Setting Fires: Science and Savvy
Prescribed burning is one of the tools used to recreate the open forests and grasslands that once were the norm at low elevations in the Rocky Mountain Trench.

Today's controlled surface fires mimic the naturally occurring fires that burned regularly through the Trench in the centuries before modern firefighting dramatically altered the landscape. Prescribed burning in combination with logging, slashing and thinning rids the Trench of overcrowded, immature trees and produces tremendous regeneration of the shrubs and grasses that provide habitat and food for wildlife and domestic livestock. At the same time, these 21st century restoration techniques eliminate the thousands of spindly trees that provide fuel for potentially catastrophic crown fires.

But starting forest fires on purpose can be controversial. People are concerned about safety and the smoke created by burns, and some don't understand the reason for burning trees.

In reply to these concerns, the Trench Society points out that burning is always carried out with safety as the prime consideration and under conditions to minimize the effects of smoke. It is also one of the most cost effective steps in restoring grasslands.

 Burn plans are crucial
BC Forest Service staff and contracted crews, who do the restoration burns in the Trench, follow detailed plans that specify the conditions that must prevail before a fire is lit and ensure that air quality and safety requirements are met.

"We need good venting conditions to carry smoke into the upper atmosphere and we need good fireguards to protect other values such as private lands, parks and merchantable timber," says Tom Hedin, Cranbrook Forest District operations manager.

Invermere Forest District range technician Phil Burk agrees. "It's very important that we write a burn plan that's defendable and then stick to it. That way we know we're burning at least risk to our own crews and the public. A huge amount of planning -- and blood, sweat and tears -- goes into these burns."

Both forest districts advise residents of potential burns near their homes and property, and ask people with health problems that could be affected by smoke to notify them. Where smoke from burns near roads and highways could be a safety issue, the districts employ flag crews and highway patrols.

 Mother Nature's Windows
Still, careful fire planning and management depend on Mother Nature, who calls the shots when it comes to lighting up. Weather conditions have to be just right and vegetation on the ground can't be too green or the fire won't start or won't burn hot enough or will be carried too far by contrary winds or will damage rather than rejuvenate grasses.

Spring burns need several days of sun to dry out the ground cover that fuels the fire, ideally followed by rain to help with the mopping-up stage when crews make sure the fire is out. Temperature, cloud cover, wind and relative humidity all play a part. What this means in practical terms is about a month-long burning "window" from roughly mid-March to mid-April.

This year in the Cranbrook Forest District, for instance, the first window didn't open up until April 19. On that day crews burned a total of 650 hectares at AI Pasture, south of Grasmere, and at Buck Lake Pasture on the west side of Lake Koocanusa. These were followed on April 21 with burns at Petarbrook, an 80 ha site south of Norbury Lakes, and Bridge Pasture, 200 ha, north of Grasmere. Last year the District's five prescribed burns started on March 27 and were over by April 10.

The BC Forest Service has accumulated a wealth of scientific data that set out the optimum conditions for safe burning but in the final analysis, experience counts too. Phil Burk thought he had a good burning window on April 17 this year.

"The numbers and the forecast said yes but once we got on site and did some test burns, we realized the wind at that particular spot wasn't right. We had mobilized the crews and hired the equipment but conditions on site said no," Burk explains. "Science gives us the hard numbers to work with, and then experience with local conditions comes into play."

Burning in the Invermere Forest District didn't start until April 24 this year when 565 ha at Dry Gulch Pasture, north of Skookumchuck and east of Johnson Lake, were lit up over two days. Burk hopes conditions will be right this week for possibly two more burns. After this week, the burning season will be over as grasses get too green to fuel fires.

 Prescriptions for Restoration
Prescribed burning isn't the only tool in the restoration workshop. Every project has a "prescription" -- a plan that sets out which tools will be used to achieve the desired result of open range with fewer than 75 trees per hectare or open forest with fewer than 400 trees per hectare. (In contrast, a forest managed for its timber values can have up to 1200 trees per hectare; some ingrown stands in the Trench have an astonishing 19,000 trees per hectare.)

Depending on the restoration site, merchantable trees will first be harvested by timber licensees such as Tembec and Galloway Lumber or by small business operators. After harvesting, trees with no fibre value may be hand slashed and left on the ground or piled for burning, depending on their size. Small seedlings under a meter in height are left standing to burn when the fire sweeps through. These "treatments" reduce the fuel load before a fire is lit and help offset the cost of restoration by producing commercially valuable wood for sawlogs or pulp. Prescriptions can also call for spacing and thinning to give trees left standing more opportunity to grow into merchantable timber.

Given the severity of forest ingrowth and encroachment here, one prescription per site is not enough to achieve the goal of restoring 135,000 ha by 2030. Repeated harvesting, slashing, thinning and burning are necessary to recreate and maintain the open forests and grasslands we want in the Rocky Mountain Trench.

 Glossary
Blue-listed Species -- Sensitive or vulnerable species but not endangered or threatened. Populations of blue-listed species may not be declining but their habitat or other requirements are such that they are sensitive to disturbance. The long-billed curlew is a blue-listed species in the Trench.

Encroachment -- Trees growing in previously treeless grasslands due to human suppression of naturally occurring fires.

Ingrowth -- Excessive numbers of trees growing in previously open forests due to human suppression of naturally occurring fires.

Managed Forest -- Land managed primarily for its timber value. Contains more than 400 trees per hectare.

NDT4 -- Natural disturbance type 4 describes a fire-maintained ecosystem, that is, an ecosystem subject to frequent stand-maintaining fires. These fires were low-intensity surface fires that occurred on a 5- to 20-year cycle prior to the onset of active forest fire suppression. The dry low-elevation open forests and grasslands of the Rocky Mountain Trench are classified as NDT4.

Open Forest -- Land with significant range and timber values. Target stocking level is 250 trees per hectare.

Open Range -- Land dominated by open grasslands. Fewer than 75 trees per hectare.

Red-listed Species -- Threatened or endangered species. Plants or animals on the red list are either extirpated, endangered or threatened, or are being considered for such status. The badger is a red-listed species in the Trench.

Shrublands -- Naturally occurring areas of non-productive forest, wetlands and brush with high forage value but no timber value.

 Trench Society Front and Center
The Rocky Mountain Trench Natural Resources Society was established in 1996 to lobby for restoration of fire-maintained ecosystems.

An umbrella group of eight organizations, the Trench Society speaks for some 2800 hunters, ranchers, environmentalists and wildlife enthusiasts who, after decades of conflicting interests, decided to work together to restore the open forests and grasslands of the East Kootenay.

Four documents -- the Commission on Resources and Environment report, the Kootenay-Boundary Land Use Plan, the KBLUP Implementation Strategy and the East Kootenay Trench Agriculture/Wildlife Committee report -- backed up the society's call for action to stop forest ingrowth and encroachment caused by fire suppression.

Responding to this overwhelming evidence, in 1998 the provincial government established the Rocky Mountain Trench Ecosystem Restoration Steering Committee, a seven-member group representing government, industry and the public charged with planning, implementing and monitoring a program of restoration.

 Blueprint for Action
Last year the steering committee published "A Blueprint for Action" which sets out a 30-year plan to restore 135,000 of the 250,000 hectares of Crown land identified as an NDT4 category ecosystem.

By 2030, the plan forecasts, restoration will have produced a complex, ecologically appropriate mosaic of habitats that mimics the landscape that existed in the days when fire was an integral part of the NDT4 ecosystem of the Trench.

The "mosaic" will be made up of shrublands occupying five per cent of the total 250,000 hectares, open range of 23 per cent, open forest of 31 per cent and managed forest of 41 per cent.

The on-the-ground work of restoration falls to the steering committee's North and South Trench Operational Committees, which mirror geographically the Cranbrook and Invermere Forest Districts. The operational committees submit proposals then carry out the work when their plans have been approved and funded by the steering committee.

 Money: The Wind in the Sails
One of the committee's most important tasks is to find the money to pay for restoration, which does not have any guaranteed annual funding. So far the search for cash has been successful. By applying to various government and non-government agencies for grants, committee members have secured $600,000 for each of 1999, 2000 and 2001.

"That amount of money allows us to keep up with the ingrowth and encroachment we have now and to start rolling back the clock on what we have to do," says steering committee chair Greg Anderson, who is also operations manager of the Invermere Forest District which jumpstarted the concept of ecosystem restoration with its Enhanced Forest Management Pilot Project launched in 1995.

"We're making progress, the ship is going in the right direction, but we'll be doing this forever. We're into restoration now and eventually we'll be in a maintenance pattern so continued funding is absolutely imperative if we are to succeed over the long haul."

And what role does the Trench Society play now that it's got the restoration ball rolling? "They're front and center," Anderson says. "They were instrumental in providing the impetus and public support for restoration of fire-maintained ecosystems and now they sit on the steering committee that delivers the program."

(To date, the steering committee's restoration program has been funded by the BC ministries of forests; environment, lands and parks; and agriculture, food and fisheries; and by BC Hydro's Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Compensation Fund, the Columbia Basin Trust, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Habitat Conservation Trust Fund, Grazing Enhancement Fund, Forest Renewal BC, Beef Cattle Industry Development Fund and Science Council of BC.)