Fire Education
How We Got Here
1910 Fires "The Great Burn"
3 million acres burned from NE Idaho into western Montana.
Area burned equal in size to the state of Connecticut.
Extreme drought year and railroad sparks a major contributor.
Shaped wildland fire policy for the 20th century.
10 A.M. Policy: all fires out by 10 A.M. the morning following ignition
Fire Exclusion, Suppression and Selective Harvesting
Not allowing ecologically important fire to burn across the landscape.
Selectively harvesting only the larger, more mature trees.
Local Example of Lick Creek
Lick Creek 1909
Open Park-Like Ponderosa Stand. Example of a historical reference site.
Lick Creek 1958
Beginning era of rigorous fire suppression.
Lick Creek 1979
Selective harvesting methods- only removing overstory trees.
Lick Creek 1997
Encroachment of small diameter Douglas-fir dominated tree species in the understory. Accumulation of woddy debris and small diameter trees coupled with decades of fire suppression.
Fire is Natural in Ravalli County
The landscape and vegetation of western Montana has an intimate and inseparable relationship with fire. Fire will always be a necessary disturbance for maintaining ecosystem health. Fire suppression and historic timber management caused an accumulation of woody debris and growth in the understory, particularly in low elevation, ponderosa pine forests which is the dominant forest type for most communities in Ravalli County.
Fire regimes are varied across temporal and spatial scales in Ravalli County:
Low to Mid Elevation: High frequency, low intensity
Low to mixed severity with fire returning frequently to landscape every 5-30 years (Arno 1976).
Frequency: fire returns to the landscape on average every 6-19 years (Arno 1976).
Ponderosa pine, Douglas-fir, western larch dominated forests (Agee 1993).
Ponderosa pine stands exhibited open, park-like structure maintained by frequent, low severity fire.
Mid-Elevation: Mix of high and low frequency and intensity
Mixed fire regimes with fire returning to landscape every 30-100 years (Agee 1990, 1993).
More severe, stand-replacing fires returning every 100-200 years
More dense forest structures consisting of mostly Douglas-fir, lodgepole pine, and subalpine fir.
High Elevation: Low frequency, high intensity
High intensity fires, with fire returning to landscape every 200-300 years historically.
Whitebark pine, lodgepole pine, Engelmann Spruce are dominant tree species.
Video Below Showing Historic Fire Behavior Across Multiple Forest Types:
Source: "Era of Megafires", Paul Hessberg, Research Landscape Ecologist, Research and Development, US Forest Service (2017).
Ponderosa Pine
Douglas-fir
Western Larch
Lodgepole Pine
Subalpine Fir
Fire History in the Northern Region
Interactive fire history map (1986-2018) for the Northern Region of the Forest Service, which includes the Bitterroot National Forest. You can find the map online here, click on the "view application" tab in the upper right corner to open the map. Located below in the second picture are instructions on how to navigate the map.
How to Navigate the Fire History Map
