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The recent "Obama's Justice Dept defends Bush rule on Guns", and too much coffee, made me think of something. I chimed in and gave my 2 cents even though I'm largely indifferent to what happens with concealed guns in parks. So, what do people think about something which I do have strong feelings about: being able to manage "Congressionally Designated Wilderness Areas", such as the Kachina Peaks, Kendrick Mountain, or Red Rocks/ Secret Mountain Wilderness Areas, and many, many other areas.

I feel we should have the ability to manage them beyond what we currently do. I include thinning, but not exclusively commercial logging, and prescribed fire, two things which are largely excluded to my knowledge. The thinning can be commercially viable, but I don't want to see areas become a true timber sale. Its already common practice to exclude fire from the Kachina Peaks using tools which are supposed to be banned from them, ei. chainsaws, so why not do what should be done and attempt to restore these areas to some level of a more natural condition so that when large natural fires occur the wilderness area isn't doomed to become the next Kendrick Mountain area after the Pumpkin Fire? The Kachina Peaks aren't far off from having this happen, and the North side of the Peaks has dozens of areas that were subjected to unnaturally intense fires that became stand replacement fires when they would have been low to moderate intensity fires in the 1800's. The Leroux Fire a fews back made a nice scar which is visible from town, and eventually it is inevitable that there will be conditions such as those that precipitated the Pumpkin Fire, and the Kachina Peaks will have areas that closely resemble Kendrick Mountain. Also, even if a severe and unnatural fire is not incredibly likely in the immediate future, a drought will once again result in a beetle outbreak that could make much of the Peaks look like the top of Kendrick, though Kendrick's appearance is largely the result of an outbreak that occurred after the fire.
Recent thinning work on the sides of Snowbowl Rd has impressed me with the aggressive nature of the thinning being done. If properly managed it is conceivable that the former overly dense areas could be very close to their appearance in 1800. However, as you progress up the road beyond the Wilderness Boundary you encounter what most of the mountain looks like, extremely dense mixed conifer (and some pure ponderosa pine) which will almost certainly be moon-scaped should a large fire occur in it. Not only are there way too many stems, but also 100 years of fire's absence has resulted in a duff buildup that is a foot thick in some places. I think we should be able to thin these areas and rake and burn them to attempt to restore them and produce areas that can accept a natural fire without fear of it being destroyed.
But its, a wilderness area, so.....

Isolated fires are, of course, natural and help promote biodiversity. Huge and destructive fires are not normal and are the result of human intervention in the natural process. My $0.02: Let's take ourselves out of the equation to the maximum extent possible. If we didn't let people build things where they shouldn't, there would be no immediate need to stop natural fires to protect "life and limb", etc.

Ah, but since we are already a massive part of the equation we need to be part of the solution, so to speak. We overgrazed, excluded fire, and allowed there to be too many stems per acre with a foot of duff to develop, so without correcting it manually we are saying nature will do it for us and in the best way. Yet, the conditions we created are not natural in that they would not have occurred on their own had we not imposed our will on the area, so when nature "puts things right" a new dynamic will unfold and there are going to be "unnatural" results. Almost all the conifers in Kendrick's burn area are snags, the soil is completely gone from those areas, and aspen is there but it would not have been in that condition had the Pumpkin Fire happened in 1850. I say we should actively manage the wilderness to allow us to get back to a hands off approach. Think of how different Kendrick would look had the the north and east sides been thinned to >50 stems per acre and had they been burned to a 10 year fuel load or less.

I do agree that we have built in areas we never should have, and that we spend too much to protect the resources of too few. Snowbowl itself be damned in a fire, I'm thinking of the habitat, the ecology, the watershed, and the aesthetic appearance (which will vary widely from person to person). If we could treat 90% of the mixed conifer and lower elevations to the degree I am referring, wouldn't it be great to have a late June fire that started somewhere above Freidline Prairie Road and spread our from there slowly burning all that it could? Close Snowbowl road, leave a a few engine crews at the resort to protect the property should it be threatened, but wouldn't it be great to let a fire burn up there for 4 months if it was as beneficial as it would have been 150 years ago? The only way we can get to that is by unnatural mechanical means.

Catch-22. I agree that in many instances, a little bit of management could go a long way. Unfortunately, everything we allow to be managed is often over-managed, under-managed, or just plain caught up in bureaucracy forever.

I do believe, however, that a severe fire occurring on wilderness land that threatens life and property should be fought without regards to the wilderness designation. E.g. ... bring out the dozers and do what it takes to protect people. Many wilderness areas are remote enough however that defenses can be established outside the wilderness and fires should be allowed to burn without human interference.

I spoke with a FS worker in the Big Lake lookout tower a few years back and you could see just how dense and overgrown the Baldy wilderness was compared with the adjacent forest land which had been thinned and managed. The Big Lake area had just experienced a "good" fire ... low intensity but large, lightning-caused blaze that burned for more than a week. That "good" fire was the result of the current weather, and the previous winter's snowfall. When (not if) Baldy burns, it will take extraordinarily lucky circumstances to prevent complete moonscape. But then again, look at how things are springing back up on Mt. Graham after so much of that mountain going "scorched earth".

jhodlof wrote:I say we should actively manage the wilderness to allow us to get back to a hands off approach.

I think hands-off is just fine. Nature will fix itself faster than we can do it. And we'd probably do it wrong anyway.

chumley wrote:I spoke with a FS worker in the Big Lake lookout tower a few years back and you could see just how dense and overgrown the Baldy wilderness was compared with the adjacent forest land which had been thinned and managed. The Big Lake area had just experienced a "good" fire ... low intensity but large, lightning-caused blaze that burned for more than a week. That "good" fire was the result of the current weather, and the previous winter's snowfall. When (not if) Baldy burns, it will take extraordinarily lucky circumstances to prevent complete moonscape. But then again, look at how things are springing back up on Mt. Graham after so much of that mountain going "scorched earth".

The one good thing about Baldy (if you mean the Mount Baldy near Sunrise Ski Resort) is that Spruce-Fir as we find above 9,500' to 10,000' in AZ burns very infrequently and in severe stand replacing fires. It is completely unnecessary to do anything in them as they have had the least amount of impact from white settlement and land management policies. In fact, even if there was a Pumpkin Fire on the San Francisco Peak near Flagstaff, the likelihood of Snowbowl property being threatened is extremely rare. The fuels tend to not be a dry and flammable and the soil tends to be moist(er) even under the hottest and driest of conditions.
Mixed conifer is not this, and is very similar to ponderosa pine forests. How it recovers is dependent on many factors.
Interesting note, there was a 10,000' acre fire on the Kaibab this fall that was managed for about 2 months.

chumley wrote:

jhodlof wrote:I say we should actively manage the wilderness to allow us to get back to a hands off approach.

I think hands-off is just fine. Nature will fix itself faster than we can do it. And we'd probably do it wrong anyway.

But when nature does it for us, you get a Pumpkin Fire, or a Rodeo-Chediski Fire, or a Warm Fire (though that was a Wildland Fire Use before being reclassified as a Wildfire). By pretending that nature can fix it for us, we must be content to accept the results, no matter what they be.

jhodlof wrote:By pretending that nature can fix it for us, we must be content to accept the results, no matter what they be.

I think I'm ok with that

chumley wrote:

jhodlof wrote:By pretending that nature can fix it for us, we must be content to accept the results, no matter what they be.

I think I'm ok with that

Same here. I'd actually like to see huge swathes of land be declared off-limits...

chumley wrote:

jhodlof wrote:By pretending that nature can fix it for us, we must be content to accept the results, no matter what they be.

I think I'm ok with that

Really?!?
I'm not. Kendrick Peak is horrible (Bull Basin area). I would hate to see the same happen to the San Francisco Peaks. I don't believe I have ever heard anyone say, "I just drove through the Rodeo-Chediski burn area, gosh that sure is beautiful, and what a wonderful functioning ecosystem".
Have you been up on Wilson Mt lately? In the severely burned areas the pines are all gone. That area will never look the same as it did in 2005 just before the fire or 1890, when it was last in a "natural state". The soil is eroding, and what will regenerate is the Oak and Locust, because that is what is regenerating. There will never again be a dominant pine component in those areas because the conditions that produced those stands are no longer the driving force. Now, I like the oak and it would be interesting to see Wilson become a closed canopy oak forest, but this simply isn't feasible for the Peaks. Besides, erosion there would be far, far worse.

Jeff MacE wrote:

chumley wrote:

jhodlof wrote:By pretending that nature can fix it for us, we must be content to accept the results, no matter what they be.

I think I'm ok with that

Same here. I'd actually like to see huge swathes of land be declared off-limits...

Actually, I too would like to see vast tracts of the Coconino, Kaibab, and Apache-Sitgreaves be turned over to "wilderness" type management. Especially if we have no intention of using them as forests that work. To me this means closing and rehabbing roads, eliminating tanks, and basically putting things back to their 1850 appearance. However, I would like to see them put into a state that could be "let go" before we do this. Every year there are fires of varying size in the Gila with little notice because that area has had a history of fire that is less unnatural than what is off of Lake Mary Road. Much of the forest down there is dense pine with no herbaceous ground cover. Its 500 trees per acre over needle pack.
Losing trees is actually far less of a blow to the pine-oak forest that exists in Northern AZ than losing the herbaceous ground cover and the soil. Sadly, when these severe fires occur, too often the last two things are eliminated along with the trees. I would like to see the ability to host more 10,000, or 50,000 acre fires that had no more significance than some smoke being put up. So what if trees die?

It might become a pine forest again, it will just take a very long time. Many hundreds of years. The term used is "succession." I'm sure there is someone on here that actually studied this topic and can chime in, but it was a tangential part of my undergrad studies. Many pine species have a hard time coming back or spreading without fire, in fact. Their seeds need to be stratified to grow. This is why you'' often see stands of pine that are all roughly the same age and evenly spaced. That's about the extent of my knowledge on the subject, however...

jhodlof wrote:or 1890, when it was last in a "natural state"

I believe this is flawed reasoning. There is no such thing as a natural state. Change is the only constant.
However, I agree with you in many aspects. I would much prefer to see a beautiful old-growth forest. But that's my selfish personal preference. I hate the thought of the Kachina Wilderness burning to completely bare. But if it happens, it happens. The area will recover. It will be different than it was before, and you and I may not like it as much as now. But that's part of how things change.

Jeff MacE wrote:Many pine species have a hard time coming back or spreading without fire, in fact

There's a nice brochure up on Mt. Graham at the visitor's center that explains how Aspen is the "Mother of the Forest". Really an interesting description of the cycle of growth up there. I can't find it online, but next time you find yourself there, check it out!

Yea, way back in ECOL class we had to play with this little simulator that showed the succession stages...it was kinda cool.

Jeff MacE wrote:It might become a pine forest again, it will just take a very long time. Many hundreds of years. The term used is "succession." I'm sure there is someone on here that actually studied this topic and can chime in, but it was a tangential part of my undergrad studies. Many pine species have a hard time coming back or spreading without fire, in fact. Their seeds need to be stratified to grow. This is why you'' often see stands of pine that are all roughly the same age and evenly spaced. That's about the extent of my knowledge on the subject, however...

When starting on a Forest Silviculture Master at NAU (I did not complete it), I took a Forest Stand Dynamics Class. We spoke directly on this subject. In Oregon, areas that burned as they did on Wilson are developing a dynamic that favors chaparral species. After the pine is removed the species which regenerate exclude the regeneration of the pine. These species were able to become established under the pine overstory because fire did not occur for so long. This is known as advanced regeneration, because they are waiting for a disturbance to release them from the overstory (the pines) so that they may regenerate and begin to dominate the site. On Wilson Mountain, Gambel Oak and New Mexican Locust are fulfilling this roll. The Pine overstory was largely eliminated from many areas (not all, however) and the former understory species are beginning to dominate the site. Hike up to the top and continue on for the first half mile or so to the northern overlook. There is a sea of 5 to 10 foot tall oak that has coppiced (root sprouted) and in several years will create a shaded environment underneath that will completely exclude pine regeneration because Ponederosa Pine is shade intolerant, or sun light demanding. There is no longer an overstory of pine to contribute a seed source to regenerate any pines there, and any seed that did blow in from a nearby area would need years to grow and be capable of out-competing the existing oaks. In other words, the oaks will prevent any pines that did germinate under them from growing.

Now, Succession is a different matter. Typical old field succession, or stand regeneration disturbances that reset everything at zero and begin a-new, tend to follow a predictable series of events that have conifers like pines or eastern juniper dominating a site before shade tolerant species like fir, maples, ect. begin to dominate the site from the understory. There can be exception to this. For example the pine under aspens as we see on the sides of US 180 north of town, or Spruce Pine in the South east, or possibly Doug-Fir under Alder in the Pacific NW. However, this is not applicable to Wilson since it was not reset to zero, Oaks were not eliminated. Lodgepole pine in Wyoming or Colorado can be classified in the Stand replacement species category, as can Loblolly Pine, Eastern White Pine, and Pacific Doug-Fir. Southwestern Ponderosa Pine is not included in this list of species, but certain areas of Rocky Mountain (scopulorum var.) Ponderosa can be.

chumley wrote:

jhodlof wrote:or 1890, when it was last in a "natural state"

I believe this is flawed reasoning. There is no such thing as a natural state. Change is the only constant.
However, I agree with you in many aspects. I would much prefer to see a beautiful old-growth forest. But that's my selfish personal preference. I hate the thought of the Kachina Wilderness burning to completely bare. But if it happens, it happens. The area will recover. It will be different than it was before, and you and I may not like it as much as now. But that's part of how things change.

I actually feel the same as you, if it happens it happens, but we have only ourselves to blame should it happen.
I put natural in quotes because most people don't see humans as being part of a natural ecosystem. Yet, for thousands of years humans burned and influenced a natural system as we regard it today. When humans stopped exerting certain forces like fire on almost every system in North America, they began to change into what is usually regarded as an "unnatural" state by ecologist. That is, they no longer function as they once did, or once wide-spread systems are no longer so and many endemic species are threatened or endangered. Its not just Ponderosa Pine or Mixed Conifer in the west, its also Longleaf Pine in the SE, Shortleaf Pine in the South-Central states and Piedmont, The Pine Barren Region of NY and NJ, White Oak forests of the East, the once great North American Prairies, desert grasslands, California Chaparral, and Colorado's Lodgepole Pine forests.

Aspen is probably considered the "mother of the forest" because it regenerates very fast after a fire, and because it spreads so far and wide via wind. Depending on what happens after it grows will determine what the forest that results is. One reason a lot of the Aspen on the sides of 180 north of Flag looks so bad is because it isn't really well suited to the site. I recently heard something about how those stands are the result of overgrazing and fire exclusion 80 years ago. Now, with drier years and their advanced age they are dying. Many people don't like to see them die, but they don't really belong there. I mean, we created conditions that allowed them to become established on a site that they otherwise would not have been able to colonize.

See, I knew someone would know!

jhodlof wrote:Rodeo-Chediski Fire

Wasn't natural; arsonist and a signal fire that got out of control. It spread so rapidly because the forest also wasn't in a natural state; overgrown, doghair thickets, etc (which is, I know, part of your point).

I don't mind using chainsaws as a management tool in wilderness areas, but there's a big difference between the impact of horse-packing, or backpacking in the saws, and driving a crew in. We need to try to help nature along, but I agree with others that have stated that nature is in a constant state of flux. There's spruce-fir relic forests in the Tsegi canyon system from the last Ice Age; now you get dense PJ high up and sagebrush (or nothing) low down. Change happens. If oaks dominate an ecosystem after a fire, and erosion increases, well, that's how mountain ranges erode, new canyons are cut, and new sediments deposited in floodplains. All part of The Great Circle.

Ok, I'll bite on this one. I'll be the "bomb thrower." I don't think it matters what we do or don't do. We, human race, are so insignificant in the great scheme of things. Our time on this planet to date is insignificant. We have very poor control over matters outside ourselves, and some of us have no to poor control over our personal life. We have used our environment to our ends and molded it to suit us as we are able, and bemoan what we can't control ( tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, drought etc). Then we must "fix" things when we perceive we have screwed up. I happen to think less is more. Don't how much less, or how much we can leave alone. And beauty or natural is in the eye of the beholder, destruction either by man or nature can be horrible or magnificent, it's all perspective. Just my -.02 worth.