Fire recovery question

oilcan · Sep 6, 2020

I’m looking anyone’s opinion or experience with game returning to areas that have been severely burned. This picture is from the pine Gulch fire on the border of unit 30/31 as you can see it scorched everything to bare ground.
The biologist for unit 30 said as soon as the grass sprouts the elk will be back but he said the deer would not return for 30+ years if ever. That seems like a very pessimistic outlook I assume due to the fact that there will be no browse but I’m not an expert.
The biologist for unit 31 has a better outlook he said he would not be surprised if the deer did return in a couple years.
So does anyone have any experience in an area where the fire burned this hot and the Deer return?

Muleman · Sep 6, 2020

Elk will return and soon as the grass grows usually that is same year. Deer won’t return in any big numbers until Forbes and browse species start to regrow. That’s around year 3 depending on how hot the burn was and how much the soil erosion and heat damage

Gator · Sep 6, 2020

Killed one in N Ca 2 years after a big burn. His horns are still coal black. that all he had to rub his horns on. WASN'T alot of deer in the old burn area, BUT the edges held lots of deer

1989Cohunter · Sep 6, 2020

Not sure what kind of drugs the one guy smokes. But where I hunt the we had some awesome years way less the 30 years... just sayin.

RELH · Sep 6, 2020

In CA. I have seen deer return as soon as there is sufficient brush to browse on. That is about 2-3 years.
RELH

Soj51hopeful · Sep 7, 2020

I’ve heard the sage brush takes a really long time to return if it gets scorched like that. If that was all the deer had in that area then maybe it will be a while.

264mag · Sep 7, 2020

I’ve seen new sprouts on Brush return with in a month if they weren’t burnt to bad

tailchasers · Sep 7, 2020

This was a hot fire but from I understand didn't scorch the earth. We had the 18,000 acre Red Dog fire north of here 4 yrs ago. We got a little moisture and before the ground froze small areas of green began popping up with antelope and a few deer right behind. Fast forward to 2020 and the antelope herd is now scatter throughout as are the deer and wintering elk. Doesn't take long at all. With this storm system moving in this week with good moisture I would imagine we'll see some green in some areas this fall that if it is near an unburned edge could attract some critters. We had another burn last year that was covered in elk throughout the winter where we harvested 2 cows. Grass and forbes in there like not seen before. I have my fingers crossed this burn works out as I and so many other hunters and ranchers do too.

Blank · Sep 7, 2020

An awful lot of the use will be determined by the agency in charge, the reclamation and rehabilitation efforts, and Mother Nature itself.

We had a major fire here in Aug 2016 called the Henry Creek fire, burned up approx. 60,000 acres of private, BuRec, IDFG WMA, and a little USFS. Super hot and scorched the earth badly in many places, wiped out large amounts of tall sage, and got many acres of bitterbrush winter range. It did burn up thousands of acres of cheatgrass, which was good. Predator and I went up in October following it to assess the damage. It looked like a lunar landscape, and appeared to be horrible. I have gone back each summer and fall to re-assess, and these are some observations.

The IDFG immediately started surveying and figuring out what to do. There was a huge support effort by volunteers to re-establish bitterbrush areas and some tree plantings, and they (BLM and IDFG) did some aerial seeding of desirable wild grasses, They went in and blocked off the firebreak roads to keep people off them and let the area recover. We got an average amount of rainfall and snow, so no major wash out concerns, and things got deep watered. The grasses came back good, and the wintering elk herd did OK the first year, and have been doing good ever since. There were very few timbered areas or quakie pockets left, and deer generally left the areas with no browse left. They are slowly returning, but we have also been seeing a lot of whitetails moving back into areas they never used before, because of mule deer. Moose moved over about 5-10 miles to other winter areas with more brush and sage brush remaining.

Overall, I think the recovery is doing pretty good. I was just up there this week, and it is very dry conditions, but still looking very green. We should be getting some cooler weather and moisture this week, so hopefully the fire season will start winding down.

coloradoman · Sep 7, 2020

I have been up in 61 for the last five days and that fire that burned in 2018 we saw bucks and a couple bears on the hoof and elk sign all over the road so it doesn’t take 30+ years for it to recover

Castnshoot · Sep 7, 2020

Last year we had our eye on a certain Antelope that hung out in a certain area.

A big fire came through that same area a couple of days before the hunt.

Going past the still smoldering burn with mop up crews still in the area, there he was standing right out in the middle of the burn where he always hung out before the fire.

Antalope are weird though.

As for deer , every fire is different I guess, especially concerning the restoration aspects.

One really big fire I was familiar with they, had a lot of alfalfa in the reseed mix. The conditions were just right and that alfalfa really took hold for a couple of years, and that burn had a lot of deer not long after that fire.

I find 30 years pretty hard to swallow.

Castnshoot · Sep 7, 2020

Oilcan, because you ask let me back up my statement about finding 30 years for deer to return hard to swallow.

First off I like many here live in fire country. Just to show some of my perspective,,, this is from my front porch 3 weeks ago.

Note the mountains behind the chopper in this video. Those mountains were burned in a huge fire quite a few years ago.

This was the regular view looking back towards my house from that older burn only a year or two after that burn.

Biologists pretty much find what they are paid to find.

jls456 · Sep 7, 2020

coloradoman said:
I have been up in 61 for the last five days and that fire that burned in 2018 we saw bucks and a couple bears on the hoof and elk sign all over the road so it doesn’t take 30+ years for it to recover

Same with me..They Seem to come back quick.

Elkslayer · Sep 7, 2020

I've seen good bucks killed right in the middle of a burn less than two months after it was nuked. People were driving by and not giving spotting that area a second thought.

eelgrass · Sep 7, 2020

The worst case scenario is when a fire goes through a thick stand of timber and kills the trees but leaves them standing and then another fire comes through a few years later and burns all that dead dry wood. It looks like a nuclear bomb went off. Even in that case I've seen it come back in a few years. Obviously if the top soil gets washed away it will be scarred for a long time, but hopefully some mitigation will take place to help prevent that.

I just don't think a wood fire burns hot enough to destroy a place for 30 years or more.

BC200Buck · Sep 8, 2020

Different fires can have different outcomes depending on numerous factors, but fire can be a very positive thing. Many of the best bucks I have seen taken were taken on burn scars. Often it resets the vegetation and provides much more nutrition than older vegetation.

oilcan · Sep 8, 2020

I hope you guys are right. It needed to burn the oak brush was impenetrable in most areas up there. We always said if it lit off there would be no stopping it.

lvtuna · Sep 8, 2020

Here in Southern Nevada I am around burns. Recent burns less than a month old are holding big bucks. My whole life have seen deer in burns 52 years old.. Predators, rabbits, all wildlife move right in. Never heard of a 30 year time line for animals to move into a burned area. Maybe they want to hunt it by themselves.

oilcan · Sep 8, 2020

Just got off the phone with the rancher he is optimistic, he talked to a geologist up there who said it went through there so fast it may not have damaged the soil as much as they thought. He tried sifting through the cabin remains, found our cast iron skillet had started to melt.