Finally, burning is catching on around here, at least in a tiny, tentative way. My old burn boss Warren Villa and I put together the first burns on Metro property back in the late ’90’s, but from then until the last few years, it’s been hard to get anyone interested. This despite the damage done by fires in unmanaged fuels across the state – thousands of people’s houses incinerated and 11 people killed in 2020 alone. Millions of acres of forest burned severely between 2000 and 2025, and millions more will burn before we can turn this situation around.
It’s no surprise that people are shy about fire, what with Smokey Bear, ODF, the USFS and all their fear mongering. People should be afraid, not so much of fire but of all that crispy dry tinder piled up all over the state. It’s gonna burn, folks, and we gotta get real about that. Either we burn it with some semblance of a plan, or it’s going to keep going off like random bombs and take your house, your cat, and maybe your life with it. So let’s all let go of the cute little bear’s paw and deal with the situation at hand. It doesn’t have to be a big deal, or be all that expensive. Coupled with some sensible logging, it’s going to save a lot of money in the long run, and lives and houses as well. But the state and the feds are going to have to start helping and stop making things worse.
Three years ago, when I burned my experimental prairie pasture, I called my neighbors to let them know what I was planning to do. I put a wet line around the whole perimeter, lit it and put up a nice column. A terrified citizen spotted the smoke from the highway, called 911, and the next thing I knew, there were seven engines tearing up the road and across my neighbor’s field. I asked the first team to arrive if they’d like to help me burn off the rest of it. They kindly declined and respectfully proposed instead to cite me for burning during a closure. I objected and suggested they call their chief and ask if they had jurisdiction over ag burning. My understanding at the time was that I was fully within my rights to do what I was doing, and the Chief confirmed that I was correct. We all had a nice chat, I again offered up my spare drip-torch, and promised that next time I’d call non-emergency dispatch and let them know what was going on. As they were taking off, the RFPD folks said to let them know if I needed any help and they’d come right back. ODF took off as well, and they were respectful too, but they felt obliged to tell me that if my burn took off and raced up the hill, ODF would pin me with the entire bill for suppression. They were serious! Ha!
An out-of-control wildfire wasn’t going to happen – I’m not stupid. It was late in the season, sun angles were low and we had already had four inches of rain at the farm, and more up the hill. I had a 50-foot wet line, with water running while I was lighting, no wind and as it was, I was barely able to get the fine fuels to carry. Nothing but napalm would have gotten any of the surrounding fuels to ignite at that point. Nevertheless, it is unsettling to be threatened with a bill from a state agency – what with the cost of PERS and overtime and all, they tend to be expensive.
Note to ODF – this is not the way to encourage the private sector to take responsibility for managing fuels.
I mean, I get it, you don’t want every yahoo running around starting fires. But you know, here’s what’s funny. Oregonians tend to look down their noses at the South and all their redneck ways, but they are light-years ahead of us in fuels management. Many Southern states have actual public programs to train landowners how to properly use fire. They have a variety of supportive agencies and statutory tort protections to encourage landowners to responsibly manage their properties with fire. And when landowners follow the rules, many Southern states actually indemnify landowners. These programs go back decades in many parts of the South because they are good for the ground and good for people. Oregon is finally taking baby steps in this direction, but we still have very little to offer people like me (other than threats), and we still have a far more dangerous fuels problem than almost anywhere except California.
And, wouldn’t you guess it but California is almost as backward as we are! You gotta love it..
Anyway, the reason I started writing this post was not to rag on ODF (they so very much deserve it though), but rather to share observations on the apparent effects of burn timing (phenologically and seasonally) on prairie forbs. The differences in annual forb species composition between a burn before the fall sprout vs after the fall sprout is phenomenal. This is ecologically relevant and needs to be considered if native plant diversity is the goal of our work. Also, I have some observations about gophers. We tend to forget about gophers, and voles and deer mice and so on, but their effects on vegetation are also profound. I have pictures too, but I’m tired so it has to wait ’til tomorrow.
See you soon,
-George