Before wildland firefighters ignited almost 1,300 acres of forest land north of Dolores on Tuesday, April 29, they started a small test fire in the northeast corner of the burn unit.
“Just to make sure it’s burning the way we want it to,” a Forest Service ranger explained as local wildland crews hiked up a steep hill toward the cliff band, where they first sparked the fire.
The untrained eye would look at what they were walking on and call it a trail; in actuality, it was something called a hand line, which acts as a boundary during a prescribed burn.
A few days before, crews carved out the lines, removing any flammable, organic matter on them to ensure the fire couldn’t spread past it.
And to be sure the fire stayed within those burn boundaries that Tuesday morning, there were firefighters “in holding,” standing on the hand line, watching the fire.
Down on Cottonwood Road, which acted as another boundary line during the burn, rangers huddled around, radios in hand, waiting to hear how things were burning before giving the green light to go ahead with the Upper Boggy Draw prescribed fire.
This prescribed fire, like all of them, was many years in the making. It takes years of planning, permitting and adhering to the National Environmental Policy Act to actually undergo a burn.
As a ranger said that day, they’re constantly planning five years – or more – out.
And, on top of it all, conditions have to be just right the day of the burn.
Some years, the Forest Service doesn’t burn at all because it’s too windy, hot, dry or wet.
That morning, temperatures were cool. The expected high for the day was in the mid-50s, the wind was moderate and the radar promised weather in the afternoon.
“We’re expecting some moisture, but no wetting rain,” said Bruno Rodriguez, a NOAA meteorologist on site from Boulder, of the afternoon weather.
Here, wetting rain, he said, would be anything a tenth of an inch or more.
Plus, cooler temperatures are favorable because on hotter days, more water evaporates from the vegetation and thus makes it more flammable, said Rodriguez.
Conditions were decidedly right on Tuesday, so the fire was allowed to spread. On the hour, though, crews checked the weather to make sure nothing changed.
Two drones flew overhead and a helicopter went up for a while until the winds picked up to assist the crew and speed the process along a bit.
It was the Forest Service’s first time burning in that area, so the fuel load was heavy, though it was far from the first time that landscape had seen fire.
In fact, “Historically, fires in ponderosa pine communities burned naturally on a cycle of one every five to 25 years,” according to an article by the National Park Service.
Nina Williams, a coordinator at the Dolores Watersheds Collaborative, called the area “a frequent fire landscape.”
She pointed out the way the ponderosa pines “self-prune,” as their trunks are bare and branchless until a considerable way up the tree.
For a long time, though, fires were suppressed in landscape.
In the late 1800s, there were a few “legendary forest fires” that “threatened future commercial timber supply,” an article from the Forest History Society reads.
These concerns, coupled with watershed considerations, is what encouraged the U.S. government “to begin setting aside national forest reservations.” In 1905, the Forest Service was established.
Fast-forward five years later, to 1910, when forest fires burned 3 million acres of Montana, Idaho and Washington in just two days, the aforementioned article reads.
The Forest Service “convinced themselves, and members of Congress and the public, that only total fire suppression could prevent such an event from occurring again,” it said.
What’s more, fires threaten timber products.
Smokey Bear, who came onto the scene in 1944, was the Forest Service’s vehicle to promote fire suppression, a form of propaganda akin to Uncle Sam, but with fire.
Since then, “Smokey has changed his tune,” said Williams.
Research in the 1960s and ’70s revealed the positives – and necessity – of fire in a forest, especially in a ponderosa pine forest.
“Fire clears out large amounts of vegetation and fuel, leaving behind burned or partially burned vegetation,” an article by the National Park Service reads.
“On the surface, this can appear to be a loss, but it actually provides new habitat by opening up space and nutrients for new plants to grow. Fire also opens up the canopy, allowing more sunlight to reach the forest floor,” it said.
Over time, starving the landscape of its fire has had impact.
“After more than one hundred years of fire suppression, ponderosa pine forests have changed,” according to the National Park Service.
“Where there used to be trees of different ages, there are now many seedlings and midstory trees. Large diameter ponderosa pines are now competing for resources, such as nutrients, light, and water,” it said.
More trees – especially of similar age and type – puts the forest at risk for disease and insects. It also puts the forest at risk of larger, uncontrolled, high-intensity wild fires.
Smoke filled the air as the fire spread.
“The darker the smoke, the heavier the fuel load,” said Williams.
I nodded and looked around, the smoke closing in around us creating an almost unsettling atmosphere. It reminded me of a haunted forest, something out of a Brothers Grimm fairy tale.
The once visible cliff band where the test fire started not too long ago was visible no more as the flames fed on the forest floor.
The fire danced and crackled and popped as it spread. Branches and entire trees fell as the fire swelled and became mesmerizing.
People around us all stopped and stared, entranced.
“It feels natural,” said Williams, interrupting my thoughts momentarily, her gaze never leaving the flames.
The prescribed fire at Upper Boggy Draw smoldered for days after it was set. Looking ahead, the Forest Service plans to burn 1,600 acres at Haycamp Mesa and another 1,600 at Salter, west of this burn area.
Over in the Pagosa Ranger District, they plan to burn in Turkey Springs.
For anyone interested in learning more about prescribed fire and why it’s important for nutrient cycling and the landscape as a whole, there’s a Prescribed Fire Celebration coming up, on May 17.
The informational, educational piece is from 10 a.m. to noon at the Boggy Draw Trailhead parking lot, 32001 Road W in Dolores.
The Dolores Watersheds Collaborative is putting it on, alongside a slew of partners, like the San Juan National Forest, Mountain Studies Institute and Mancos Conservation District, to name a few.
“Lunch will be local beef burgers,” Williams said. “It’s free to attend.”
After lunch, attendees will go for a walk in the woods to two prescribed burn footprints.
“We’re doing it so people can learn about and celebrate fire, so people’s only experience with it isn’t smoke,” said Williams with a laugh.
