The Future of Wildfire

06/25/19 • 51 min

The kid had started a fire that burned 49,000 acres of forest—76 square miles—a fire that closed a major highway, keeping hundreds of thousands of people from visiting the Gorge and its many businesses that rely on tourism to stay afloat. Oregon Parks and Recreation had to lay off a few dozen people to make up for lost business; The many families of the Gorge that evacuated suffered enormous financial burdens and emotional trauma; Five-thousand homes were threatened by the fire; The slopes of the Gorge were destabilized, as the root systems holding the dirt together burned up, leaving it prone to landslides and rockfall; The fire rained ash on Portland for days, and the smoke-filled air was a serious health hazard for more than a week; Many of the trails and campgrounds in the Gorge are still closed to this day. Clearly, the consequences were far reaching, and all of this would need to be considered in court.

At the end of a contentious trial, the court decided the kid would serve no jailtime, but he would be fined the total amount of damages from the fire: $36,618,330. On top of the fine, he was given five years of probation and nearly 2,000 hours of community service and would have to write letters to everyone impacted by the fire. And he was banned from ever returning to the Columbia River Gorge scenic area. His life had changed forever.

In episode five of Wildfire, we dive into the political spectrum around wildfire, and look into management solutions for dealing with the future of wildfire in the United States. And we’ll wrap things up in the Columbia River Gorge, concluding the story of Oregon’s 2017 Eagle Creek Fire.

Key takeaways:

1:15 – “Before we went on the fieldtrip, the kids were still carrying around a lot of confusion and fear around what happened in the fire and how it affected their lives.”
4:44 – “As the fire died down, a largescale criminal investigation immediately swung into action, involving a number of law enforcement agencies. The community wanted somebody to pin the tragedy on, and they wanted a swift sentencing.”
5:18 – “When the kid arrived at the arraignment, he was charged with a litany of crimes...”
7:46 – “When I first started talking to people about the kid who started the fire....”
14:58 – “Everything I was hearing was leading me to assume that this kid is probably a nice guy, with respect for the laws and cultural mores of this country. But he had made a huge mistake, and he would have to pay a price for that.”
16:24 – “A national treasure is scarred for generations...”
18:21 – “It made me upset, because it wasn’t about trying to find the learning moment... it was about just punishing him.”
19:09 – The kid declined to speak to any journalists or address the public, except for this statement that he read at his trial...
21:47 – “It was inevitable that the forest would burn. As we’ve learned throughout this series, it simply has to. In fact, experts even agree that the forests in that area were overdue for a major fire.”
22:23 – “Over the last two years, since the fire went out, tempers around here have definitely cooled. It seemed that everyone I talked to had come around to a place of empathy and compassion, replacing anger and vengeance.”
24:56 – “Isn’t the system of forestry management that left the Columbia River Gorge so extremely vulnerable to a catastrophic fire as much to blame for what happened in Eagle Creek as this 15-year-old kid?”
25:52 – “I hope that we’ve all learned some valuable lessons, as well: To be better stewards of our planet; to be more responsible in nature; to be more humble, and respectful, and compassionate.”
26:23 – “The Eagle Creek Fire is almost two years in the rearview mirror, and we’re entering the 2019 wildfire season.”
27:30 – “As we’ve learned, this is a national issue... So, what’re we doing at a political level, from the top down, to combat this problem?”
31:35 – A conversation with Dr. Paul Hesberg, a 35-year veteran of the Forest Service’s Research and Development group as a fire ecologist in the Pacific Northwest.
32:35 – “We’ve been finding that the annual acres burned has been increasing consistently from year-to-year and decade-to-decade. And we’re seeing a nexus of a warming and drying climate interacting with 100 years or more of fire exclusion, which increased the area and density of many of our forests.”
33:08 – “The studies throughout the world are really conclusive. Rational minds aren’t arguing about whether or not we’re living in a new climate change world. We are. Period.”
34:30 – “We need to create wildfire-adapted communities. Get ready for the fires that are coming—because they’re coming—and we can get ready before the fact.”
35:34 – Scientists have developed seven core landscape principles that they t...

Key takeaways:

1:15 – “Before we went on the fieldtrip, the kids were still carrying around a lot of confusion and fear around what happened in the fire and how it affected their lives.”
4:44 – “As the fire died down, a largescale criminal investigation immediately swung into action, involving a number of law enforcement agencies. The community wanted somebody to pin the tragedy on, and they wanted a swift sentencing.”
5:18 – “When the kid arrived at the arraignment, he was charged with a litany of crimes...”
7:46 – “When I first started talking to people about the kid who started the fire....”
14:58 – “Everything I was hearing was leading me to assume that this kid is probably a nice guy, with respect for the laws and cultural mores of this country. But he had made a huge mistake, and he would have to pay a price for that.”
16:24 – “A national treasure is scarred for generations...”
18:21 – “It made me upset, because it wasn’t about trying to find the learning moment... it was about just punishing him.”
19:09 – The kid declined to speak to any journalists or address the public, except for this statement that he read at his trial...
21:47 – “It was inevitable that the forest would burn. As we’ve learned throughout this series, it simply has to. In fact, experts even agree that the forests in that area were overdue for a major fire.”
22:23 – “Over the last two years, since the fire went out, tempers around here have definitely cooled. It seemed that everyone I talked to had come around to a place of empathy and compassion, replacing anger and vengeance.”
24:56 – “Isn’t the system of forestry management that left the Columbia River Gorge so extremely vulnerable to a catastrophic fire as much to blame for what happened in Eagle Creek as this 15-year-old kid?”
25:52 – “I hope that we’ve all learned some valuable lessons, as well: To be better stewards of our planet; to be more responsible in nature; to be more humble, and respectful, and compassionate.”
26:23 – “The Eagle Creek Fire is almost two years in the rearview mirror, and we’re entering the 2019 wildfire season.”
27:30 – “As we’ve learned, this is a national issue... So, what’re we doing at a political level, from the top down, to combat this problem?”
31:35 – A conversation with Dr. Paul Hesberg, a 35-year veteran of the Forest Service’s Research and Development group as a fire ecologist in the Pacific Northwest.
32:35 – “We’ve been finding that the annual acres burned has been increasing consistently from year-to-year and decade-to-decade. And we’re seeing a nexus of a warming and drying climate interacting with 100 years or more of fire exclusion, which increased the area and density of many of our forests.”
33:08 – “The studies throughout the world are really conclusive. Rational minds aren’t arguing about whether or not we’re living in a new climate change world. We are. Period.”
34:30 – “We need to create wildfire-adapted communities. Get ready for the fires that are coming—because they’re coming—and we can get ready before the fact.”
35:34 – Scientists have developed seven core landscape principles that they t...

Previous Episode

A Retrospective

Only a few days after it started, the Eagle Creek Fire in the Columbia River Gorge was only seven percent contained, so a sudden increase in the wind could cause it to once again continue its approach toward Portland, Oregon, a heavily wooded city of 700,00 people that hadn’t seen any measurable precipitation in 50 days. Everyone was skeptical that anything but rain could put this fire out, and it was nowhere in the forecast.

In episode four of Wildfire, we’ll look into our wildfire management strategy as an institution; to learn from its founding principles, as well as its pitfalls, and learn from our triumphs and mistakes to help chart the best path forward. How did these policies originate, and why? What lead to this overwhelming strategy of suppression, and where has that left us now?

Regarding the young man who started the fire, we’ll reveal everything we know about him, from press releases and news articles, to hopefully make some sense of his crime. And from there, we’ll look at the birth of the National Forest Service in the beginning of the 20th Century, the pioneering efforts of Teddy Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot, and the systemic perception of wildfire that has sunk its roots so deeply into society’s consciousness that it has been next to impossible to change.

Key takeaways:

0:24 – The wind had finally died down, and for a moment, the fire had finally stopped spreading.
1:40 – The government elevated the fire from a type two incident to a type one incident. There were now more than 1,000 firefighters in the Gorge to fight this fire and stop it before it went nuclear...
6:55 –On September 2, 2017, a teenager in the Pacific Northwest walked into the woods and made a really, really big mistake.
8:45 – “Having a catastrophic event happen in the middle of a traditionally busy weekend obviously had an impact on every single business here in town. Our customers didn’t have a reason to come out anymore, because there weren’t any trails to run on, bike on, play on...”
12:15 – “From a developmental standpoint, working with teenagers, they’re with a group of friends, trying to look cool, trying to get that social acceptance, wanting people to think you’re a ‘badass’, and feeling like you’re invincible.”
15:27 – It simply isn’t true that this kind of fire will never happen again. These fires, manmade or not, will likely continue, as they have throughout history.
18:54 – “If you look back at the history of conflagrations in the United States, they pretty much align with the wave of frontier settlement....” – The history of wildland firefighting strategy, and the history if Smokey Bear
25:27 – It all fell apart in the 1980s, when full-suppression tactics came back into vogue.
29:00 – “We waged a war on wildfire as a nation. But is wildfire really terrible? Can we attach such a subjective and human label to something so far beyond us?”
31:49 – “Convincing the public that some wildfires are good is tricky, but convincing the government could be even harder. And wildfire management in the United States is inextricably attached to timber.”
32:35 – The logging industry grew by 1,000 percent at the end of the 20th century, and clearcutting went into full effect. You can’t drive through Oregon without seeing the scars of this unfortunate era. Every tree in America had a dollar sign on it.
34:27 – “We had a human-caused fire, an abandoned campfire, way up in a dead-end drainage, and the fire became very active and took off... and some individuals were trapped... and four perished, and two were badly burned. It’s not worth it, at all. It’s not worth a life.”
36:34 – “We need to learn to live worth fire, because it’s not going away.”
40:00 – “We’re never going to live in a world without fire, and we wouldn’t want to. But how would the legal system hold ‘The Kid’ accountable, and make a statement about his actions?”

Resources

Next Episode

The Language of Wildfire

When this final episode of Wildfire was recorded, in May of 2019, wildfire Season had already kicked in. Or, maybe it never stopped. We’re breaking records all around the world: more loss of life due to forest fires; many more homes lost to fire; longer fire seasons; hotter global temperatures; much more carbon in the atmosphere. In short, we’re heading into uncharted territory.

Our goal with this podcast series has been to equip you with the tools you need to understand wildfire, so that you can be a more informed citizen of the world and build a stronger relationship with our wild spaces. We covered the science, the fire and forest management methods, the history, and we explored what we can do in the future to and create a more symbiotic relationship between our society and the forests in which we live and on which we rely. But now that we’re wrapping up the show, you’re about to dive back into the media bath of forests burning and threatening communities while engulfing entire regions of the world in smoke.

In this final episode of Wildfire, now that we’re done with the story of the Eagle Creek Fire in Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge, we’re going to arm you with the tools you need to interpret the information you see in the news, be more prepared personally, and, if you like, know where you can go to learn more.

Resources

Key takeaways:

0:05 - In May of 2019, Wildfire Season had already kicked in, or maybe it never stopped...
2:24 – This is clearly a worldwide issue...
2:54 – In the Pacific Northwest, a record-setting fire season is already kicking in...
6:45 – A conversation with Ralph Bloemers, Co-Founder and Senior Staff Attorney at the Crag Law Center in Portland, around the language used to describe wildfire.
10:15 – How do we know if the wood products we’re buying come from companies with good forest management policies?
12:04 – We are, in fact, breaking many important records. Records that we do not want to be breaking...
13:00 – What can we, as individuals, do?
13:50 – What does it mean to “harden our homes?”
16:58 – Resources you can use to learn more about wildfire and what’s happening in our forests.