Fall 2002. Fire facts for homeowners. Two who cared: a formula for effective whistleblowing.

Preventing a Fire Tragedy

Every news account I have read of the first big fires of summer 2002 has painted a bleak picture: several hundred thousand acres of forest “consumed” and hundreds of homes “destroyed” by wildfire. Such accounts are not pretty. As stories about federal fire policies gone awry have mounted, the public is led to wonder: Was this tragedy preventable?

We cannot answer until we realize we pose two questions, one about the fires and the other about their effect on homes and communities. These questions must be considered separately because they address two quite different sets of issues.

Are forest fires such as the ones we have seen this year preventable? Consider first the human side. Years of fire suppression and other management activities have in many cases led to significantly higher fuel accumulations than would have existed absent human intervention. One corrective course in lower elevation ponderosa pine forests is to address high fuel loads by thinning undergrowth and prescribing fire. In many situations, these actions have proved advantageous in transforming what otherwise would be a high-intensity, stand-replacement fire into a “cool” underburn.

Addressing this human side of forest fire will be a daunting task. It has been decades in the making and will likely take decades to deal with adequately.

Even if we are successful, we must face the reality that we cannot rid ourselves of fires anymore than we can rid ourselves of big rains and associated floods. We have learned that fire is an integral and beneficial part of the ecology of western forestlands. Fire occurs frequently in many forests. In lower-elevation ponderosa pine, fire may enter the forest as often as every ten years. In other forests, particularly at higher elevations or in wetter climates, fire may be an infrequent visitor, entering the forest perhaps only once in a typical 200- to 300-year time span.

In all cases, however, fire will happen. In years of extreme drought, such as we are experiencing in the Southwest, forests reach tinder-dry conditions and are primed for fire.

Climate is key. The cycles of nature and the inevitable years of extremely dry weather make forest fires, including high-intensity, stand-replacing fires (such as the Yellowstone fires of 1988) a certainty. Although we can favorably influence fire behavior by the kinds of land management activities we engage in prior to a fire event, we cannot prevent fire from occurring. Nor would we want to given fire’s significant role as a rejuvenating force in most forest types.

Now the second question: Is the loss of our homes and communities to wildland fire preventable? Judging by many of our homes, we must believe either that fire won’t happen (though in fact it will) or that there is little we can do to minimize our risk of home loss when fire does happen. It’s a huge reason why we have tended to think of wildland fire, when it inevitably occurs, as being so tragic.

Making homes survivable in a fire may be the easiest piece of the fire puzzle to solve. Home loss is the real fire tragedy of 2002 simply because it is largely preventable.

As a society, we have consistently ignored important research, such as that coming from U.S. Forest Service research scientist Jack Cohen. His are not new findings. For many years, Cohen studied home ignitability and the factors that enable homes and other structures to withstand extreme fire events. He wrote for Inner Voice in 1994, saying that social attitudes are “a critical part of the problem” when it comes to saving homes and communities. Homeowners have not readily accepted fire safety recommendations for structure materials or for clearing vegetation around homes. They have tended to perceive many of the necessary safety measures as aesthetically unacceptable.

Solutions for those who wish to build in or near wildlands are straightforward, according to Cohen. Research shows that homes are 85 to 95 percent survivable even in a severe fire event as long as they are made of nonignitable materials (such as a metal roof) and the ground has been cleared of flammable vegetation within sixty feet of the home. Cohen states, “Home ignitability is the key, not its location in the wildland-urban interface.”

One of Cohen’s favorite stories is of the “miracle” house, as the news accounts described it, that survived an intense wildland fire in Southern California when nearly all of the neighboring houses were destroyed. The house, made with a tile roof and stucco walls, was no miracle. Its ability to withstand heat, flames and firebrands raining down on it was nothing more than a function of its design and materials. Yet it provides a critically important lesson for any homeowner who chooses to build where wildland fire is an inevitable occurrence.

The miracle house and its response to fire holds valuable lessons. Lessons for all homeowners to get to the business of designing, building and maintaining homes and communities in harmony with the cycles of the natural world. And lessons for the Forest Service and other land management agencies to get to the business of managing our public forests in harmony with those same cycles of nature. Someday we may just discover that fire is not our enemy and that fire tragedies need not happen.

Where are they now?

Environmental whistleblowing takes many forms, from the anonymous brown envelope stuffed with internal memoranda to an environmental lawsuit filed by a U.S. Forest Service worker. Although Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics respects the confidentiality of whistleblowers (we never take action without their consent), we know that the employee willing to go public is more effective than the one who seeks anonymity.

Conventional wisdom holds that whistleblowing is not a good career move. However, at FSEEE, we’ve learned that the key to successful whistleblowing is integrity. The best whistleblowers are superb employees with spotless records and no personal ax to grind. For them, whistleblowing is a last resort, an option only after all reasonable internal avenues have been exhausted. They blow the whistle based on principle, not personal advantage. It is their integrity that helps protect them from the Forest Service’s immune system.

Mary Dalton was one such whistleblower. A field forester on Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, Dalton blew the whistle on the Northwest Baranof timber sale. Her field reconnaissance data concerning unstable slopes, bald eagle nest sites and salmon streams were largely overlooked in the sale’s planning documents. When she tried to internally appeal the faulty decision, she was suspended for disloyalty and ordered to move to Arizona’s Coronado National Forest or resign.

Dalton prevailed. Together with FSEEE, her lawsuit forced the Forest Service to rescind its regulations barring employee appeals of timber sales. As part of the settlement package, the Forest Service was forced to restore her back pay and erase the suspension from her record. Although the Forest Service offered Dalton her previous position on the Tongass, she chose to remain in Arizona, where she continues her successful career as a Forest Service fire protection officer.

Carla Tipton Monismith is a timber sale officer responsible for ensuring the proper trees are marked for logging on Oregon’s Wallowa-Whitman National Forest. Employees she works with complained of nausea, headaches and other illnesses they believed resulted from their use of tree-marking paint. For two years, Monismith tried to solve the tree-paint problem internally with no success. She then contacted FSEEE and became a public whistleblower.

Monismith prevailed. Her lawsuit, filed together with FSEEE, forced the Forest Service to substitute a less toxic tree paint for the highly volatile mixture then in use. Monismith didn’t rely exclusively on the courts to draw attention to the problem. With FSEEE’s assistance, she garnered significant public attention through nationwide media stories. Monismith continues her successful forestry career with no apparent adverse effect from her whistleblowing activities.

These two Forest Service employees were successful whistleblowers because each was right on the facts and the law. Both decided to speak out based on principled conviction, after having thoroughly researched their issues and exhausted internal channels. Neither had a personal ax to grind. Both had (and continue to have) unblemished employment records and cordial relationships with their colleagues. Both conducted their whistleblowing activities with scrupulous adherence to federal ethics and conflict-of-interest regulations. That’s a winning combination.

Charter Forest Flogged

Tom Tancredo, a Republican representative from Colorado and former president of a right-wing Libertarian think tank, has introduced in Congress the first, but likely not the last, charter forest bill. His bill, the Pike and San Isabel Restoration Charter Forest Act of 2002 (HR4911), would exempt timber sales from environmental review so long as the sales were “consistent” with a new forest plan. The new forest plan would be written by a group of local citizens appointed by Colorado’s two Republican senators and Republican governor.

In practice, Tancredo’s bill would eliminate enforcement of the National Environmental Policy Act (the most important of our nation’s environmental laws) when it comes to logging on the PikeÐSan Isabel National Forest. Tancredo hopes his bill will gain momentum from this summer’s fires, which burned extensively in that forest.

The Idaho Conservation League exposed a leaked copy of a bill drafted by lawyers for the Idaho Federal Lands Task Force, a pro-timber industry creature of the Idaho legislature. The bill would create a charter forest out of portions of central Idaho’s Clearwater and Nez Perce national forests.

Like Tancredo’s bill, the Idaho legislation would carve out exceptions to environmental laws. Unlike Tancredo’s bill, which guts only NEPA, the Idaho bill would eliminate all environmental laws from enforcement. In fact, the bill would reward U.S. Forest Service dilatory behavior by exempting the agency from environmental laws if it took the Forest Service more than a year to follow the laws.

The fate of these bills will be decided by the November congressional elections. If the Republicans regain control of the Senate and retain control of the House, it will be very tough to stop legislation of this type from going to President Bush for his signature.

Forest Magazine | FSEEE