PANEL DISCUSSION: Prescribed Burning in the 21st Century

Even though many legal, social, and organizational constraints affect prescribed fire programs, the ecological and social benefits of such programs encourage their continued existence (with or without modification). The form of these programs in the next 10 to 50 years is pure speculation; but we must speculate and project the programs, as well as associated benefits and costs, since the ecosystems we manage respond to fire on several time scales. A panel chaired by Dr. Ron Wakimoto of the University of Montana was convened to discuss projections about the role and form of prescribed burning in the next century. The five panelists were Mr. current problems associated with prescribed fire as well as future opportunities were presented, such as prescribed fire as a landscape phenomenon involving multiple jurisdictions. The following five papers present a summary of this panel discussion. more difficult. With more fuel for constructing fireline, higher fire intensities keeping firefighters further back, and more fires to contain or control, acres burned will only increase. Fire modeling projections for areas with the mortality problem show resistance to suppression will become 3 times greater, acres per hour burned will increase 25 times, and spotting distances will be 1.2 times greater (Page and others 1991). This has been validated with two fires on the Forest in 1989 and 1990 in which both fires burned from 500 to 1,000 acres per hour during peak periods with extensive crowning and spotting. Demand for suppression resources is further compounded by urban-rural interfaces in which suppression strategies have changed from perimeter control that minimizes acres burned, to exposure protection focusing on structures. Because of the mortality rates, capturing the merchantable timber value and reduction potential for catastrophic fire became the objectives for the Plumas National Forest. The USDA Forest Service began aggressive salvage actions to remove the rapidly accumulating fuels and capture a merchantable product. However, salvage operations alone would not reduce the potential for catastrophic fire because not all the dead and dying material would be removed. In many cases it was less than 30 percent of the boles removed with salvage. Areas and trees without merchantable sawlog salvage did not require removal. Complete removal of dead trees would not occur for reasons of economic viability, access, equipment limitations, resource constraints, low volumes per acre, large acre involvement, and rapid deterioration of wood value. In fact, based on our projections, fire potential was not …