee Craig Barrett, NFF Chair Retired, CEO/Chairman of the Board, Intel Corporation (AZ) Lee Fromson, NFF Treasurer Executive Vice President, Products & Operations, Simms Fishing Products (MT) Timothy P. Schieffelin, NFF Secretary President, P.O.V., LLC (CT) Caroline Choi Vice President, Integrated Planning & Environmental Affairs, Southern California Edison (CA) Peter Foreman Sirius LP (IL) Rick Frazier President & Chief Operating Officer, Heartland Coca-Cola Bottling Co. (GA)

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n May 26, Bill Possiel handed the reins of the NFF over to Mary Mitsos, bringing to a close a highly successful nineteenyear tenure leading the organization.

On behalf of hundreds of partners, communities, funders, and the U.S. Forest Service, the NFF Board of Directors congratulates Bill on his success.

He refocused the organization on broader partnerships and programs, and he strengthened the NFF’s relationship immeasurably with its primary partner, the U.S. Forest Service. Bill grew the NFF from one staff person in 1998 to today’s team of 27 highly capable and dedicated professionals in 11 locations. Through all of this, Bill maintained and shared widely his passion for public lands, for healthy forests, and for the public’s ever greater understanding of these treasured places.

It is with appreciation and respect that we dedicate this issue of Your National Forests to Bill Possiel. The topic of fire is something well familiar to him; we can take it as symbolic of the challenges the National Forests face, challenges which Bill always strived to meet creatively and doggedly. Thank you, Bill, for your service and leadership.

—NFF Board of Directors

Board of Directors David Bell, Chairman, Gyro, LLC (NY) Mike Brown, Jr., General Partner, Bowery Capital (NY) Coleman Burke, President, Waterfront Properties (NY) Aimée Christensen, CEO, Christensen Global Strategies; Founding Executive Director, Sun Valley Institute for Resilience (ID) Robert Cole, Partner, Collins Cockrel & Cole, P.C. (CO) J. Alexander M. Douglas, Jr., Executive Vice President, The Coca-Cola Company and President, Coca-Cola North America (GA) Bart Eberwein, Executive Vice President, Hoffman Construction Company (OR) Robert Feitler, Chairman of the Executive Committee, Weyco Group, Inc. (IL) Barry Fingerhut, CEO/Owner, Certification Partners, LLC (AZ) Beth Ganz, Vice President, Public Affairs & Sustainability, Vail Resorts Management Company (CO) Roje S. Gootee, Co-Owner & Manager, Rush Creek Ranch, LLC (OR) James K. Hunt (WY) Andie MacDowell, Actress & Spokesperson (CA) Thomas McHenry, Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher (CA) Jeff Paro, President & CEO, Outdoor Sportsman Group (NY) Patricia Hayling Price, President, LiveWorkStrategize, LLC (NY) Mary Smart (NY) Thomas Tidwell, Ex-Officio, Chief, U.S. Forest Service (DC) Chad Weiss, Managing Director, JOG Capital Inc. (WY) James Yardley, Retired, Executive Vice President, El Paso Corporation (TX)

welcome letter Our Shared Mission

By Mary Mitsos

I

t is an honor and a privilege to write to you as the new president of the National Forest Foundation. I am grateful to the NFF Board for its confidence in me, and I am grateful to you—our readers— for your interest in our National Forests and Grasslands. This is truly shared work.

This magazine’s title, Your National Forests, could just as easily be a motto for all we do, because these amazing places truly are yours. As Americans, we all have a stake in our forests’ health and productivity, in their ability to host abundant wildlife and millions of eager visitors, and in their role as providers of clean water and air.

One of the most challenging forest issues we have to address is uncontrolled wildfire – the theme of this issue. I hope as you read these stories, you will gain a deeper understanding of how each of us is part of the solution to achieving healthy, resilient forests.

While fire is natural and actually essential to many of our forests (see pages 10-11), a century of fire suppression combined with a warming climate and a significant increase in private development adjacent to our public forests have made fire’s impact more acute. Five of the largest wildfire seasons since record-keeping began in the 1960s (as measured by acres burned) have occurred in the past decade.

As more Americans move next to forests and wildlands, the costs of battling fire have risen dramatically as the agency struggles

to protect life and property.

As a longtime resident of the beautiful Bitterroot Valley south of Missoula, MT, I have seen these impacts up close.

As we enter “fire season,” the Forest Service begins its annual highwire act of fighting these blazes while simultaneously trying to fulfill other aspects of its mission such as improving ecosystems, ensuring healthy watersheds, managing diverse wildlife habitat, and welcoming 170 million annual visitors onto the lands it manages. Twenty years ago, fighting fires required 16 percent of the agency’s annual budget; today, it consumes 52 percent. This leaves the agency strapped from year to year, starved for the funds needed to do the upfront work to make our forests resilient.

In this issue, you’ll meet some of the men and women who fight these wildfires. You will also learn how the National Forest Foundation and its partners restore places affected by fire and other threats. You will see how the Forest Service is using prescribed fire to help avoid uncontrolled wildfire and how communities and homeowners

are proactively dealing with fire as a neighbor.

My greatest hope, though, is that you will be reminded that these Forests are your birthright.

They are places of national significance worthy of our best efforts to ensure they endure for generations to come. I look forward to keeping you abreast of the NFF’s work to accomplish that mission, a mission we can only fulfill with your help. Thank you for being part of the NFF family.

I hope you will stay in touch with your questions, ideas and support.

Summer | Fall 2017

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inside

this edition

Our shared mission

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Where in the Woods?

How well can you identify your National Forests?

features

4

Forests by the Numbers

5

Kids and Nature

6

Field Reports

8

Forest News

Sky-rocketing wildfire costs

Campfire safety for the youngest campers

16

The critical roles women play in wildland firefighting

The NFF helps restore trails after fire

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National Forests debut on T.V. Is a forest near you in the path of totality?

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Drawn to Flame

Living With Fire Tactics and resources for living where fire dominates the landscape

Tree Spotlight How trees survive fire

12

Treasured Landscapes The diverse ways fire affects our Treasured Landscapes

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Unforgettable Experiences Pizza on a campfire and elegant s’mores

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Where in the Woods?

Did you guess the forest?

30

Smokey Through the Ages Smokey Bear from the 1940s to today

on the cover AmeriCorps member working on the Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forest in March, 2015. ŠAaron Colussi Photography

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Your National Forests

Photos: Kristen Honig, National Interagency Fire Center, Smokey Bear images used with the permission of the USDA Forest Service

1 Welcome Letter

where in the woods This National Forest is home to the highest peak in the lower 48.

See page 32 for answer.

Photo: USFS

National Forest Foundation Building 27, Suite 3 Fort Missoula Road Missoula, Montana 59804 406.542.2805

®2017 National Forest Foundation.

No unauthorized reproduction of this material is allowed.

Your National Forests magazine is printed on recycled paper with 30% post-consumer content. This magazine’s use of FSC certified paper ensures the highest environmental and social standards have been followed in the wood sourcing, paper manufacturing and print production of this magazine. To learn more log on to www.fsc.org.

Your National Forests

The Magazine of the National Forest Foundation Editor-in-Chief Greg M. Peters Contributors Caterin Edgeley, Luba Mullen, Greg M. Peters, Spencer Plumb, Dayle Wallien Graphic Artist Marci Mansfield, Mansfield Communications

National Forest Foundation

President Mary Mitsos Executive Vice President Ray A. Foote Edward Belden Southern California Program Manager Austen Bernier White Mountain National Forest Community Engagement Coordinator Sherée Bombard Director, Administration Kim Carr Director, California Program Rebecca Davidson Director, Southern Rockies Region Karen DiBari Director, Conservation Connect Hannah Ettema Digital Communications Coordinator Dorian Fougères California Program Manager Robin Hill Controller Ben Irey Conservation Connect Associate Adam Liljeblad Director, Conservation Awards Zia Maumenee Conservation Programs Officer Luba Mullen Associate Director, Development Emily Olsen Colorado Program Manager Marlee Ostheimer Philanthropy & Partnerships Coordinator Greg M. Peters Director, Communications Spencer Plumb Southern Rockies Program Associate Lee Quick Accountant Patrick Shannon Director, Pacific Northwest Program Emily Struss Event Planner & Coordinator Marcus Selig Vice President, Field Programs Mark Shelley Director, Eastern Region Deborah Snyder Development Services Manager Wes Swaffar Director, Ecosystem Services Dayle Wallien Director, Conservation Partnerships

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forests by the numbers

S

ince the establishment of the U.S. Forest Service in 1905, fire has played an integral role in how the agency has pursued its mission. From the Big Burn of 1910 to the Yellowstone Fires of the 1980s, fire has been a dominant theme across the 193 million acres managed by the Forest Service. In the last 20 years, however, driven by a complicated mix of factors, fire has consumed more and more of our National Forests and more of the Forest Service’s budget. This means the agency has less money for the other critical aspects of its mission like watershed and forest health, recreation and managing wildlife habitat. Here’s a look at some numbers that help illustrate this unfortunate trend. (Facts from 2015 USFS Report, “The Rising Cost of Wildfire Operations” and the National Interagency Fire Center [nifc.gov]).

2015: $1,713,000,000 Amount of money the Forest Service spends fighting fire annually.

1995: $367,000,000

1995:

2015:

16%

52%

Portion of Forest Service budget allocated for fire management.

2015: 12,000 1995: 5,500

1995: 1,840,546 acres

2015: 10,125,149 acres

Acreage burned by wildfire across the country (not just National Forests).

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Your National Forests

U.S. Forest Service staff dedicated to managing/fighting fire.

kids and nature

Keeping Caveman Television Safe

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athering twigs for kindling, crumpling old newspaper just right, debating the merits of tee-pee versus log cabin, and then the soft crackle and warm light – “caveman television” may be the best part of camping. There are few aspects of a night in the woods that light (metaphorically and literally) children’s eyes like a small fire contentedly blazing away in a fire pit.

But campfires are, quite literally, on fire, and that can present a unique set of dangers for young campers. The following safety tips will ensure your children learn how to respect fire while enjoying this oldest form of entertainment.

Buy it where you burn it Even the seemingly simple act of procuring your firewood can offer an opportunity to teach your kids some valuable lessons. Firewood can harbor invasive pests that can wreak havoc on forests, so be sure the firewood you bring into the forest is local. How? Avoid buying wood from large chains like grocery and box stores as the wood they sell is often transported across the country. Instead, buy from local stores or the campground itself (many have firewood for sale, but you may want to call first). In the central and eastern U.S., you can buy USDA-certified “heat treated” firewood that is bug free. If you have sourcing questions about the wood you’re planning buy, ask the store. If they don’t know, try to find a different source. You can also check out dontmovefirewood.org for other

helpful tips. Please don’t cut limbs or chop down trees at the campground; it’s damaging to trees and just plain ugly. Picking up small sticks and twigs is a great way for kids to participate in helping procure local wood for your fire.

Set a perimeter Kids are curious. It’s a fact every parent knows. But they’re not always great at knowing where they are in relation to things around them. Take a stick and draw a circle in the dirt around the fire ring that keeps them from getting too close.

Have an especially precocious youngster? Threaten to withhold s’mores for those kids who repeatedly violate the safe space.

Discourage playing around a fire and be sure to clear rocks and branches away from the fire ring so kids don’t accidentally trip and fall into the ring.

Keep the blaze small Sure, a big bonfire is fun. But as it cranks up the heat, it also cranks up the danger quotient. Burning embers can scorch clothes and skin, and if it’s windy, they can even spark a wildfire. Protect your kids (and the forest) by keeping your fire on the small side.

Douse, Stir and Feel When you’re done with the fire – for the night or for the day – be sure to follow Smokey’s advice to “Douse, Stir and Feel” your campfire before you leave.

It’s a great way for kids to help

and learn responsible campfire behavior for themselves. Grab a bucket (you brought one right?), have your kids fill it with water and help them pour it on the fire.

Arm them with a stick to help stir the embers to make sure they’re all exposed to the water. Then help your kids put their hands a few inches above the doused embers to feel for heat. This will ensure your fire doesn’t escape and start a wildfire.

Go without Sometimes, just going without a fire is a great option. Especially later in the summer season, when forests are dry or if you’re at a dispersed camping site and there’s not a fire ring. Watch the stars come out. Check the phase of the moon. Listen for owls and other night birds. Fire is great, but sometimes not having a fire opens up new adventures and possibilities.

Greg M. Peters is the NFF’s Director of Communications.

Reach him at gpeters@ nationalforests.org.

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field

reports

When Fighting Fire Gets Messy, NFF Helps Clean up Trails

Photo: USDA

F

ighting wildfire is a messy business. Even after the fire is controlled, the impacts can extend far from the burn scar itself. One firecontrol technique, the building of firebreaks, can be especially tough on the land.

Firebreaks are areas where firefighters remove vegetation in the path of an advancing fire, thus starving a fire of fuel and containing it. Depending on the location and size of the break, firefighters use a mix of hand tools and heavy equipment to literally scrape vegetation from the ground to build the firebreak.

Sometimes firefighters expand an existing gap in vegetation like a road or a trail to create a firebreak.

This is an efficient way to help control a wildfire, but can leave recreation infrastructure badly damaged and needing repair. Firefighting budgets don’t typically extend to post-fire restoration, especially

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Your National Forests

for recreation assets like trails. Fortunately, the NFF supports groups like the Siskiyou Mountain Club in Oregon through our Matching Award Program so they can tackle this important work.

The 2015 Buckskin Fire damaged significant portions of the Kalmiopsis Wilderness in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, including portions of the popular Kalmiopsis Rim Trail, a 48-mile loop through the Wilderness Area. This Wilderness is popular with horse packers and hikers as it accesses some of the most wild, remote terrain in southwest Oregon.

Last October, a combined crew of six youth and four volunteers spent ten days restoring 1.5 miles of the Kalmiopsis Rim Trail that was severely damaged by fire suppression efforts. The crew restored the trail while also rehabilitating additional portions of the firebreak that had not been effectively restored.

They also cleaned up a campsite and maintained eight miles of trail leading to the project site. While 1.5 miles of trail repair over ten days of work may not seem like a lot, the crews reported that the trail was almost entirely buried by downed trees, brush, slash and other remnants of the firefighting effort.

Removing all of that material is a labor intensive job that requires grit and perseverance, of which this crew had plenty.

field

reports

Leader Team Restores Trail Access in Fire-Affected Wilderness

T

he Student Conservation Association (SCA) has been training youth in conservation for decades. Since 1957, more than 75,000 youth have provided more than 28 million hours of hands-on service to benefit the environment.

Photo: Student Conservation Association

While much of the work is basic trail maintenance, SCA has special “leader teams” that tackle some of the more challenging trail projects each fall.

These crews take on the toughest, most remote trail projects that require specialized skills with hand tools, rock work and other trail building techniques.

With an NFF grant, one of these leader teams recently rehabilitated trails in the remote Black Canyon Wilderness Area on central Oregon’s Ochoco National Forest. This 13,400-acre Wilderness provides habitat for more than 300 species of wildlife, including black bear, mountain lion, deer, elk and rattlesnakes. Known for its steep canyons and even steeper trails, the Black Canyon Wilderness is quiet and peaceful – the perfect spot to find solitude. The Wilderness has also seen recent wildfires that left trails virtually unpassable with downed logs, debris and other hazards.

The SCA leader team spent three weeks in September 2016 in the Black Canyon Wilderness, tackling complicated trail restoration on an impressive 13 miles of trails. The crew addressed seven miles of the Black Canyon Trail, a critical trail that bisects the Wilderness along with three “feeder trails” that provide access to the Black Canyon Trail.

Because Black Canyon is an official Wilderness Area, crews had to use hand tools like crosscut saws, shovels and axes to clear the trail. Cross-cutting giant logs all day (one log has to be cut into 24-inch sections so that it can be moved safely) is tiring work, but these leaders proved up to the task.

In addition to clearing and rehabilitating the trail, the crew used the cut logs to help prevent illegal motorized access into the Wilderness, ensuring the experience of a place “untrammeled by man” that users expect. The skills the leader team developed and refined on this project will be employed when the team members lead other SCA crews in subsequent field seasons, adding yet more value to this project.

C O R P O R AT E PA R T N E R For the past five years, the NFF and Coca-Cola have worked together to restore watersheds across our National Forests and Grasslands. By investing in these watershed restoration projects, Coca-Cola has helped return more than one billion liters of water essential to healthy natural systems.

Summer | Fall 2017

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forest news Photo: Chip Ward

And the Emmy Goes to….

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here’s no doubt that National Forests and Grasslands are photogenic. Just check out our Instagram feed (instagram.com/ nationalforests) for a jaw-dropping collection of snapshots from National Forests across the country. Hollywood has used National Forest settings for major blockbusters too. The Hunger Games, Dances With Wolves and A River Runs Through It were shot on the Pisgah, Black Hills and Gallatin National Forests, respectively.

But few productions have focused on the National Forests themselves.

At least until now.

National Forests are finally getting their own time in the spotlight through two PBS shows currently airing on stations across the country.

Through a partnership with the NFF and the U.S. Forest Service, PBS personality Darley Newman, host of the popular PBS shows Equitrekking and Travels with Darley, is bringing her storytelling skills and active spirit to National Forests and Grasslands across the country.

Darley first visited the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest in Wyoming and Colorado and the Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming for one of the episodes that is currently airing. Join her as she enjoys waffles on a mountain 10,000 feet high, rides a mountain bike and a horse, volunteers for some trail work and watches surfers catch the famous Lunch Counter wave on the Snake River.

Then catch up with Darley as she explores Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie in Illinois. At

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Your National Forests

Midewin, Darley meets Bill Glass, Midewin’s restoration ecologist, helps harvest native prairie seeds and, yes, rides a horse (you can’t expect the host of Equitrekking to skip a horse ride!). Darley will be producing more shows featuring National Forests and Grasslands in 2018, so stay tuned to your local PBS station to watch the episodes. You can also visit travelswithdarley.com to see previews and full episodes.

Another show featuring National Forests recently made its debut on PBS. America’s Forests with Chuck Leavell aired its first episode this past April. Rock and Roll fans may recognize Chuck Leavell’s name; he’s been a keyboardist for the Rolling Stones for many years. He’s also a tree farmer and a big fan of National Forests.

The first episode offers an in-depth look into Oregon’s forests and the next episode will feature Colorado’s forests and recreation opportunities.

Choose Outdoors, which runs the Capitol Christmas Tree tour (see Your National Forests, Winter-Spring 2017 for a story about the tree), is a leading partner in America’s Forests with Chuck Leavell. Check out the Oregon episode and learn more about the show at americasforestswithchuckleavell.com.

It’s our opinion that the National Forests are well-deserving of these television appearances.

Anyone know how to get in touch with Ken Burns?

forest news Art: NASA

Day Turns to Night

T

here’s another star that will be making an appearance on National Forests across the country this summer – the sun. Well technically, it will be making a disappearance.

This August 21st, a total solar eclipse will arc its way from Oregon to South Carolina, delighting viewers with a unique opportunity to watch this rare event. Twelve states will be in the “path of totality,” which in addition to sounding like an action movie, is the route the eclipse will take across the nation. The last time a total solar eclipse graced America’s skies was in 1979, when Jimmy Carter was President.

Of course, you could likely catch the eclipse from your front lawn, but watching it from a National Forest would be even better. The eclipse will cross over dozens of National Forests, and many of them under the eclipse’s path are planning viewing events. If you’re in the eclipse’s path, check out your backyard forest’s Facebook page, website or just give the Forest Service a call. Forest fans who live near the Shawnee National Forest in Illinois will have an opportunity to get the longest view of the total eclipse of anyone in the country. At the precise location of 37o35’0”N, 89o7’0”W, on the eastern edge of the Shawnee, the total eclipse will last for 2 minutes, 41.6 seconds.

NASA has a great website (eclipse2017.nasa. gov) dedicated to the eclipse, complete with a map that shows the path of totality and dozens of different events across the country. Viewing this year’s total solar eclipse is a fun family activity, but you should take a few precautions: never look at the sun directly, even if it’s partially covered by the moon and never look at an eclipse through a camera or telescope without the right filters. For more info about the total solar eclipse and additional safety tips, visit nationalforests. org/2017eclipse.

Photo: Alamy Stock

C O R P O R AT E PA R T N E R Kenwood Vineyard’s motto is “The Wild is Calling.” Through an engaging tree-planting partnership, the Sonoma California wine maker is answering that call. Together with their customers, Kenwood has helped the NFF plant 50,000 trees on National Forests in need.

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tree spotlight

HOW TREES SURVIVE AND THRIVE AFTER A FIRE

By Luba Mullen

B

ig or small, gradual or sudden, change rhythmically punctuates human life.

In the natural world, change is just as intrinsic and pattern-based. Seasonal fluctuations in temperature, shifts in sun light, and natural disturbances, like fire, are all part of nature’s cycle.

Most people resist change, especially change they consider destructive.

Perhaps that’s why uncontrolled wildfires have been suppressed since the early 1900s. Fire can be damaging, and its effects certainly scar once verdant landscapes. But this destruction can also prove beneficial.

In recent decades, ecologists and land managers have realized more fully how important fire is to the natural patterns of many ecosystems.

This pattern, known as a “fire regime,” is different for each ecosystem.

Each fire regime is important to maintaining forest and grassland health, even if it seems harmful at first glance.

Of course, no species is adapted to live in fire itself, but animals and plants can adapt to a fire regime. A fire regime includes, among other things, fire frequency, fire intensity and patterns of fuel consumption. Plants have a distinct disadvantage, compared to animals, in the face of fires. They can’t run, fly, creep or crawl out of a fire’s path. But they have adapted to survive, and even depend on, regular fire.

From armoring themselves with thick bark to developing ways to protect precious seeds, trees have developed several fascinating adaptations in response to a predictable fire pattern.

Thick bark. Trees in fire-prone areas develop thicker bark, in part, because thick bark does not catch fire or burn easily. It also protects the inside of the trunk, the living tissues that transport water and nutrients, from heat damage during high-frequency, low-intensity fires. Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa, also commonly known as the bull pine, blackjack pine or western yellow pine) is a great example. This signature tree in the western United States has a thick and flaky bark, sometimes compared to pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, which perfectly withstands a low-intensity, surface fire. The species also drops lower branches as the trees grow older, which helps prevent fire from climbing up and burning the green needles higher up the tree.

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Your National Forests

tree spotlight Photo: Dr. Jeremy Stovall, Stephen F. Austin State University

Fire-induced sprouts. This fire-survival strategy allows for the complete destruction of above-ground growth. Typically, species that regenerate by re-sprouting after they’ve burned have an extensive root system. Dormant buds are protected underground, and nutrients stored in the root system allow quick sprouting after the fire. Shortleaf pine (Pinus echinata, also occasionally called southern yellow pine or the shortstraw pine) employ this technique.

Unfortunately, they are declining across their range in the southeastern United States. In the West, the California buckeye (Aesculus californica, also commonly known as California horse-chestnut) is another example of a species that sprouts after a fire.

Serotinous cones. In environments where hot, fast moving fires are frequent, some pine species have developed very thick, hard cones that are literally glued shut with a strong resin. These “serotinous” cones can hang on a pine tree for years, long after the enclosed seeds mature. Only when a fire sweeps through, melting the resin, do these heat-dependent cones open up, releasing seeds that are then distributed by wind and gravity. Examples of this fascinating trait of fire-stimulated seed dispersal include Jack pine (Pinus banksiana, also called grey pine and scrub pine) in the north central and northeastern United States and Table Mountain pine (Pinus pungens, also called hickory pine, prickly pine or mountain pine) that grows in dry, rocky sites in the Appalachian Mountains.

Lodgepole pines, ubiquitous across much of the West, are one of the first species to grow after a fire because of their serotinous cones.

Fire-activated seeds. As opposed to serotinous cones, which protect enclosed seeds during a fire, the actual seeds of many plants in fire-prone environments need fire, directly or indirectly, to germinate. These plants produce seeds with a tough coating that can lay dormant, awaiting a fire, for several years. Whether it is the intense heat of the fire, exposure to chemicals from smoke or exposure to nutrients in the ground after fire, these seeds depend on fire to break their dormancy. Notable examples of shrubs with this particular fire adaptation include Rhamnaceae (Buckthorn family, including Ceanothus, Coffeeberry, and Redberry) that grow in the California chaparral and other ecosystems of the American West.

A combination of factors has come to limit and alter historic fire regimes.

This has had a cascading effect on which species are present in certain ecosystems. Without the right kind of fire regimes, some trees simply can’t reproduce, and overall forest health can be negatively affected. At the same time, unnaturally severe fires can destroy forests, even those that have adapted to fire. Fortunately, land managers are realizing the value of re-introducing controlled fire in ecosystems where it existed historically, embracing it as a tool rather than fighting it as a threat. That’s a welcome change for the forests, trees and other plants that depend on fire to thrive.

Luba Mullen is the NFF’s Associate Director of Development based in Alexandria, VA. Together with her family, she enjoys exploring the greater Washington, DC area, marveling at the magic of trees. Reach her at lmullen@nationalforests.org.

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treasured landscapes

By Greg M. Peters

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Your National Forests

Photo: top: Sandra Friend, middle: USFS, bottom: Nicholas A. Tonelli

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cala National Forest’s longleaf pine savannahs.

Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie’s swaying wildflowers.

Pike National Forest’s sky-scraping Rocky Mountain peaks. These fascinating landscapes are as different from each other as French is from English or German from Korean. Or at least they seem that way.

treasured landscapes Photo: Coalition for Upper South Platte

If you’re a fan of the NFF, you’re probably familiar with these places. They are all sites in our longrunning Treasured Landscapes, Unforgettable Experiences conservation program. And yes, they do represent very different ecosystems and face diverse threats.

But aside from the NFF’s commitment to each and the fact that they are managed by the U.S. Forest Service as National Forests or Grasslands, they have something else in common: they’ve all been affected by fire.

Beginning with our very first Treasured Landscapes site, the Pike National Forest in Colorado, fire has played an integral role in both how we approach our conservation goals at these sites and how the Forest Service manages them.

Pike National Forest, Colorado Our work on the Pike was necessitated by fire. In 2002, the Hayman Fire raged across the Pike-San Isabel National Forests just 95 miles southwest of Denver. The arson-caused inferno became the largest wildfire in Colorado’s history and consumed 138,114 acres and 133 homes and cost nearly $40 million to fight.

In addition to being the backyard for millions of front-range residents, the Pike-San Isabel is also an important watershed for Denver and other frontrange communities. Massive fires, like the Hayman, wreak havoc on watersheds. Without trees and other vegetation to hold snowpack and to help slow and absorb rain water, the charred ground sloughs into creeks and rivers, polluting water reservoirs and affecting fisheries.

Early efforts following the fire started the healing process. New saplings and grass seeding helped slow the worst of the erosion and sedimentation that affected the watershed. But critical tributaries in the Upper South Platte River watershed were severely impacted by monsoon rains that followed the fire and required significant restoration years after the Hayman was snuffed out.

In 2009, the NFF organized a coalition of partners to tackle this work and pioneer post-fire restoration techniques. For five years, the NFF, the Forest Service and our partners worked across 17 different sites in the Trail Creek watershed (the critical Upper South Platte tributary) as volunteers, heavy equipment operators and restoration crews restored the extensive damage. Renowned hydrologist David Rosgen helped design and implement innovative restoration techniques that have since been used in other fire-affected areas in the West.

Just two years after completing our Trail Creek stream restoration and reconstruction projects, brook trout and brown trout reappeared in the restored waterway. In three years, beavers returned. While no doubt delighting anglers, the presence of trout and beaver underscores how successful this project proved to be. In 2012, ten years after the Hayman Fire, the NFF partnered with several groups to plan and host the Hayman Fire Science Symposium, where we shared what we learned about post-fire restoration with researchers, scientists, managers and others. In 2013 and 2014, many of the lessons and techniques we learned through our Hayman restoration work were put into practice after Colorado’s Waldo Canyon and Black Forest Fires.

Ocala National Forest, Florida Almost two thousand miles from the Mile High City, Florida’s Ocala National Forest offers a different glimpse of how fire affects forest ecosystems.

Longleaf pine forests once dominated the Southeast, stretching across 92 million acres from the coastal lowlands of North Carolina to the plains of eastern Texas. Today, less than two percent of those stands remain. One stronghold is the Ocala National Forest where the savannah-like stands of longleaf provide rich habitat for a wide variety of species.

Longleaf forests feature some of the greatest diversity of plants and animals in the Southeast, providing habitat for nearly 60 percent of the region’s reptiles and amphibians and hosting an incredible 900 endemic plant species. In addition, 29 federally listed threatened or endangered species, including the Red-cockaded woodpecker, call longleaf pine forests home.

The Southeast is much wetter than Colorado, but it has never been immune to fire. In fact,

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treasured landscapes longleaf pine trees are so adapted to fire that they’re considered “fire-dependent,” meaning that without fire, trees can’t reproduce, wildlife actually lose habitat and the ecosystem begins to collapse. Wire grass, an important ground cover in longleaf forests, has extensive underground root systems that survive fast-moving fires and rapidly re-sprout after a blaze, providing habitat and food for myriad species.

Longleaf pines have thick bark that protects them from fire. Their seedlings grow quickly in the bare ground that’s present after fire moves through the forest, reaching heights that keep them out of the next fire’s path in just a few years. Red-cockaded woodpeckers nest and rear their young in oldgrowth longleaf trees, which for centuries were plentiful in the Ocala. Because the historically frequent fires killed off competing oak trees, the woodpeckers had plenty of habitat. With fire suppression, the oak trees started out-competing the longleafs and changed the forest composition. Longleaf pines no longer dominated the landscape and woodpeckers struggled to reproduce. Simply put, without fire, longleaf forests and the diversity of life they support, can’t survive.

Today, the Ocala National Forest uses a mix of management techniques, including prescribed fire, to benefit the landscape. Prescribed fires are intentionally set by forest managers and mimic historic fire regimes. In partnership with the NFF and local Boy Scout troops, the Forest is also controlling oak encroachment without the use of fire, but fire remains a critical management tool for this fire-dependent ecosystem.

Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, Illinois An hour south and a world away from Chicago’s famous skyline, visitors can find a unique and historic treasure at Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie. This captivating landscape is home to deer, foxes, more than 100 bird species and (thanks to the NFF and our partners) a herd of wild bison. But Midewin hasn’t always been the natural wonder it is today.

Hundreds of years ago, tallgrass prairies covered millions of acres of the Midwest. As settlers pushed farther west, the prairie fell to the plow, and today only one-tenth of one percent of Illinois’ original 21 million acres of prairie remain. While it may be tempting to believe that Midewin has been long-preserved as a key representative of tallgrass prairies, that’s not the whole story.

In the 1940s, the U.S. government bought out the last of the small family farms dotting what is now Midewin and commenced building a massive arsenal to provide bombs and explosives for the war effort.

For decades, the Joliet Arsenal’s 10,000 workers manufactured TNT, bombs and other munitions for WWII, Korea and Vietnam. The area also supported corn and soybean agriculture and cattle ranching. In the 1990s, the land was transferred from the Department of Defense to the U.S. Forest Service, which named it Midewin after a Potawatomi word for “healing.”

Through dedicated restoration efforts, Midewin’s future as a tallgrass prairie is now being realized.

Tallgrass prairies may seem like simple grasslands at first glance, but a deeper view shows that they are complex systems with wetlands, ponds and varied micro habitats. And like the dry forests of the Rockies and the longleaf pine savannahs in Florida, tallgrass prairie is a fire-dependent ecosystem.

Tallgrass prairie plants not only grow tall above

Without fire, longleaf forests and the diversity of life they support, can’t survive.

Your National Forests

Photo: USFS, Carrie Sekerak

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treasured landscapes ground, their massive roots systems, often “taller” than the plants themselves, drive deep into the gound. Lightning, a frequent presence in the Plains, ignited these vast grasslands which burned every five years or so. Native Americans also used fire to drive game and restore prairie productivity. These frequent fires helped control trees, which naturally encroach on prairie landscapes, and returned nutrients to the soil. The prairie plants’ deep roots easily survived these fires and simply sprouted again once rains doused the flames. As prairies turned into farms, fire no longer played its critical role in the small remnant prairies that remained.

Now, Forest Service staff at Midewin regularly use fire to maintain the prairie’s health and control invasive plants, which are not as well adapted to fire as the native prairie grasses and wildflowers. In fact, Midewin has its own professional fire crew: the Midewin Interagency Hotshots. When conditions allow (typically in the spring and fall) these professionals don special fire suits and spend their days doing what lightning used to do: burning the prairie.

Even though fire is critical to Midewin’s health, burning thousands of acres of prairie surrounded by bustling farms, quaint towns and important transportation infrastructure like highways and railroads all just 60 miles from Chicago is a delicate balance. Midewin works hard to inform neighbors

of burning schedules and even uses a very modern communication technique – Facebook – to inform the public about this oldest of prairie management tools. A March 20th, 2017 Facebook post from Midewin’s Restoration Team Leader, Drew Ullberg, articulates the critical role fire plays on the prairie: “At Midewin, approximately, 3,000 acres of land are actively undergoing restoration and we utilize several tools to attain restoration goals. Some of our tools include…field mowing, hand-pulling invasive plants, brush removal and the use of prescribed fire.

It is this last tool – fire – that is the most effective and necessary part of the restoration recipe.”

Fires helped control trees and returned nutrients to the soil.

Photo: USDA

Fire plays a role in other NFF Treasured Landscapes sites as well. Our work on the Angeles National Forest and the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument began as a response to 2009’s Station Fire, which burned more than 160,000 acres of the Forest. Our Northern Arizona Forest Fund, which combines watershed restoration, recreational improvements and forest health efforts on National Forests in northern Arizona, is reducing fire risk in these fire-prone forests. On the Tahoe National Forest and Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit, we are tackling an ambitious campaign to reduce fire risk on thousands of acres of forest that no longer experiences its historic fire regime.

Whether restoring key watersheds following a fire or working with Forest Service staff and local communities to use fire as a tool for forest and prairie health, the NFF’s work often crosses fire’s path.

Fortunately, land managers and local communities are embracing fire and fire-reduction techniques as key tools that benefit these public lands and the communities that surround them. While it may never be possible to prevent unnaturally severe fires from impacting our National Forests and Grasslands, by sharing what we’ve learned and collaborating with partners, we can restore fire-affected landscapes effectively and efficiently and use fire as a tool to benefit those landscapes where it has played an historic, and critical, role.

You can read about all of the NFF’s Treasured Landscapes on our website: nationalforests.org/treasured.

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unforgettable experiences

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Photo: USDA

ome people, like moths, are drawn to flame. For those that find their way into wildland firefighting, there is an allure to a forest fire: hearing the freighttrain-like roar as it advances, seeing the columns of smoke that rise into the sky, feeling the heat that permeates Nomex pants and shirts and can make trees explode in a shower of sparks.

For some, the challenge of the fight against a fire is the attraction: the sprint to contain it, the din of air support delivering payloads of water and retardant, the exhaustion of a 16-hour workday, and the battle weary comradery that comes from spending day upon day with the same overly-tired, overly-caffeinated and overly-filthy people. This is not to romanticize this work; but there is no question it provides a charged and exciting challenge.

Wildland firefighting offers both the promise of a decent paycheck and the opportunity to work outside, but most who stay in the profession have some form of addiction – to the adrenaline, to the challenge, or to the escape it offers from the real world. These are equal opportunity addictions, and the fix – fighting fire in a remote forest – is sought by both men and women.

Women have been trained to fight forest fires since the turn of the 20th century, during times when males were stretched thin during U.S. military engagements or when a large number of ongoing fires outpaced maleonly crews’ capacities. The first

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Early female fire fighters from California’s Mendocino National Forest.

evidence of women fighting fires on National Forests was in 1915, where photos show wives of Forest Service rangers trained to help battle fires in what is now the Mendocino National Forest in California.

The first women in the postwar period known to have actually been paid by the Forest Service for fire suppression served on an all-women wildland firefighting crew on the Lolo National Forest in Montana in the 1970s. Full female integration on Forest Service fire crews didn’t come easily, but by the late 1970s, women had finally worked, and sometimes fought, their way onto most types of Forest Service fire crews.

Including the most elite crews.

DRAWN TO FL

By Dayle Wallien

unforgettable experiences Photo: Kristen Honig/National Park Service

LAME: WOMEN FORGED BY WILDFIRE

Stephanie Windle, a member of the La Grande (Oregon) Hotshots, on the Las Conchas Fire in New Mexico, 2011— at the time, the second-largest in state history.

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unforgettable experiences Elite Crews, Dangerous Responsibilities Wildland firefighting is a complex endeavor, and the Forest Service plays a primary role in staffing and funding suppression efforts on public lands (not just National Forests) across the nation. From the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), to Incident Management Teams, and down to local district resources, every cog in the wheel serves an important function in the fight to suppress fires.

Wildland firefighting resources are designated as a Type I, Type II, or Type III resource based on power, experience, leadership and availability, with a Type I resource providing greater overall capability due to skill, size, capacity and experience.

Without question, working on or near a fireline is dangerous.

It requires training and fitness, whether a person is on an engine crew that delivers water to the front lines, or on a district crew made up of various Forest Service

staff pulled together only when a “fire bust” happens and they are needed to assist in suppression efforts. Nearly everyone who approaches a fire is required to be red-carded (having passed the minimum training module for wildland firefighting) and be able to pass some version of the work capacity test, the most difficult level requiring “rucking” a 45-pound pack for three miles in 45 minutes or less.

To earn a spot on the most elite crews, like hotshot crews, rappel crews or smokejumper crews, you need to have a couple of fire seasons of experience and pass special training. The nature of the work done by these specialized crews imposes extra physical demands on their members, so the physical fitness requirements to gain a spot are higher. After all, these crews are called upon to travel around the country for remote initial attack efforts or for the toughest fire assignments.

In the world of elite wildland firefighting crews, who is “the best

of the best” is often a subject of debate. Currently, the required level of experience and physical fitness is very similar for these three types of crews. But this doesn’t stop crews from throwing shade about which type is the most physically fit and who works the hardest. Similar (mostly) friendly rivalries exist even among the same type of crews at different bases.

This culture, where there is pressure to be the toughest, the baddest and the best, wasn’t an easy one for women to break into.

Historically there was debate about whether women had the required physical capabilities to belong on these crews. But the past 40 years have proven that females, without any “gender norming” or lowering of standards, can more than hold their own in the world of wildland firefighting.

And while numbers are still low (only about 10 percent of the permanent Forest Service wildland firefighting force is female), women have worked their way Photo: Kristen Honig

Women in fire bootcamp, Southwestern Region USFS, Albuquerque, NM

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unforgettable experiences Photo: National Interagency Fire Center

Fire Speak Burnout operation Lighting a fire inside a control line to consume fuel between the edge of the fire and the fireline to slow the forward momentum of the fire or influence its direction.

Back burning A fire set along the inside edge of a fireline to consume the fuel in between the fireline and the path of a wildfire to slow the forward momentum of the fire or influence its direction.

Mop up Operations to make sure that suppression is complete and/or fireline is secured so that a wildfire does not re-ignite after containment efforts are accomplished. into permanent placements and management positions where they help orchestrate wildland firefighting efforts.

The Right Woman for the Job Lacey England flew in a helicopter eight times before she ever experienced landing in one.

That’s because in each of those first eight flights, she got her feet back on land by rappelling to the ground, first in rookie training, then as a certified member of the Montana-based Gallatin National Forest Rappel Crew. Rappel crews are an initial attack wildland firefighting crew. Rappelling, like its better-known and arguably more glamorous cousin, smokejumping, is just a fancier and faster way to get to a wildfire.

Once you hit the ground, the same arduous, dirty, work of fighting a wildland fire begins.

Sara Knapp, Assistant Superintendent of the Bitterroot Interagency Hotshot Crew, based on Montana’s Bitterroot National

Forest, also rappelled for several years. But she prefers to work on the bigger fires that a hotshot crew gets to see.

Molly Day is another former hotshot. While Molly shudders at the thought of rappelling out of a helicopter or jumping out of a plane, big monster fires don’t phase her. Now a Fire Prevention Officer on the Stanislaus National Forest in California, Molly worked on the Stanislaus Hotshot Crew for ten years and her favorite part of the job was burnout operations – starting backfires to eliminate the fuels in between a fireline and the front of a fire. “I loved those big firing shows, when you and the crew just become another force of nature.”

And Shelly Allen, Fire Management Officer on the Tahoe National Forest in California, has worked on both a rappel crew and a hotshot crew, but what she really wanted to do was follow the footsteps of her father right out the door of a DC-3 airplane and become a smokejumper. “The

Belly-bag A ditty bag carried around a firefighter’s waist during a rappel or jump containing basic equipment like line gear, hard hat, fire shelter, and a small ration of drinking water and food.

Nomex Brand of synthetic fire retardant cloth and thread used to make wildland firefighting clothing.

Lightning bust A lightning storm with numerous ground strikes that result in wildfires.

Pulaski A tool used for building handline consisting of a long straight handle and a head made of a combination axe and grub hoe.

Fire Shelter A small one-person aluminized tent that provides a small amount of heat protection and breathable air in a fire entrapment situation. This item must be carried by all wildland firefighters as basic personal protective equipment, but is used only as a last resort, when there are no other means of escaping a fire.

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unforgettable experiences fire aspect wasn’t really what motivated me. It was the physical challenge. I wanted to be the best of the best,” Shelly said, “to push my limits, and prove to myself that I was up to it.” And up to it she was.

Hotshots Interagency Hotshot Crews (IHC) are a Type I ground crew of at least 20 highly trained people.

Hotshot crews are collectively required to have an extensive level of experience and training, and each member must maintain a high level of physical fitness.

Hotshot crews started in southern California in the late 1940s on the Cleveland and Angeles National Forests and were made up primarily of members of the Civilian Conservation Corps. In 1976, several women were hired onto hotshot crews around the western U.S. In 1989, the Lolo Hotshots hired the first woman superintendent to run the crew.

Six additional women have since achieved a Hotshot Superintendent title.

The name “hotshot” stems from the fact that these crews are often put in the hottest part of fires. Hotshot crews are often given arduous and dangerous assignments and frequently respond to large, high-priority fires. When Sara Knapp experienced her first big fire, on Utah’s Fishlake National Forest, “It was the most amazing thing ever.” The intensity of both the fire and the fight captivated her, “It was this powerful thing; it was loud; it was a rush. I was hooked.”

Sara has been fighting wildland fire for 18 seasons. While some might call her short, Sara is a physical powerhouse. As a woman with a small stature, she believes it is important to

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work out harder to exceed the minimum physical qualifications required by a hotshot crew member in order to silence both self and external criticism.

Hotshots are trained and equipped to hike to and work in difficult, remote terrain for extended periods of time with little support. These crews are required to have the ability to rapidly construct handline, a fire control line constructed by clearing vegetation down to mineral soil to create a fuel break to slow or stop the advance of a fire. Handline is built using hand tools (versus a fireline which is built with a bulldozer), including chainsaws, pulaskis, hoes and shovels. Hotshots move quickly, carrying their 45-pound packs and tools faster than the average person can jog.

In the off-season, Sara doesn’t take time to rest or recuperate – she takes on different physical challenges. She bikes, Nordic skis, and has earned the moniker “Little Evil” for her jammer skills in the roller derby rink. And she runs. In April 2017, to raise money for the Wildland Firefighter Foundation, Sara ran her first 100K in Zion, Utah. Part of this is innate, but another part is her commitment to remaining in top physical shape for her career.

While hotshots have a home base, they travel to assignments throughout the U.S., and may rarely return to their base during a busy fire season. According to Sarah, firefighters, especially hotshot crew members, are escapists. Fire provides a way to “Jet away from real life; it’s an opportunity to get away from all the mundane, routine things that you have to do when you’re an adult,” she laughs.

Along with constructing handline, IHCs are trained in

burnout operations, or “those big firing shows” as Molly calls them, which involves setting fire to unburned fuels located between the control line and main fire.

They also are trained to “hold the lines,” which often includes providing on-the-ground direction for aerial support, like retardant and water drops.

Burnout operations were one of Molly Day’s favorite aspects of the job, but she also acknowledges how dangerous they can be, especially if you don’t have the confidence to question everything.

In the world of wildland fire, you are trained to speak up if you encounter a situation that you think might be unsafe.

Molly recounts a story of a close call on a fire on California’s Shasta-Trinity National Forest, where her crew was tasked with conducting a burnout in the dark, in steep, unfamiliar terrain. Her crew, without taking time to verify it, relied upon information relayed to them by a previous crew about on-the-ground conditions and safety measures. Molly was uncertain about the situation, but wasn’t comfortable raising her concerns. As the operation progressed, it became clear that her crew had been misdirected, and as a result Molly and a couple of other firefighters nearly ended up being caught by the flames. It was a close enough call that she actually considered whether to deploy her fire shelter, which is one of the worst scenarios wildland firefighters can find themselves in and is almost always indicative that mistakes have been made.

Molly and the others made it to safety, but it wasn’t a lesson she has forgotten, “From that point on, I always asked the questions that I didn’t want to ask before for sake of sounding of silly.”

unforgettable experiences Smokejumpers

Photo: USDA

Vivid lore surrounds smokejumpers, who since 1940 have parachuted out of planes to reach the fires they fight. Approximately 270 Forest Service smokejumpers work today out of seven National Forest bases across the West.

Smokejumpers are a key part of the initial attack force of wildland firefighters, because they are one of the fastest resources available to reach a remote wildfire shortly after it is ignited or spotted (and hopefully while it is still relatively small).

After parachuting to the safest, most proximate location to the fire, the jumpers use hand tools (which are also dropped in via parachute), to begin controlling or extinguishing the blaze.

They can provide a ground assessment and may order additional resources to best control the fire.

The size of the fire and availability of resources will determine how many jumpers staff the fire, but any number between two and twenty will be “kicked out” to work on the incident. Depending on the circumstances, the jumpers will either extinguish the fire, or turn it over to another crew for additional suppression or “mop up.”

Smokejumping requires a high degree of physical fitness, because once jumpers have completed their mission on the fire, they often have a cross-country “pack-out” to the nearest road, where they will be picked up for transport back to their base. Not only can the pack-out be a lengthy distance over dicey terrain, it requires rucking more than 100 pounds of gear.

Other dangers are inherent as well. Sometimes a jumper “hangs-up” in a tree. A jumper must have the upper body strength (and presence of mind)

to safely tie off, release from the chute and get to the ground. Once the fire has received the required attention, they then have to climb back up the tree to retrieve the chute (or other cargo that may have gotten “hung”). The worst injuries occur when jumpers are impaled on a limb during their descent or if they somehow crash on landing.

Shelly Allen completed rookie training in Grangeville, Idaho in 1997, then transferred to the McCall Smokejumper Base where she worked until 2005. “I loved the job, loved the culture, loved keeping myself in top shape. And I got to see so many places of the country that most people will never see.”

Smokejumping was the most difficult of the elite wildland fire fighting circles for women to break into due to the antiquated and patriarchal belief that females couldn’t meet the physical fitness requirements. The first woman smokejumper, Deanne Shulman, was hired in 1979, but despite meeting the established physical fitness standards, was “washed” from the program for being a few pounds under the required weight. This was despite it being known that there were several underweight men on other bases.

After filing an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint, supported by one of those underweight men, Deanne was allowed to try again, so long as she weighed at least 130 pounds on the first day of her appointment. This requirement has since been lowered to 120 pounds, but the physical fitness standards, including a 110-pound pack test, remain the same. In 1981, she completed rookie training and jumped at the McCall, Idaho Smokejumper Base for five years.

“Deanne paved the way for women jumpers, and it wasn’t easy for her,” Shelly acknowledges, “When I met her, I was star struck, it was like meeting a rock star. She is amazing.” Shelly’s crew was like family to her and, although she was one of only a few females, she didn’t feel unwelcomed or disrespected. She attributes this to both the women who came before her and to having the right mindset. Shelly’s first fire jump was into the SelwayBitterroot Wilderness on the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest.

Her jump partner that day was a woman and they had a woman spotter kicking them out the door.

“It is a moment that stuck out for me,” she recalls.

Another memorable moment for Shelly was an acknowledgement by a fellow jumper of her strength and accomplishment.

“After a pack-out over eight miles of rough terrain … I threw off my 110-pound pack, which was almost how much I weighed, and one of the other jumpers just shook his head and said, ‘Shelly, if I had to put my own weight on my back for these pack-outs, I couldn’t do it.’”

Deanne Shulman—the first female smokejumper in the U.S.

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unforgettable experiences

Rappel Crews Rappel crews have a similar initial attack mission that smokejumpers have, and face many of the same physical challenges, however rather than jumping from a plane, they get to the fire via helicopter. If, as is often the case, there isn’t a nearby landing spot or if landing is prohibited because the fire is in Wilderness, they rappel down 250 feet to reach the ground.

While the physical fitness requirements at most rappel bases are similar to those required for smokejumping, they haven’t been standardized across the rappel program. Regardless of the standards, a crew member better be prepared to ruck a 100-pluspound pack over rough terrain, because the helicopter that they dropped from rarely returns to pick them up. Like smokejumpers, rappellers must pack-out their gear to a road.

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Grit and Humor Lacey England will start her fifth season with a permanent appointment on the Gallatin Rappel Crew this year, which guarantees her work for 13 pay periods. A permanent position also provides employees with the potential for lateral moves and opportunities for applying for advancement that might only be advertised to internal candidates.

“I’m not sure how long I will stay with this crew, or in fire, but having a permanent appointment opens doors,” she says.

She has begun training to be a helicopter manager and is qualified to be an incident commander on some fires. In a couple more seasons, she is planning to begin spotter training, another step-up in responsibility. Once a crew is dispatched to a fire, the spotter has the primary responsibility for doing rappel crew member safety checks, communicating with the pilot, determining the best site

None of these women want to be a “woman wildland firefighter” poster child. “Women firefighters shouldn’t all be defined in the same way. We don’t all fit the same mold,” asserts Lacey.

Molly concurs, “I don’t fit that mental picture that most people have of a typical firefighter.” In fact, before she began fighting wildfire, Molly had trained to be a manicurist. But this unique background made her an asset to the crew in ways that couldn’t have been predicted when she became the crew expert on tool sharpening and maintenance.

“That [manicurist] experience taught me the importance of maintaining your tools, keeping your tools sharp, with a clean edge. You can’t do the job as well and as fast if your tools aren’t in good shape.”

But the fact that they have been successful on their respective crews does show that they all

Photo: Rose Guzman

to rappel into, and leading the process to get crew members and then gear bags safely to the ground.

Lacey’s first fire rappel was on Idaho’s Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest. But the summer of 2013 was one of her most memorable fire seasons. “It was rappelapalooza,” she recalls.

“During one stretch we were working out of Grangeville, Idaho, and I went on four backto-back fires. I’d get off a fire, get transported back to the heli-base, and just have enough time to get my belly-bag repacked, maybe an hour, before we were sent off again. It was a meat grinder. But it was great. Those tough experiences are the ones that seem to stand out since you pushed through and survived.”

unforgettable experiences have mental and physical toughness in common. This grit unifies wildland firefighters regardless of their gender.

So, what advice do these women have for those who are considering a job in wildland firefighting?

Shelly says it is crucial to be authentic, to be who you are, to not to try to act like someone you’re not. “People respond best to that,” she asserts. “And when it comes to leadership, there are certainly some truisms that can found in generalized differences between the way men and women lead, but that is okay, those differences aren’t what makes a good or bad leader.”

Molly’s advice is not to underestimate yourself. “I was pushed in a healthy way by the folks whose opinion mattered to me, both men and women. They were hard on me, but at times they also knew better than me what I could do.” She reflects that having done the work that she has and having tough experiences to look back on “makes things that

come up now in my life easier, as I think back and realize I’ve done much harder things.”

Molly also advises that you will build confidence over time.

She recounts how scared she was on her first fire – her confidence was low and she was surrounded by experienced, “crusty” characters. It was nerve wracking trying to prove herself. “I thought I was just going to be a temp, but now, 20 years later and here I am. I only have four years until I’m eligible to retire. Now I’m one of those crusty old characters!”

Lacey’s advice to other women who are interested in working as a wildland firefighter is to have a good support system and to have a realistic expectation that you may encounter some type of sexism. “You have to go into it recognizing that it is a male-dominated culture. You have to prepare yourself for that and make a plan for how you are going to deal with it. The plan has to be one that works for you. We are all going to react differently and have our own lines that we draw

in the sand. But you shouldn’t ever allow inappropriateness to be normalized. And you shouldn’t be intimidated.”

Sara’s advice to other up-and-coming women is that, like in many male-dominated professions, females need to work harder and smarter to be heard and respected, but that persistence and hard work will pay off and confidence can be learned.

“You spend a lot of time beating your head against the wall, but once you realize you have the ability to change the way you deliver the message, to communicate in a way that is different than how you might have learned to [as a female], you learn not to be intimidated. There is a shift and people start listening.”

Sara also counsels, that above all else, maintain a sense of humor. “If you can’t laugh at things anymore, you should get out,” she warns. And then she passes on some of the best advice she ever received from a past supervisor: “He’d say, ‘you’ve got to have gravel in your gut.’”

Learn more about the women featured in this story at nationalforests.org/blog.

Photo: Chris Ferner

Dayle Wallien is the Conservation Partnerships Director for the National Forest Foundation. Dayle grew up in the Cascade Mountains of north central Washington, not far from the North Cascades Smokejumper Base.

While working on her undergraduate degree and prior to going to law school, Dayle spent five seasons working as a wildland firefighter for the U.S Forest Service, both on the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest and as a rappeller on the Malheur National Forest Rappel Crew. Reach her at dwallien@nationalforests.org.

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Taking Campfire Cooking to the Next Level The tent is set up. The kids are hungry. There’s a fire roaring in the fire ring. It’s time to cook dinner.

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unforgettable experiences

ure, we can all spear a hot dog or sausage with a stick and crouch by the coals while it burns to a crisp on the outside and stays practically raw on the inside. Or we can slap some burgers on the fire ring grate and burn the hair on our arms flipping them until they fall apart and disappear into the coals. But if you want a couple of fun ideas that will take your campfire cooking to the next level, read on.

Campfire Pizza

Gourmet S’mores

Yes, you can cook pizza on a campfire. And it’s delicious and easy.

1. First, get a good bed of coals going in your fire ring. You don’t want to cook anything over a campfire with lots of flames; you’ll just end up charring your food without cooking it properly.

2. Next, get your pizza dough ready. Easy pizza dough recipes are a Google search away, or you can just buy some pre-made pizza dough from a local bakery or grocery store and bring it with you.

Then, figure out how you want to cook the pizza. We recommend using a cast iron skillet or pan, but you can cook pizza directly on a fire ring grate if one is available. Many cooks recommend briefly cooking both sides of the dough before you put on the toppings. Oil the pan, pop in the dough and place the pan on the grate about eight inches above the hot coals. Flip the dough after a few minutes and cook the other side.

3. Now comes the fun part. Take the dough off the fire, bring the kids over and start adding your toppings. Pre-shredded cheese and canned pizza sauce are the easiest to deal with in the outdoors.

Also be sure to chop your toppings into similar sized pieces so they all take about the same time to cook.

4. Put the pizza back on the grate or in the coals and cover it with foil so the cheese melts and the toppings cook. Be sure to vent or remove the lid about halfway through the cooking process so that the pizza doesn’t get soggy.

5. After 10 minutes or so (or once the cheese is melted and the toppings are cooked), pull the pizza off the fire and let it rest for a couple of minutes.

Slice it up and enjoy!

Few things are better than gooey s’mores after a fun day of camping. But, with just a bit of planning you can elevate the same old s’more into a treat that everyone will remember.

1. First off, use fresh marshmallows and fresh graham crackers. Nothing will ruin a s’more faster than stale ingredients.

2. Next, get creative and add fresh berries or sliced banana to the s’more. Feeling really adventurous? Add a touch of cayenne or a small piece of bacon for a little spice or a salty, smoky flavor.

3. Nut butters are a great way to add a little extra punch to traditional s’mores. Just add a small dollop of peanut, almond or cashew butter to the graham cracker and voilà.

4. Don’t roast your marshmallow in the flames; that’s a sure way to burn it and it takes a special kind of camper to enjoy a burnt marshmallow.

Instead, wait until the flames die down and roast your ‘mallow above hot coals, turning it consistently to heat it all the way through. If it does catch fire, resist the temptation to wave it wildly around until the flames die off. Flaming marshmallows can easily burn skin if they come flying off the roasting stick.

Just blow on it or sacrifice it to the fire by scraping it off with another stick.

5. Remember to store your chocolate in a cool spot or it’ll melt long before you get to s’more time.

Once you’re ready to make your s’mores, you can set your chocolate/graham cracker on a rock near the fire to help heat the chocolate a bit.

6. Experiment. Didn’t like the s’more with fresh raspberries? No worries. Just roast up another marshmallow and try again. It’s hard to go wrong with chocolate, marshmallows and graham crackers.

Have a great campfire recipe you want to share? Let us know about it on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter or shoot us an email and we’d be happy to share with our Friends of the Forest. Happy eating!

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conservation

By Spencer Plumb and Caterin Edgeley

Each spring, residents of western towns watch as snow recedes from mountain peaks and local rivers swell. Winter’s transition to spring and then summer brings another sight that westerners have come to expect: plumes of smoke that signal the beginning of fire season.

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Much of the severe wildfire threat is concentrated in the wildlandurban interface, or WUI, where structural development meets wildland vegetation.

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cross the West, fire season now starts more than six weeks earlier than it did in the 1970s due to warmer and drier conditions. As a consequence of these climatic changes, the U.S. Forest Service estimates that over the past 30 years the average number of acres of forests burned annually has doubled and is expected to double again within the next 30 years. A changing climate and a history of fire suppression on public lands compound to make fires burn more intensely, at higher temperatures and move faster across landscapes.

Western communities of all sizes, from small rural communities to suburban and urban areas, are grappling with the increased threats of ever-more severe wildfires. Much of this threat is concentrated in the wildlandurban interface, or WUI, where structural development meets wildland vegetation. The Fire Adapted Community Coalition estimates that the 220 million acres identified as WUI in the United States is populated with over 120 million people living in 50 million homes. This is especially acute for our National Forests where the rapid development of adjacent private lands presents a unique challenge for land managers.

Photos: National Interagency Fire Center

LIVING WITH FIRE

conservation Photos: National Interagency Fire Center

These areas face numerous and compounding fire related threats. First, WUIs are highly susceptible to high-severity fire because residents often enjoy the privacy provided by dense forests.

Most people don’t want to move to a forest setting and then cut down all of their trees. Second, the plethora of human activities in forested areas, like lawn mowing, leaf blowing, barbeques and fireworks, increases the risk of wildfire ignitions. A recent study showed that nearly 85 percent of wildfires in the U.S. were human caused. That constitutes an additional 40,000 fires per year.

Third, the effects of fires are much more costly due to greater risk for loss of life and damage to personal property and infrastructure.

Public land managers have no jurisdiction over private property, yet they are often called upon to defend these properties against wildfire, despite the additional cost and danger.

Adding up these social, environmental and economic costs provides a clear reminder of the old adage “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.� Fire prevention can no longer be fire suppression alone. The past century of fire suppression in the West is part of the reason fires are so dangerous and destructive today, as the exclusion of fire led to the build up fuels in forests.

Today, most public land managers use small fires to prevent big fires. The Forest Service and other land managers are treating more acres by forest thinning and prescribed fire than ever before.

Managers have learned how fire plays a critical role in most forested ecosystems by consuming fine fuels, recycling nutrients, and reducing competition for resources by preventing over-crowding of trees.

Unfortunately, public land managers do not have the authority to manage forest fuels or conduct prescribed burns in the WUI. Nor can they simply require private property owners to reduce fuel loads. In and around the WUI, fuels reduction treatments require hand-thinning of trees and understory brush and hauling it off-site.

While the tools for preventing severe wildfires are well established, implementing them around WUI communities remains a challenge.

Fuel reduction treatments around homes can be very expensive, require continued maintenance and are needed across millions of privately owned acres. These costs, combined with low levels of awareness about the likelihood of high-severity fire in their communities, create barriers for homeowners to protect their properties. These constraints have made it difficult for land managers to get enough individuals to treat their properties in order to make a meaningful difference in fire risk across the country.

Local and community engagement is recognized as an important yet often missing component in confronting this threat.

Fortunately, as development in WUIs continues unabated, WUI communities are now being asked to play a more active role in mitigating fire risk. By engaging private property owners and initiating cooperative efforts to create and implement adaptation plans at the local level, many of

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the worst effects of fire can be prevented.

Several successful national programs help local, state and federal agencies leverage resources and implement wildfire adaptation plans. In 2003, the Healthy Forest Recovery Act empowered communities to create “community wildfire protection plans” (CWPPs) that prioritize public and private land treatments to reduce fire risk in the WUI. As of 2013, more than 17,000 communities had created CWPPs. While this only covers about a quarter of the communities that face wildfire risk, CWPPs are an effective and growing method of reducing fire risk in WUI communities.

The Fire Adapted Communities Coalition (FAC) promotes a holistic approach to local risk reduction. The FAC provides guidelines and synthesizes science pertaining to community-wide and individual fuel management and structure protection. The

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Coalition also provides resources on how to incorporate wildfire reduction strategies into local building codes and enhance local resources, such as fire departments. This multifaceted approach supports collective responsibility and collaboration to benefit entire communities as they continue to adapt to living in a dynamic, and continuously changing fire-prone environment.

The Firewise Communities program offers communities and individuals more specific instructions about how to maintain defensible space (areas immediately adjacent to homes where fire risk is reduced through thinning small trees, cutting limbs, raking debris and other fuel-reduction techniques) around a home in case a fire does occur. Defensible space also helps prevent homeowners from accidently starting a fire on their property that could spread to the nearby forest. The Firewise Communities program is also designed to help

Photos: National Interagency Fire Center

WUI communities are now being asked to play a more active role in mitigating fire risk

communities leverage federal resources and local knowledge to create fuel reduction plans. This has the added benefit of bringing neighbors together to help each other make their homes safer and address shared common areas.

Continued community involvement, particularly in communities that have experienced wildfire since initiating a risk-reduction program, suggests that this local approach is extremely well received among communities. Evidence of these programs’ success is beginning to emerge as many of the communities that have implemented these plans have since faced fire.

Meanwhile, new research in social science and natural resource management is informing how to broaden the reach of these programs, engaging more citizens and landowners, and retaining the communities and individuals currently participating.

Current efforts in wildfire social sciences and natural resource management policy focus on strategies for providing and supporting community needs and preferences for wildfire adaptation. These studies emphasize that participation, engagement, and relationships determine ultimate effectiveness. There is no one-size-fits-all approach; every community has different capacities and faces different threats.

Successful implementation of fire adaptation may look different from place to place but as communities employ these programs, they join a larger network that can share knowledge, experiences and resources.

It’s important to recognize that WUI communities will still experience fire. But with appropriate community planning and cooperative action, they can avoid tragic losses.

conservation

Are you prepared for wildfire? Make your home firewise!

• More information on CWPPs can be found at livingwithfire.info/cwpp • More on the FAC can be found at fireadapted.org • More information on the Firewise Communities program can be found at firewise.org

Use fire-rated roofing and keep roof and gutters clear of debris.

Thin and prune coniferous trees within 100’ of your home.

Decks should be fire-resistant. Do not store items under decks.

Store wood and fuel tanks 30’ away from your home.

Limb trees 15’ from the ground.

Clean and screen chimneys.

Choose fire-resistant siding and tempered or double-paned glass windows.

Locate storage sheds away from your home.

Keep fire tools available: shovel, rake, ladder.

Clearly mark your house number and keep your driveway accessible for emergency responders.

Maintain an irrigated “green belt” at least 100’ from your home.

Spencer Plumb, Ph.D. is the NFF’s Southern Rockies Program Associate. Spencer helps run the Northern Arizona Forest Fund and lives in the WUI in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Reach him at splumb@nationalforests.org.

Choose droughtresistant native plants and be sure organic mulch is at least 5 feet from structures.

Caterin Edgeley is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Idaho, Department of Natural Resources and Society.

Additional help was provided by Amanda Stasiewicz, Ph.D. student at the University of Idaho, Department of Natural Resources and Society.

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voices from the forest

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ew forest icons have the universal recognition of Smokey Bear. For more than seven decades, Smokey has been spreading his fire safety message to kids and adults across America.

1940s Smokey first appeared on a poster in 1944 when artist Albert Staehle created this poster of a bear dumping a bucket of water on a campfire for the U.S. Forest Service (above right).

The “real” Smokey Bear looks up at a poster showing the Smokey character and two bear cubs, reading “Please Folks, be extra careful this year! Remember­—Only you can prevent forest fires!”

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1950s In 1950, firefighters found an injured black bear cub on the Lincoln National Forest after the Capitan Gap Fire. Rumor has it he was initially named “Hotfoot Teddy” and later renamed Smokey.

He was nursed back to health by New Mexico Department of Game and Fish officials before he was given to the Forest Service and sent to the National Zoo in Washington, DC. The Forest Service capitalized on the public interest in the “real Smokey” and used his growing fame to help spread its fire prevention message. The “real Smokey” lived at the National Zoo until his death in 1976.

Photo: courtesy of the Forest History Society, Durham, NC

From stamps and posters to Public Service Announcements and “in-bear” appearances at events, schools and celebrations, Smokey is everywhere. Smokey’s first catch phrase “Smokey Says – Care will prevent 9 out of 10 woods fires” was changed in 1947 to the more familiar refrain, “Only YOU Can Prevent Forest Fires.” In 2001, his message shifted again, becoming “Only You Can Prevent Wildfires” as a response to wildfires in areas other than forests and to highlight Smokey’s desire to prevent unplanned outdoor fires as opposed to prescribed fires.

voices from the forest Smokey Bear images used with the permission of the USDA Forest Service

1960s The 1960s ushered in some of Smokey’s first messages to appear on T.V. Rod Sterling of The Twilight Zone helped with a T.V. spot in 1968 that ended by zooming in on a Smokey poster nailed to a tree. Smokey’s stamps from the 1960s took a different approach, like these from 1962 (above).

1970s Of course Smokey himself helped celebrate America’s Bicentennial in 1976. This patriotic poster riffs on the song, “It’s a Grand Old Flag.”

1980s By the 1980s, Smokey’s message had become so engrained in Americans’ minds that he only had to utter the first two words.

1990s In 1994, Smokey celebrated his 50th birthday, joining pals Snoopy and Woodstock to throw a little birthday party.

C O R P O R AT E PA R T N E R This year marks the 10th anniversary of the NFF’s Ski Conservation Fund, and Vail Resorts has been key partner in this effort from the beginning. We salute Vail’s commitment to improving the National Forests where their guests play and look forward to another ten years of forest stewardship.

2000s By 2000, the Internet Age was in full swing and Smokey kept pace. This was the last decade for Smokey posters, which took a simple and direct approach.

2010s Today, the Smokey Bear wildfire prevention program is the longest running public service advertising campaign in U.S. history. His message is still critical: as measured by acres burned, 2015 was the worst fire season since 1960 (as far back as records go). Fortunately, Smokey, now almost 73 years old (his birthday is August 9), is as spry as ever. He’s on billboards and bus shelters, T.V. and radio and even social media where he has a Facebook page, a Twitter feed and his own hashtag: #smokeybearhug

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where in the woods This National Forest is home to the highest peak in the lower 48.

Answer from page 3: Inyo National Forest

Photo: Felix’s Endless Journey. Flickr.com

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tretching along the Eastern Sierra, the Inyo National Forest borders several National Parks including Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Sequoia. While the Inyo hosts Mount Whitney at 14,505 feet (the tallest peak in the Lower 48), the forest also includes one million acres of designated Wilderness Areas.

Many visitors make time to visit the Mono Lake National Forest Scenic Area and its unearthly limestone spires of tufa. For a step back in time, visit the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest on the Inyo to see living trees more than 4,000 years old. Whether you’re peak bagging, exploring new places or simply escaping the crowds, the Inyo National Forest offers something for everyone.

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Thank You REI for Giving Back

We’re proud to work with REI Co-op Mastercard® cardmembers to get youth outdoors and improve trails, campgrounds, and rivers in National Forests across America.

Learn more at nationalforests.org/REI

The creditor and issuer of the REI Co-op Mastercard® is U.S. Bank National Association, pursuant to a license from Mastercard International Incorporated. ©2017 U.S. Bank

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