Wild fires help or hurt

[zeddro]

So I'm down here in AZ with the wildfires just a blazing. Swept through unit 1, which is one of the most beautiful areas here.

My thoughts come to. Do wild fires help or hurt elk and deer?

I would think that it would help elk because grasses can grow back quite fast.

Hurt deer, because it takes a lot longer for brush to grow back, if they do at all with invasive weeds.

What are your thoughts?

 

[TOPGUN]

I'm not sure on how much it helps deer, but it darn sure helps elkand if there is decent moisture after a fire it doesn't take very long for the grass to start growing and the elk to move in.

 

[never_satisfied]

Long term fire is always better
The new growth is well needed in almost all western states
One of are biggest problems with the decline in numbers for are big game animals is a direct result in us having to put out fires because of danger to near by residential areas

 

[dillon]

That all depends on how severe the fire was and how far back it set the vegetation. It is called succession. It also depends on the vegetation type. Ponderosa pine should burn every 2-12 years, and Pinyon Juniper every like 30 or so. I do not know Unit 1 for anything. But I think invasive fire prone plant species have a good chance of taking over the natives plant species. It sounds like the fire was severe so yeah it could hurt the elk herd for decades, until the trees get established again. Elk don't do well on cheat grass, so it that or Medusa Head take over the hunting won't be very good, and the fires will be more frequent. There is science behind fires, and in the end scientist usually conclude that things rarely look better for an area after a severe fire.

Small fires can help deer and elk herds on a small scale, but big ones are bad. Fire is good for plant growth, but where we have been doing fire suppression for so long, the fuel load is too much and it causes more severe fires.

Just my thoughts, based of two years of schooling at USU.

 

[3blade]

Like Dillon said. but that is why controlled logging is a good thing. It keeps things cleared out so the fuel load doesn't get so big.


"We must hang together, gentlemen...else, we shall most assuredly hang separately."
Benjamin Franklin

 

[eldorado]

That depends how often and how hot the fire burns. Fires that burn hot and often are far more destructive to the landscape than fires that burn occasionally and are less intense. The degree of intensity is determined by the amount of fuel available to burn.
The thicker and pronounced the fuel, the longer and hotter the fire. Landscapes that are heavily damaged are more prone to growing non-native species that are usually less palatable and nutritious to deer and elk.

Eldorado

 

[zeddro]

I also think that the bark beetle is somewhat good for deer and elk.

I have seen whole mountain sides just dead from the bark beetle, but as I was walking through the trees, sun light was able to penetrate to the forest floor and allow for grass and other vegetation to grow.

I'm sure that the bark beetle just fuels fires though.

 

[LOWCOUNTRY]

I would agree with all that has been stated just pray that cheat grass doesn't get the stand it's the most destructive plant out there and utilizes fire to destroy it's competition. At elevations below 6000 feet it thrives and burns often. Also I hope some if those pine forests involved down there were logged thinned and then prescribed burns done in the understory will have protected those stands. If the gov seeds the burned area up good it's got a chance but that is going to be a pretty penny. All because someone couldn't throw a bucket of water on their campfire. Too bad. I'll hope for the best. Fire can be a great tool and if managed properly it can do great things it can also be a nightmare if it occurs under less than ideal conditions.

 

[RELH]

One of the big problems with these big fires is the way the U.S. Forest Service treats every tree as it is a sin to cut or destroy it. They allow the underbrush to grow by surpressing smaller fires until it is so severe that a fire can not be controlled and burns much hotter then normal They are against logging and thinning out the trees along with the underbrush. selective logging and replanting is healthy for a forest.

In parts of Europe they are going to more harvest of trees and replanting and controlling the underbrush with controlled fires and have a more healthy forest in the long run.

A good example of USFS idiot ways is Yellowstone where they prevented even dying bug infested trees from being harvested. Those dead trees created a vast amount of fuel and we ended up with a severe forest fire that cost millions to fight and destroyed many buildings before it was contained.

I know two retired forest service employees that were controlled fire experts and they tried preaching to the USFS Admin. that more controlled burns were needed to keep a healthy forest and it fell on deaf ears most of the time.

Larger trees will survive fires if the brush is not allowed to get too large and dying trees are removed, but if the underbrush is allowed to get too large or you have too many dead trees you end up with a fire that kills the bigger trees and is almost impossible to contain if any wind is involved.

RELH

 

[CouesFanatic]

It helps both deer and elk. Haven't you been in unit 3C. It's very obvious what it does. It just sucks to have the tag this year, unless we get some good rain.

 

[LOWCOUNTRY]

RELH what state are you talking about? That's not what I witness in so. Utah the forest service and BLM burn the hell out of things on the Dixie and Fishlake N.F. Well into the thousands of acres a year especially in the ponderosa pine stands and pinyon juniper forest. Maybe other places vary. Just curious i see plenty of controlled burn smoke down here and want to see more.

 

[antlerradar]

Where I live in SE MT there was a 80,000 acre fire in 2000. The number of deer increased but the trophy quality went way down. The area was too open and not enough cover. It was just too easy to hunt.

Antlerradar

 

[RELH]

lowcountry;

I am in the good old Peoples Republic of Kalifornia where most of out top USFS Admin are liberal zealots and very much anti hunting on top of it all.

Very little controlled burns are done here in the Federal or state controlled forest lands,and to top it off, our state liberal Democrats are now trying to access all rural homes, $150.00 per year for fire protection from state CA. div. of Forestry even though we already pay taxes for that protection.

This is the result of several major fires in the past few years that have destroyed millions in property damage due to poor prevention with our forests. I have had two major fires that came within several hundred yards of my home in the past ten years and we will have another bad year due to late rains and heavy brush and grass.

RELH

 

[JB148]

The nutrients from the fire will be big time positive for the deer and elk for up to 7 years, big ;lus. JB

 

[Blanding_Boy]

For me, fires being good or bad comes down to a few things.

1--elevation (typically lower elevation fires <5500' here in UT) are prone to be over taken by noxious weeds particularly cheat grass. The higher the elevation the better.

2--frequency if an area is burning every 3-5 years its not good and is likely a result of no. 1.

3--scale--the size of a fire is another thing that can be harmful. If fire is so big it is often burning everything and leaves very few islands to revegitate.

4--the amount and timing of annual precip. If a fire is in an area that receives less than 10" of rain annually, its effects will be seen for a long time and will take the vegetation longer to recover than in an area that may received twice that.

The problem with most catastrophic fires is little has been done for many many years in an area to reduce fuel loads. The fires in AZ are perfect examples--many places like it are tragedies waiting to happen, there are many many places like this in the west and it not a common thing to see them every year. In these places, one would have to say its a good thing, likely a natural thing that takes place every 100 years or so.

Todd Black

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[LOWCOUNTRY]

RELH Im very sorry to hear of your situation I can clearly see we live in two different worlds seperated by a few hundred miles and clearly a leftwing rightwing ideologies. Fire managers here want to burn, thin, burn some more but are also utilizing lightning caused fires and allowing parts of that fire to burn while suppressing areas they dont want it to burn it seems Utahs fire/public land managers are becoming more acceptable of fire as a tool, and as a result more is being burned. It truly is a good thing as long as steps are taken to mitigate that damn cheat grass/red brome. The link below shows just what Utah is up to regarding fire and fuel reduction projects across the State alot of land/acres involved.
http://wri.utah.gov/WRI/Map.aspx

 

[BuzzH]

RELH,

This quote of yours...where do you come up with this crap?

"A good example of USFS idiot ways is Yellowstone where they prevented even dying bug infested trees from being harvested. Those dead trees created a vast amount of fuel and we ended up with a severe forest fire that cost millions to fight and destroyed many buildings before it was contained."

For starters, Yellowstone NP is not controlled or managed by the USFS, it is managed by the National Park Service.

Secondly, there is no way for the NPS to remove dead and drying trees from the park. You ever been to Yellowstone? Did you notice that there arent many roads in there? The only effective way to remove trees from Yellowstone would have been to intensly road the entire park.

You may want to keep in mind that nearly the entire park is comprised of Lodgepole pine...which means that you cant selectively take the dead and dying trees. Thinning or selectively harvesting lodgepole doesnt work, you remove 30-50% of the trees in the stand, the next windstorm knocks the rest down. Lodgepole needs to be harvest via clear-cutting.


Lodgepole forests regenerate from stand replacing disturbance, exactly what happened in Yellowstone. Fire frequencies in lodgeple pine forests are typically 120-200 years, and are most always associated with crown fires that kill the entire stand. The 1988 fires in Yellowstone were nothing out of the ordinary to what has been going on with lodgepole forests for thousands of years, including those in Yellowstone.

If you're going to run down the management practices of Yellowstone, your arguement would be better made with a few basic facts....like who the managing agency is and the life-cycle of lodgepole pine.

You're out in the weeds in regard to what happened in Yellowstone.

 

[RELH]

The only thing that is worse then the USFS is the National Park service. There are people that will disagree with you on the cutting of lodgepole pine has to only be fully clearcut.

As for building more roads, B.S. several logging companies around here use helicopters where they are not allowed to put in roads due to possible stream damage.

RELH

 

[tagsoup]

Help

 

[m_freeman]

Yellowstone can burn for all I care, that place is like Los Angeles in the woods, no thanks.