[MCN] U.S. Forest Service releases fire severity maps for Montana and N. Rockies wildfires

[Jim Coefield]

Thanks for this Matthew!  I’d like to add to Matthew’s takeaway about the mosaic nature of the burns with a different look. 

For instance, the Lolo Peak Fire, which dominated much of the local news, and was a focus of national news particularly when some politicians showed up, has been referred to in many different highly emotional terms: destroyed, devastated, catastrophic, extremist, radical, tragic, terrible loss, etc. The emotional impact of the fire was amplified by a constant focus on the number of acres burned and visual impact locally of smoke and flames, and a barrage of photographs and videos jamming social media. To paraphrase: "53,326 acres destroyed by fires, tragically caused by radical environmentalists monkey wrenching in courts.”

My point is that public opinion has been manipulated and inflamed by a focus on the numbers and the maps with perimeters including unburned areas, or areas of low or very low intensity fires. When looking at the Lolo Peak Fire’s acreages in the various categories, you will find this information rom the fire map at InciWeb linked to by Matthew below:

Soil Burn Severity Acres

Total fire perimeter: 53,326

High seventy:  4,798 (9%)
Moderate severity: 13,579 (25%)
Low severity: 12,782 (24%)
Very low severity or unburned: 22,167 (42%)

So if we add it up, only 34% or 1/3 of the total acreage burned in high or moderate severity, while 66% or 2/3 of the total acreage was of low, very low or unburned severity. Clearly, the emotional impact by which our media and politicians inflame the issue is based on a worst case scenario through choice of words indicating that the worst happened to the total area, when the reality is that the fire burned in a mosaic of different severities from high to unburned.

So this is what we will be up against when fighting the political and media headwinds: propaganda based on maximizing the emotional impact through manipulation of numbers and use of inflammatory adjectives. We need to constantly remind and educate folks including politicians and the media that the whole Lolo Peak Fire did not result in total devastation. And that even the areas that did experience high and moderate severity have not been destroyed. Fire is a natural process that is inevitable in our forests, and that natural process includes mosaic burns that include a minority of high and moderate severities. What once seemed “devastated” will become visually beautiful in a few years to even the most fire-adverse individuals. The rebirth of Yellowstone National Park’s forests after the 1988 fires proved that.

-jim

-------------------------------------
Jim Coefield
webmaster at wildrockies.org
406-880-6954


On Oct 7, 2017, at 9:14 AM, Matthew Koehler via Missoula-Community-News <missoula-community-news at bigskynet.org> wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> The U.S. Forest Service has just started releasing detailed fire severity maps for wildfires that burned in the Northern Rockies this year.
> 
> The homepage is here: https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/5627/
> 
> Individual maps of some specific fires are here: https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/maps/5627/
> 
> TAKE HOME MESSAGE FROM THESE MAPS: The 2017 wildfires burned in a mosaic pattern with lots of unburned and low- to moderate-burn severity. Even high severity fire is normal, natural and beneficial in these fire-adapated ecosystems.
> 
> SOME EXAMPLES FROM SPECIFIC WILDFIRES:
> 
> Only 3% of the acres burned in 45,000 acre Sapphire Complex Wildfires on Lolo National Forest had soil burn severity measured as "High." 
> 
> Meanwhile, 78% of acres in Sapphire Complex Wildfires on the Lolo NF had soil burn severity measured as "Unburned" "Very Low" or "Low." 
> 
> The vast majority of the lightening-caused Park Creek fire was either unburned, or burned at low to moderate severity. Senator Daines, Rep Gianforte and the Montana timber industry blamed this wildfire on a lawsuit by the Alliance for the Wild Rockies. 
> 
> More fire severity maps will be posted by the U.S. Forest Service as they become available, so make sure to check back at this link: https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/5627/
> 
> Cheers,
> Matthew Koehler
> WildWest Institute
> 
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