The Forest Service’s Catch 22: A Difficult and Dangerous Balance

By Norm Vance

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t... the ultimate catch 22! This is where the National Forest Service too often finds itself in regard to forest health and forest fire.

Everyone knows by now that the forest has been overprotected for many years. With less knowledge than we have today, past directors of the National Forest invented Smoky the Bear and went on a campaign to prevent forest fire and stop fires at all cost. This, along with the severe drought of the last decade, has left the current directors with a forest teeming with highly flammable materials just waiting for a spark.

The need to improve the health of the forest by “prescribed burns” or by letting a naturally-caused fire burn is understood by everyone. Understood, that is, until the fire is just over the hill from their house. It is natural for folks to become concerned and fearful, but there are far too many snide and unfair remarks made about the Forest Service in times of such public stress. Don’t hold the current forest rangers responsible. They didn’t create the problem, but it is their lot to deal with it.

National Forest rangers and fire fighters are up there with the ultimate heroes of our society. Anyone who goes up against a wall of fire with a pick and shovel or jumps out of an airplane into an inferno is beyond reproach. We have lost many, and we will lose many more. One was lost in the Missionary Ridge Fire near Vallecito Lake a couple of years ago.

The Missionary Ridge Fire can teach us many lessons. Have you been there lately? During the fire an observer said, “This fire is like a nuclear bomb, trees are being torn from the ground like dandelions. No human is going to stop it!”

A forest fire is not just trees burning across a space. It is an incredibly violent event with volatile fumes baked from trees into clouds and then igniting hundreds to thousands of trees in an explosive instant. Hillsides can create drafts that become infernos that melt steel. Being on the ground is no fun! That is what our forest rangers and firefighters do for a living.

The Missionary Ridge Fire was a horrific example of what a true, out-of-control forest fire can be and do. Yes, they lost some homes. It is virtually impossible to save them all in such a fire. But go there and look around at what the fire did, and what it did not do.

There are several places along the west side road where the fire burned right down to the lake. There are a few other spots where the entire mountainside is burned down to within three or four trees from businesses and houses on the lake’s edge.

I spoke with a lady who lived through it. She said the firefighters fought the blaze from the west side north of Durango and were not able to even slow it down. Then they moved part of the effort over to Vallecito Lake, knowing that is where the fire was heading. The firefighters saw the enchanted lake community and bonded quickly with the fearful residents. She said (most directly, but with tears in her eyes) that the firefighters got shoulder to shoulder a few trees back in the forest from the buildings, stood their ground and fought that “son of a bitch” to a standstill.

Most of the businesses and neighborhoods were saved as the fire burned around the lake and continued on. Drive over and look. You can clearly see what is described here. And spend a few dollars while you’re there.

My personal bottom line is consideration of the knowledge that we have spoiled much of the earth’s environment over the last century in our headlong rush to develop every technology and luxury possible. We who bask in the glow of that technology and luxury should leave this planet a little better than we inherited it. I firmly believe our National Forest rangers and their firefighting comrades are doing just that--the best they can with a bad situation. It might be difficult at times like these, but they deserve our thanks.

Author's Note: So you will know this is not just an intellectual reporting exercise for me, I was one of the people who lived “just over the hill” from the Rio Blanco Fire. I saw smoke rise from the tips of flames at night, and my eyes watered from the smoke as I typed this story. It’s not fun, but it is necessary.


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