WildEarth Guardians

Monday, June 19, 2006
In Harm's Way - the Wildland Urban Interface

If these people weren't in harm's way, the Forest Service would feel less pressure to treat these areas
Contact: Staci Matlock Santa Fe New Mexican

Fire and ponderosa pine forests have gone together in New Mexico like red chile and posole. One was good for the other.

The U.S. Forest Service, which for decades stomped out most forest fires as a matter of course, now recognizes the vital role fires play in forest ecosystems.

But as more people build homes on private parcels surrounded by forests in the Santa Fe National Forest, some environmentalists wonder if forest-thinning projects are now driven increasingly by the need to protect private property rather than by what's best for the forest.

"I think if these people weren't in harm's way, the Forest Service would feel less pressure to treat these areas," said Bryan Bird, forest-projects manager for WildEarth Guardians, a Santa Fe-based environmental group.

Santa Fe National Forest has hundreds of old cabins and ranch houses and new homes scattered around its five ranger districts, many in rugged, thickly wooded areas. Tom Johnston, fuels-management officer for the Santa Fe National Forest, says whether it's one house or 40, forest workers must help prevent wildfire from reaching structures. The National Fire Plan of 2000 made protecting private property a new priority on all national forests, Johnston said. Forest projects based on protecting private homes are called Wildland Urban Interface projects.

Bird and other environmentalists say they don't dispute that private property needs to be protected, but they wonder how much responsibility the landowners should be taking. And they said they think people who move into forested areas need to accept the increased risk of fire.

"People are moving out to these forested environments and even if they don't intentionally or vocally call for thinning, the Forest Service is often compelled to do really intensive management around these communities whether or not the communities are doing any of its own work," Bird said.

Bird points to the Bonito Fuels Thinning Project in the Jemez Mountains as an example of an unnecessary project that was stopped, he thinks, due to public scrutiny.

Bonito was a 750-acre proposed thinning project that surrounded a community of 80 to 100 homes and outbuildings called Cerro de Los Pinos.

The area was logged once in the early 1990s. Left behind were midsize and gigantic ponderosa pines. "There's massive trees in there, some (trunks) up to 48 inches in diameter," said Mike Dechter, project manager on the Jemez and Cuba ranger districts.

Some private owners near the proposed project apparently have been doing their own thinning to reduce fire risks. But others still have thickets of ponderosa pine and other vegetation on their property that is ripe for fire. "We can't force people to thin their property," Dechter said.

The Forest Service met last year with residents who said they were concerned about the possibility of a fire breaking out in a nearby canyon where winds could quickly push flames up the mountain.

The Forest Service sent out notices to more than 100 people and groups, including WildEarth Guardians, alerting them of the potential thinning project. Many, including the Sangre de Cristo Audubon Society, Bird and Jemez-area residents voice concerns over the potential for cutting large-diameter trees.

Some of the big trees are marked with a blue line. Bird said that line shows the project was basically a "timber project." "Why would you need to thin an area already logged?" he asked.

Dechter said the blue lines mark trees used to create a computer model of where fire might go if one cut loose in the area. "We recognized this was a controversial project, so we collected site-specific data and spent extra resources," he said. "We don't do that for all projects like this."

He said the primary concern was whether firefighters could safely protect Los Pinos homes in a wildfire even though the area already had been thinned.

The model showed they could. It indicated a sustained, 50-mph wind would be needed to push a fire into tree crowns in the Bonito area. The 50-mph mark is the cutoff; if less wind would have caused a crowning fire, the forest supervisor might have told staff to move ahead with the project, Dechter said.

"We found out nothing needs to be done in the area," Dechter said. "We put the brakes on the project."

The Bonito project was canceled in April.

Bird wonders if that would have happened if WildEarth Guardians and other groups hadn't expressed concern.

"I maintain if WildEarth Guardians wasn't watching every single move the Forest Service makes, a project like this, which is obviously ill-advised, could slip through," Bird said.

Twice recently, forest-watchdog groups have appealed Wildland Urban Interface thinning projects and won. A project near Hyde Memorial State Park and one in the Gallinas watershed near Las Vegas, N.M., were both remanded to staff for further consideration.

The Santa Fe National Forest is working on about 22 Wildland Urban Interface projects. "I think we do need to do our homework with environmentalists and our other partners," Johnston said. "Planning in a vacuum does not work."

Dechter admits he doesn't know what would have happened if the public hadn't raised concerns about the cutting of large trees in the Bonito area. He says the forest probably would manage the area "very differently" if homes weren't there. But, he said, the trees will keep growing in the Bonito area. "Ten years from now, we may revisit this," he said.

Copyright 2006 New Mexican - Reprinted with permission