{"id":39894,"date":"2019-06-17T15:27:36","date_gmt":"2019-06-17T19:27:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/?p=39894"},"modified":"2024-02-20T09:59:53","modified_gmt":"2024-02-20T14:59:53","slug":"old-flames-the-tangled-history-of-forest-fires-wildlife-and-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/old-flames-the-tangled-history-of-forest-fires-wildlife-and-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Old Flames: The Tangled History of Forest Fires, Wildlife, and People"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-group sidebar-alignright sidebar-space order-bottom\"><div class=\"article-list list-style alignright\"><h2 class=\"article-list-header\">More From Living Bird<\/h2><ul><li class=\"article-item\"><div class=\"article-item-container\"><div class=\"article-item-media  content-living-bird-toc\"><figure class=\"article-item-media-ratio\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/LB-FI-GWWA-Keys.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/LB-FI-GWWA-Keys-720x405.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/LB-FI-GWWA-Keys-240x135.jpg 240w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/LB-FI-GWWA-Keys-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/LB-FI-GWWA-Keys-480x270.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/LB-FI-GWWA-Keys.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/figure><\/div><div class=\"article-item-body\"><span class=\"article-item-header\">Living Bird Summer 2019\u2014Table of Contents<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/li><li class=\"article-item\"><div class=\"article-item-container\"><div class=\"article-item-media  content-living-bird-toc\"><figure class=\"article-item-media-ratio\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/living-bird-latest.png\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/living-bird-latest.png 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/living-bird-latest-240x180.png 240w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/living-bird-latest-480x360.png 480w\" sizes=\"\" alt=\"Living Bird-latest issue\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/figure><\/div><div class=\"article-item-body\"><span class=\"article-item-header\">Living Bird Magazine\u2014Latest Issue<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/li><li class=\"article-item\"><div class=\"article-item-container\"><div class=\"article-item-media  content-article\"><figure class=\"article-item-media-ratio\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/living-bird-acrhive.png\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/living-bird-acrhive.png 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/living-bird-acrhive-240x180.png 240w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/living-bird-acrhive-480x360.png 480w\" sizes=\"\" alt=\"Living Bird archives\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/figure><\/div><div class=\"article-item-body\"><span class=\"article-item-header\">Living Bird Magazine Archives<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div>\n<p><small><em>From the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/living-bird-summer-2019-table-of-contents\">Summer 2019<\/a> issue of <\/em>Living Bird<em> magazine. <a href=\"https:\/\/join.birds.cornell.edu\/ea-action\/action?ea.client.id=1806&amp;ea.campaign.id=24577&amp;ea.tracking.id=LBO\">Subscribe now<\/a>.<\/em><\/small><\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-group sidebar-alignright sidebar-space order-bottom\"><!--HubSpot Call-to-Action Code -->\r\n<span class=\"hs-cta-wrapper\" id=\"hs-cta-wrapper-096b8ce3-0e2d-46c5-bbf7-12de3323c8da\">\r\n    <span class=\"hs-cta-node hs-cta-096b8ce3-0e2d-46c5-bbf7-12de3323c8da\" id=\"hs-cta-096b8ce3-0e2d-46c5-bbf7-12de3323c8da\">\r\n        <!--[if lte IE 8]><div id=\"hs-cta-ie-element\"><\/div><![endif]-->\r\n        <a href=\"http:\/\/cta-redirect.hubspot.com\/cta\/redirect\/95627\/096b8ce3-0e2d-46c5-bbf7-12de3323c8da\" ><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"hs-cta-img\" id=\"hs-cta-img-096b8ce3-0e2d-46c5-bbf7-12de3323c8da\" style=\"border-width:0px;\" src=\"https:\/\/no-cache.hubspot.com\/cta\/default\/95627\/096b8ce3-0e2d-46c5-bbf7-12de3323c8da.png\"  alt=\"subscribe to Living Bird magazine\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/a>\r\n    <\/span>\r\n    <script charset=\"utf-8\" src=\"https:\/\/js.hscta.net\/cta\/current.js\"><\/script>\r\n    <script type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n        hbspt.cta.load(95627, '096b8ce3-0e2d-46c5-bbf7-12de3323c8da', {});\r\n    <\/script>\r\n<\/span>\r\n<!-- end HubSpot Call-to-Action Code -->\r\n\r\n<\/div>\n<p>A yellow plastic sign stapled to a skinny black tree warned ENTERING BURN: STAY ON ROADS AND TRAILS. It was a classic June day in western Montana: 50 degrees and you judge how good the weather is by how hard the rain is beating against the windshield. I was in the passenger seat of a Jeep Grand Cherokee, and Richard Hutto, a professor emeritus at the University of Montana, was leading me into the heart of the Rice Ridge Fire burn area in the foothills of the Swan mountain range.<\/p>\n<p>Nine months earlier, in September 2017, this burn was the nation\u2019s top firefighting priority during the second-most-expensive fire season on record. Rice Ridge eventually consumed 160,000 acres of forest and cost the U.S. Forest Service $49 million to fight. Smoke levels in nearby Seeley Lake went off the charts (actually exceeding what the air quality sensors could measure). An evacuation order was issued, and the local high school had to move its classes to a nearby dude ranch.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou couldn\u2019t have asked for a better fire,\u201d Hutto said, and as an ecologist he was serious. He drove on past the sign and into what he calls \u201cnature\u2019s best-kept secret,\u201d a young burned forest.<\/p>\n<p>In every direction bare trees reached up into the low gray sky, their naked branches pinwheeling off trunks as black as chainsaw oil. Yet on the ground, tiny starbursts of beargrass were already creeping out of fireproof stems, singed at the tips but otherwise brilliant green against the black soil. Off in the distance, a swath of burned trees swept down a valley and up the next slope, the red-needled edges forming huge paisleys on the green mountainside.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/fire-lolo-severe-2018.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/fire-lolo-severe-2018-720x480.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/fire-lolo-severe-2018-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/fire-lolo-severe-2018-1280x853.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/fire-lolo-severe-2018-480x320.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/fire-lolo-severe-2018.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"\" alt=\"severely burned forest near Lolo, Montana, 2018\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption>Severely burned forests can look barren, but beetles, birds, and other wildlife begin returning as soon as the flames go out. <em>Photo by Hugh Powell.<\/em><\/figcaption>\n              <\/figure><\/div>\n<p>Birds were everywhere. Western Tanagers chirruped and Western Wood-Pewees buzzed. A Mountain Bluebird the color of movie-star eyes gleamed from a jet-black spar of larch. A Hermit Thrush sang, and everywhere woodpeckers\u2014Hairy, Downy, American Three-toed, Northern Flicker\u2014rattled, cackled, and whinnied.<\/p>\n<p>There was one other splash of color: blue flagging tape tied around the black trees. It was there to mark areas slated for salvage logging, which is the industry term for cutting dead wood in order to capitalize on its economic value.<\/p>\n<p>Here on this muddy Forest Service road, two conflicting views of fire were meeting head-on. One view, currently prevailing among society at large, regards Rice Ridge as a costly and tragic \u201cmegafire,\u201d a catastrophe that endangered homes and destroyed valuable forest that would take decades to recover. If you buy this view\u2014of burned forest as ruined forest\u2014then salvage logging seems only prudent, a way to temper the losses the fire inflicted.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/burn-flowers.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/burn-flowers-720x481.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/burn-flowers-768x513.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/burn-flowers-1280x855.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/burn-flowers-480x321.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/burn-flowers.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"\" alt=\"flowers in a burned forest\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption>Because of increased sunshine and available nutrients, wildflowers grow abundantly in burned forests for the first decade or more after a fire. <\/figcaption>\n              <\/figure><\/div>\n<p>But many fire ecologists have long had an alternate perspective on large, severe fires like Rice Ridge: that they are inevitable and largely unstoppable, like a hurricane. Far from destroying forests, these fires touch off a frenzy of ecological activity\u2014a tumult of new plants, mushrooms, insects, amphibians, birds, and mammals\u2014that\u2019s unlike anything that happens in the quiet shade of a green forest.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a habitat that\u2019s like no other habitat on Planet Earth,\u201d Hutto says, and salvage logging is just about the worst thing that could be done to it. \u201cIf you take the [burned] trees out, all these special things go away.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It was exploring this dichotomy\u2014wildfire as disaster versus wildfire as essential natural process\u2014that drew me back out West last June, back into the burned forests I\u2019d fallen in love with 20 years ago. Back then I was one of Hutto\u2019s graduate students, and I studied the Black-backed Woodpecker, a bird that is intimately adapted to burned forests. I spent three years covered in soot and camping among the jet-black trees, watching the forest come back to life.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>This is a habitat that\u2019s like no other habitat on Planet Earth.~Richard Hutto<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Today the fire season is longer than it was during my grad school days. The long-term trends show fire seasons are nearly three months longer than they were in the 1970s. And 100,000-acre megafires are burning more frequently. Yet little has changed in how the U.S. government approaches fire, besides the price tag. From 1985 to 1995 the U.S. spent just over $4 billion fighting fires; from 2008 to 2018 it spent nearly $20 billion.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, more homes are being built in harm\u2019s way, in the spaces where towns and forest intermingle and where fires will eventually burn as surely as hurricanes will strike the Gulf Coast. More than 12.7 million new homes went up in this \u201cwildland-urban interface\u201d just between 1990 and 2010. And with each new fire, journalists and politicians repeat the same three misconceptions\u2014about fuel accumulation, the need to suppress fire, and the need to salvage log\u2014all built on the mistaken impression that fire is unnatural.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019d be hard-pressed to find any patch of forest in the Northern Rockies that isn\u2019t in one stage or another of succession following a severe fire event,\u201d Hutto says. \u201cIf you want to use [fire] funding to save a house from burning down, fine. That\u2019s a disaster. But a fire burning out in the middle of nowhere is not a disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignfull size-large light\">\n                  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Hutto-Roberts.jpg\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\">\n                  <figcaption>University of Montana professor emeritus Richard Hutto has been studying the ecology of wildfires since the 1980s. <em>Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.<\/em><\/figcaption>\n                <\/figure>\n<p><strong>Back at Rice Ridge, we wandered off the roadside in search of an American Three-toed Woodpecker<\/strong> that was tattooing the tippy-top of a charred Douglas-fir. This was a stand-replacement or crown fire\u2014the terrifying kind that leaps into the canopy, sends up walls of flame, and rips across the landscape. It\u2019s precisely this most powerful, least tameable kind of fire that Hutto says people need to make peace with.<\/p>\n<p>It only takes one visit to a burned forest to realize it\u2019s much more than a pile of ash at the bottom of a charcoal grill. A burned forest is more like a bank vault with the door blown wide open. Fire knocks out a tree\u2019s chemical defenses but barely touches its nutritious interior. Far from being dried husks, fire-killed trees stay so insulated you can still squeeze water out of the inner bark a year after a fire.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery gallery-slideshow has-nested-images featured alignright\" style=\"\" aria-label=\"growth after a fire\"><figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-morels-720x480.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-morels-720x480.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-morels-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-morels-480x320.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-morels.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" alt=\"Morel mushrooms proliferate in the spring following a severe fire, giving rise to a cottage industry of wild mushroom foraging. Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\">Morel mushrooms proliferate in the spring following a severe fire, giving rise to a lucrative, if ragtag, industry of wild mushroom foraging. <em>Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-new-720x480.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-new-720x480.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-new-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-new-480x320.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-new.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" alt=\"Fireweed emerges in the spring following wildlfires in western Montana. Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\">Wildflowers like this fireweed emerge in the very first spring following a wildlfire. <em>Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-puffballs-720x480.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-puffballs-720x480.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-puffballs-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-puffballs-480x320.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-puffballs.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" alt=\"Beargrass flower grow amid the burned landscape. Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\">Beargrass flowers shine in the sunlight, even though at ground level the plant's stems are still charred from the fire. <em>Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slidwshow-patchwork-720x480.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slidwshow-patchwork-720x480.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slidwshow-patchwork-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slidwshow-patchwork-480x320.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slidwshow-patchwork.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" alt=\"Two years after the fire, the Rice Ridge burn area is full of life. Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\">An aerial view of the Rice Ridge burn shows the way the fire had mixed effects on the forest: some trees had even the needles burned off; many trees are dead but still have red, fire-scorched needles; and some trees are still green and healthy. <em>Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-beetle-720x480.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-beetle-720x480.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-beetle-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-beetle-480x320.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-beetle.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" alt=\"Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\">The immense number of dead trees offers an almost limitless food supply for wood-boring beetles like this flat-headed wood-borer, or jewel beetle. Its grubs will become food for Black-backed Woodpeckers and other species. <em>Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-fireweed-720x480.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-fireweed-720x480.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-fireweed-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-fireweed-480x320.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-fireweed.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" alt=\"The \"bank vault\" opens after a fire and lets in new life, like this fireweed wildflower, blooming amid burned trees. Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\">The dead trees are like a bank vault that has been thrown open after a fire, full of valuable nutrients for the taking. New plant, insect, and animal life comes flooding in to take adavantage.  <em>Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-toad-720x480.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-toad-720x480.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-toad-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-toad-480x320.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-toad.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" alt=\"A boreal toad perches atop the moss-laden remnants of a tree that burned in a wildfire in Montana 15 years ago. Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\">A boreal toad perches atop the moss-laden remnants of a tree that burned in a wildfire in Montana 15 years ago. <em>Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-spring-720x480.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-spring-720x480.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-spring-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-spring-480x320.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-spring.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" alt=\"Though severe burns look devastating, new life flourishes the following spring. Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\">Severe burns can look stark at first, but they produce incredible wildflower displays for years afterwards, including this yellow spirea. <em>Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-burnedlog-720x480.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-burnedlog-720x480.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-burnedlog-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-burnedlog-480x320.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-burnedlog.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" alt=\"Fireweed flourishes around an old burned log. Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\">Fireweed flourishes around an old burned log. <em>Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-BlueMountain-stump-720x480.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-BlueMountain-stump-720x480.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-BlueMountain-stump-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-BlueMountain-stump-480x320.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-BlueMountain-stump.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" alt=\"An old burnt stump at Blue Mountain sits among luscious new growth. Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\">Fifteen years after a fire at Blue Mountain, Montana, a burned stump sits among verdant new growth.  <em>Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>\n<p>With the bank vault open, the bugs come rushing in. One group of beetles uses special heat-sensing organs to colonize a forest fire before it even cools off; another type does the same thing by following smoke plumes. These are some of the most stupendous beetles I\u2019ve ever seen\u2014some are glittering green-and-gold; some the color of cinders and highlighted with orange; others with black-and-white antennae three times as long as their bodies.<\/p>\n<p>The beetles lay eggs, and their larvae tunnel through the tree eating everything in sight. Predatory beetles and parasitic wasps flood in to feed off the larvae, and the food web takes off from there.<\/p>\n<p>Morel mushrooms come up in car\u00adpets, enough to fuel a ragtag foraging industry in burns that\u2019s worth up to $10 million annually. In some areas, boreal toads move in to breed in ponds warmed under the open canopy; and plants such as beargrass, fireweed, mariposa lilies, lupine, and geraniums spring up into the abundant sunshine.<\/p>\n<p>This flush of food brings in woodpeckers, flycatchers, thrushes, swallows, and finches. To demonstrate, Hutto cocks an ear and gives a running commentary on what he hears:<\/p>\n<p>Western Wood-Pewee: \u201cIt always amazes me. This is a cottonwood bottomland bird, and then it shows up in these fires, far away from where it \u2018ought\u2019 to be.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tree Swallows: \u201cNothing, no other bird, likes it as severely burned as Tree Swallows. When it\u2019s toasty and com\u00adpletely black, they love it.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery gallery-slideshow has-nested-images featured alignright\" style=\"\" aria-label=\"birds return after a burn\"><figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-BBWO-grubs-720x480.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-BBWO-grubs-720x480.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-BBWO-grubs-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-BBWO-grubs-480x320.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-BBWO-grubs.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" alt=\"A Black-backed Woodpecker with a bill full of grubs. Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\">A Black-backed Woodpecker carries a meal of beetle larvae back to his chicks. Though Black-backeds are the best known fire-associated bird species, many other birds also use burned forests.<em> Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/birds-A3toedwoodpecker-720x480.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/birds-A3toedwoodpecker-720x480.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/birds-A3toedwoodpecker-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/birds-A3toedwoodpecker-480x320.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/birds-A3toedwoodpecker.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" alt=\"American Three-toed Woodpecker also make use of the burned landscape. Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\">Other woodpeckers that use burns include the American Three-toed Woodpecker (shown) as well as Lewis's, White-headed, Hairy, Downy, and others. <em>Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/birds-flyingbluebird-720x480.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/birds-flyingbluebird-720x480.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/birds-flyingbluebird-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/birds-flyingbluebird-480x320.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/birds-flyingbluebird.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" alt=\"A Mountain Bluebird brings a flash of blue to the landscape. Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\">The open forest floor makes for good hunting for Mountain Bluebirds, which forage by pouncing on insects from above. <em>Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/birds-bluebirdstump-720x480.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/birds-bluebirdstump-720x480.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/birds-bluebirdstump-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/birds-bluebirdstump-480x320.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/birds-bluebirdstump.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" alt=\"Burned forests are loaded with food for birds, like this Mountain Bluebird. Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\">Male Mountain Bluebirds bring a flash of brilliant blue to the blackened landscape. <em>Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/birds-BicknellsThrush-720x480.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/birds-BicknellsThrush-720x480.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/birds-BicknellsThrush-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/birds-BicknellsThrush-480x320.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/birds-BicknellsThrush.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" alt=\"Swainson's Thrush. Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\">The spiraling songs and bubbly call notes of Swainson's Thrushes are common sounds in burns. <em>Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/birds-dirtybluebird-food-720x480.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/birds-dirtybluebird-food-720x480.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/birds-dirtybluebird-food-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/birds-dirtybluebird-food-480x320.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/birds-dirtybluebird-food.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" alt=\"A Mountain Bluebird visits its nest cavity in a burned forest in Montana. Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\">Mountain Bluebirds and many other species rely on woodpeckers to make nest cavities. In the first year after a fire, these can be hard to come by, but in subsequent years there are abundant nest sites. <em>Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/birds-dirtybluebird-720x480.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/birds-dirtybluebird-720x480.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/birds-dirtybluebird-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/birds-dirtybluebird-480x320.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/birds-dirtybluebird.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" alt=\"Living in a post-fire landscape does have a tendency to dirty the feathers; this Mountain Bluebird is very gray with soot. Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\">Living in a burned forest does have a tendency to dirty the feathers.  <em>Mountain Bluebird by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>\n<p>Mountain Bluebirds: \u201cIf you had been standing here this time last year, I guarantee there would not have been a Mountain Bluebird here. They are all about burns. The higher the severity, the more of them you find.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nowadays Hutto can back up claims like these with piles of data from more than 16,000 monitoring sites through\u00adout the Northern Rockies. But all his work began with a small paper pub\u00adlished in <em>Conservation Biology<\/em>, on the famous 1988 Yellowstone fires, when 1.4 million acres in and out of the park burned in a single season.<\/p>\n<p>His key realization was that birds don\u2019t just make do with whatever\u2019s left after a fire\u2014they seek out burns for their unique mix of rich food supplies, abundant nest sites, and relative lack of predators. After visiting 34 burns in the first two years after the Yellowstone fires, he found 15 species that were no\u00adwhere more abundant in the Northern Rockies than in young burns. As if to prove his point, we saw 11 of these 15 birds on our first day at Rice Ridge, in\u00adcluding Olive-sided Flycatcher, Cassin\u2019s Finch, and Townsend\u2019s Solitaire.<\/p>\n<p>Chief among these fire-adapted spe\u00adcies is the Black-backed Woodpecker, which Hutto found in 78% of the burns he surveyed and almost nowhere else. In the Northern Rockies, he says, \u201cthey are as restricted to burns as a Belted Kingfisher is to rivers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But Hutto cautions against focusing on a single species as a poster child for burn areas: \u201cIt\u2019s not about Black-backed Woodpeckers. They\u2019re an indicator. They\u2019re just whispering in my ear about the bigger issue, the need for natural fire in these mountains.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The larger point, he argued in a 2008 paper published in <em>Ecological Ap\u00adplications<\/em>, is that the abundance of life after a forest fire is no accident. If crown fires are an anomaly, a lapse of proper forest management, he asked, then how can there be so many examples of animals that over millennia have evolved ways to find and capitalize on them?<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignfull size-large light\">\n                  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/RiceRidgeforest-Roberts.jpg\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\">\n                  <figcaption>The burn area of the 160,000-acre Rice Ridge Fire displays the classic mosaic pattern that\u2019s created by forest fires in the West. Patches of green, brown, and black add to the landscape\u2019s habitat diversity in the years following the fire. <em>Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.<\/em><\/figcaption>\n                <\/figure>\n<p><strong>The United States got off on the wrong foot with fire back in 1910,<\/strong> during what is still the West\u2019s worst fire season on record. Over just two days in August, a complex of fires across Montana and Idaho burned 3 million acres and killed 78 firefighters.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Smokey.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Smokey.jpg 651w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Smokey-480x664.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"\" alt=\"Smokey Bear\u2019s PR success in the 20th century created a widespread misconception that fires are unnatural. Today U.S. Forest Service PR campaigns focus instead on living safely with fire. Poster from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, 1952.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption>Smokey Bear\u2019s public relations campaign in the 20th century created a widespread misconception that fires are unnatural. Today U.S. Forest Service messaging suggests focusing on living safely with fire. <em>Poster from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, 1952.<\/em><\/figcaption>\n              <\/figure><\/div>\n<p>In response, the U.S. Forest Service doubled down on firefighting, eventually enacting a policy goal of putting out all fires by 10 a.m. the day after they were spotted. In 1944 the Forest Service invented Smokey Bear, and Smokey began a campaign of pulling heartstrings, pointing fingers, and driving home a message that no fire is acceptable. It was well-intentioned, but it was disastrously successful in shaping the public\u2019s view of wildfire.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe as a society only see [burned forest] as destroyed forest, because we\u2019ve been conditioned to believe that forests should be green and they shouldn\u2019t change,\u201d says Tania Schoenna\u00adgel, a fire scientist at the University of Colorado. \u201cBut that high-severity fire that burns like hell and is terrifying, that is business as usual for [many] forests.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Starting in the 1970s, studies of the comparatively gentle fires in Southwest\u00adern ponderosa pine softened Smokey\u2019s viewpoint somewhat, and a new con\u00adventional wisdom emerged: Understory burns are good, but severe fires are bad. Understory burns make forests healthy and safe by keeping fuels in check, or so the argument goes, while severe fires are disasters that happen only because a cen\u00adtury of fire suppression has allowed fuel to build up.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe problem is [the public has] over-learned that story,\u201d Schoennagel says, \u201cbecause it\u2019s so tractable and appealing, and they now see that story everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Those dry ponderosa pine forests turned out to be a special case, not a general rule. They\u2019re so dry that barely enough fuel can grow in a year to allow a fire to spread. In almost every other Western forest type, from mixed conifer to lodgepole pine to spruce-fir, the climate is cooler and moister. Plenty of fuel grows each year, but it takes a major drought to dry it out enough to burn. Before climate change, this hap\u00adpened every 50 to 200 years or so, depending on the forest type.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, what fire scientists call a forest\u2019s \u201cfuel load\u201d is not the main cause of large, unstoppable fires; it\u2019s climate factors such as temperature, humidity, and especially wind. But weather is ephemeral and invisible, while thick underbrush is easy to see and photograph. So in wider society, the conversations are still all about fuels. From President George W. Bush\u2019s Healthy Forests Initiative of 2003 straight through to California governor Gavin Newsom\u2019s emergency declaration in 2019, the fixation on reducing fuels through thinning and prescribed burn\u00ading spans decades and political parties.<\/p>\n<p>Large fires happen during periods of unusual drought and high wind. When those ingredients come together\u2014as they have been doing increasingly with the effects of climate change\u2014there\u2019s almost always enough fuel to keep a fire going. In fact, because firefighters put out so many fires, it virtually guarantees that when fires do break out of control, it\u2019s only when conditions are dry, windy, and primed for very dangerous, rapidly spreading fires\u2014a phenomenon dubbed the \u201cwildfire paradox\u201d by three fire scientists in a 2014 paper published in <em>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLost is the legacy of smaller fires that likely burned outside extreme weather and fuel conditions and resulted in less severe impacts,\u201d wrote Michael Dombeck, former chief of the U.S. Forest Service, in <em>Conservation Biology <\/em>in 2004, adding that \u201cprojects that reduce fuel loads but compromise the integrity of soil, water supplies, or watersheds will do more harm than good in the long run.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While fire crews are extremely good at putting out small fires, at 1,000 acres or larger, all bets are off. Large fires cost $1 million per day to fight, and still they don\u2019t go out until the wind changes or rain starts to fall, according to a report by the General Accounting Office. Worse, firefighters lose their lives in this uphill battle\u2014an average of 17 deaths per year since 2000. And in light of the wildfire paradox, even fires they do control seem less like victories and more like postponements.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, forest fires do pose a grave threat to people and property within the wildland-urban interface, giving fire managers plenty of incentive to throw everything they have at every fire. But long-term research by Jack Cohen, a researcher with the U.S. Forest Service\u2019s Fire Sciences Lab, suggests there are better ways to safeguard houses than taking the fight into the forest.<\/p>\n<p>I tracked down a phone number for Cohen, who had practically vanished af\u00adter retiring from the fire science lab. (He\u2019d grown frustrated after many years of talking to reporters and policymakers while seeing more and more second homes built in flammable locales.) To my surprise, he returned my call.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Fire-HouseZone.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Fire-HouseZone-720x328.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Fire-HouseZone-768x349.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Fire-HouseZone-480x218.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Fire-HouseZone.jpg 844w\" sizes=\"\" alt=\"The Home Ignition Zone has three boundaries. 5 feet: Keep your roof clear of leaves, needles, and other debris. Keep burnable materials from under and around all structures. Siding and decks should be constructed with fireproof material. 30 feet: Remove all but scattered trees and keep grass mowed. Over 30 feet: Keep your woodpile 30 feet from structures, sheds should be at least 30 feet from the home. Illustration from the Wisconsin DNR\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption>Fire scientist Jack Cohen's research on the <strong>Home Ignition Zone<\/strong>  laid the groundwork for safety recommendations for homeowners, like these from the Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources. The zone contains three regions: <strong>5 feet:<\/strong> Keep roof clear of leaves, needles, and other debris. Keep burnable materials from under and around all structures. Siding and decks should be constructed with fire-resistant material. <strong>30 feet:<\/strong> Remove all but scattered trees and keep grass mowed. <strong>Over 30 feet:<\/strong> Keep woodpiles and sheds 30 feet from structures. <em>Illustration from the <a href=\"https:\/\/dnr.wi.gov\/files\/pdf\/pubs\/fr\/FR0474.pdf\">Wisconsin DNR<\/a>, used with permission.<\/em><\/figcaption>\n              <\/figure><\/div>\n<p>\u201cBottom line, home ignitions are determined by very, very local condi\u00adtions,\u201d he said. Early in his career, he was puzzled to see houses survive near the edge of a fire, while homes a few blocks farther away burned to the ground. Homes that did burn down often were gone before the fire front even came close to the building. He realized, and subsequently proved in experiments, that walls of flame aren\u2019t what light homes on fire. It\u2019s firebrands\u2014burning embers that get lofted on hot air and blown hundreds of yards downwind. These can lodge in a needle-choked gutter or a corner of a wooden deck and smolder for 20 minutes, like a curl of newspaper under a pile of charcoal.<\/p>\n<p>Cohen\u2019s research led to the idea of safeguarding the \u201chome ignition zone.\u201d He discovered that a set of fairly simple actions in a 100-foot-radius around a home can greatly improve its chance of surviving a forest fire. Homeowners can\u2019t stop firebrands from landing on their houses, but they can move their woodpile, clear brush within 60 feet, sweep up fallen pine needles, clean gutters, and make sure they have a nonflammable roof and deck. In a 2000 study, Cohen found that actions such as these would result in a 90% chance of a house remaining unburned during a forest fire.<\/p>\n<p>The work is \u201cpretty much a once a year kind of thing,\u201d Cohen says\u2014and much more manageable than trying to keep the entire surrounding forest from burning. In 2014, he and two colleagues advocated for this kind of shift in thinking.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWildfires are inevitable,\u201d they wrote, in <em>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, <\/em>\u201cbut the destruction of homes, ecosystems, and lives is not.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignfull size-large light\">\n                  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/FlyingWoodpecker-Roberts.jpg\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\">\n                  <figcaption>With abundant food, plentiful nest sites, and few predators, burned forests are an ideal habitat for Black-backed Woodpeckers. Black-backed Woodpeckers use burned forests for up to about eight years after a fire. \u00a0<em>Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.<\/em><\/figcaption>\n                <\/figure>\n<p><strong>Hutto was tooling through a section of the Rice Ridge burn known as Morrell Creek,<\/strong> driving with his knee while pinching and zooming a fire map on a tablet. We rounded a corner and entered a stand of larger trees with tan splotches running up the black trunks, where flakes of bark had been knocked aside to reveal fresh bark beneath.<\/p>\n<p>Peppering the splotches were dozens of neat, round holes, each one patiently drilled by a woodpecker and leading precisely to the former hiding place of a beetle larva. I tried it myself on a larch, peeling back a section of bark, and found an inch-long jewel beetle larva, still wriggling, with shreds of half-di\u00adgested bark visible in its guts.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery alignwide columns-2 border is-cropped size-large\">\n                <ul class=\"blocks-gallery-grid\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/BBWoodpecker-burntstump-Roberts-720x869.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/BBWoodpecker-burntstump-Roberts-720x869.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/BBWoodpecker-burntstump-Roberts-768x927.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/BBWoodpecker-burntstump-Roberts-480x580.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/BBWoodpecker-burntstump-Roberts.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" alt=\"Hutto says the Black-backed Woodpeckers are \u201cAs well camouflaged against burned trees as a ptarmigan is in the snow.\" This male uses the fire-hardened snag to drum and proclaim his territory. Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption>Hutto says the Black-backed Woodpeckers are \u201cAs well camouflaged against burned trees as a ptarmigan is in the snow.\" This male uses the fire-hardened snag to drum and proclaim his territory. <em>Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/BBWOfeedsYoung-Roberts-720x869.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/BBWOfeedsYoung-Roberts-720x869.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/BBWOfeedsYoung-Roberts-768x927.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/BBWOfeedsYoung-Roberts-480x580.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/BBWOfeedsYoung-Roberts.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" alt=\"Both the male and the female care for the chicks, which fledge after about 24 days. Black-backed Woodpeckers use burned forests for up to about eight years after a fire. Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption>Both the male and the female care for the chicks, which fledge after about 24 days. <em>Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><\/ul>\n              <\/figure>\n<p>Moments later came a scolding, mewling sound, as if a wren was mugging a cat. That\u2019s the Black-backed Woodpecker\u2019s giveaway call. A glossy, blue-black male flew in carrying a larva as long as his bill, and dipped his head into his nest hole.<\/p>\n<p>These birds are handsome in a classic, black-will-never-go-out-of-style way. This one had a military bearing with his martial yellow crown, a nearly all-black face with a white slash on the cheek, and fine gray barring on the flanks. He flew off into the black forest and almost disappeared.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs well camouflaged against burned trees as a ptarmigan is in the snow,\u201d as Hutto likes to say.<\/p>\n<p>Over the next hour we watched as male and female took turns carrying larvae to their young. The nest was a classic of the Black-backed Woodpecker style: low\u2014just above head height\u2014in a small, fire-hardened larch. On the lower edge of the nest entrance, the male had chipped out a neat beveled doorstep, now smudged a soft ash-gray from woodpecker tummies squeezing in and out all day. Nesting in such hard wood helps the chicks stay safe from preda\u00adtors such as woodpeckers, jays, bears, and squirrels. (It\u2019s even been suggested that their unusual three-toed feet are an adaptation to help them deliver more powerful thwacks of the bill when exca\u00advating flame-tempered trees.)<\/p>\n<p>This area was prime real estate. We found an additional two American Three-toed Woodpecker nests within a hundred yards, and watched a female Tree Swallow visit the Black-backed nest. Lacking any excavatory abilities of her own, the swallow was leaning inside to check whether the cavity was free for the taking.<\/p>\n<p>Next to one of the three-toed nests was another blue-flagged tree marking the edge of a salvage-logging plot. Hutto gave half a chuckle.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s what I always say, you want a model of where Black-backed Wood\u00adpecker abundance is? Show me your model of where you want to salvage log,\u201d he said. \u201cI bet it\u2019s not that different.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He paused to clarify: \u201cI\u2019m not against cutting trees. This is not a tree-hugger thing. But let\u2019s just be smart about where we do it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Instead of salvage logging, Hutto wants the Forest Service to think about ecotourism, as they already do when they provide maps and permits to morel pickers after fires. \u201cWhy not give out maps of where to go see Black-backed Woodpeckers?\u201d he says. \u201cWhere\u2019s the most amazing wildflower show you\u2019re ever going to see in your life, and it\u2019s going to be going on for the next 10 years? They ought to be taking out ads in every bird-watching magazine in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hutto relishes throwing suggestions out of left field like this, but he acknowl\u00adedges that forest supervisors have a harder line to walk. \u201cThe Lolo [National Forest] is probably the most progressive district in the nation,\u201d he said. \u201cBut as soon as a fire burns, those letters are going to start pouring in demanding that you do some logging.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n              <figure class=\"size-large alignnone\">\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Saab-Powell.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Saab-Powell-1280x853.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Saab-Powell-720x480.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Saab-Powell-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Saab-Powell-1280x853.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Saab-Powell-480x320.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Saab-Powell.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\" alt=\"U.S. Forest Service biologist Victoria Saab stands in an Oregon forest that was salvage logged following the Canyon Creek Fire in 2015. Saab studies whether salvage logging and bird habitat can be compatible in fragile post-fire ecosystems. Photo by Hugh Powell.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/a>\n                <figcaption>U.S. Forest Service biologist Victoria Saab stands in an Oregon forest that was salvage logged following the Canyon Creek Fire in 2015. Saab studies whether salvage logging and bird habitat can be compatible in fragile postfire ecosystems. <em>Photo by Hugh Powell.<\/em><\/figcaption>\n              <\/figure>\n            <\/div>\n<p><strong>While Hutto approaches fire policy and salvage logging<\/strong> with intensely logical arguments made from an academic remove, scientists in the U.S. Forest Service\u2014such as research wildlife biologist Victoria Saab\u2014have to consider real-world situations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMost of the time when a fire hap\u00adpens, salvage logging is considered,\u201d Saab says, \u201cso let\u2019s try to learn what we can. If I thought it was going to end, I wouldn\u2019t have put this study together.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To see Saab\u2019s study, I had driven overnight from Montana to the high-desert town of John Day, Oregon, where the 2015 Canyon Creek megafire burned 110,000 acres and destroyed 43 homes, despite the efforts of some 900 firefighters. She\u2019s been studying burned forests since 1994, when she became one of the first biologists to examine the effects of salvage logging on birds. Over the course of 11 years, working among 350,000 acres of burned forest in Idaho, she found some bird species did well in salvage logged plots\u2014one of the highest nest densities ever recorded of Lewis\u2019s Woodpeckers, for instance. But Black-backed Woodpecker nests were rare in the logged areas, and more than five times more abundant in the intact plots.<\/p>\n<p>Now, Saab is trying to refine that understanding: \u201cWe know Black-backed Woodpeckers will persist where you don\u2019t have any [salvage] logging,\u201d she says. \u201cBut can we have some logging and still have population persistence for Black-backed Woodpeckers?\u201d (Her project is exploring similar questions for Lewis\u2019s and White-headed Woodpeckers.)<\/p>\n<p>We were visiting one of the sites in her new study, where she\u2019s comparing three differing levels of logging against a con\u00adtrol of no logging. Behind Saab loomed a minor mountain of logs that had been cut but never made it to the mill. A Common Nighthawk was buzzing in the sky, and a White-headed Woodpecker was bringing food to a youngster in a single snag left among the stumps.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>These are the most fragile moments in fragile ecosystems, and to go in there with heavy machinery and remove logs is probably the most damaging thing you can do.~Tania Schoenna\u00adgel<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In separate discussions, Hutto, Saab, and Schoennagel had each stressed that salvage logging delivers no ecological benefits, just economic ones.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese are the most fragile moments in fragile ecosystems, and to go in there with heavy machinery and remove logs is probably the most damaging thing you can do,\u201d Schoennagel said. \u201cI can see why there might be an economic in\u00adterest in salvage logging, but there\u2019s no argument that can be made that there\u2019s an ecological benefit.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn the short term, it can create hab\u00aditat for Lewis\u2019s that wouldn\u2019t be there till later, when trees start falling,\u201d Saab said. Fallen trees open up the airspace for these oddball woodpeckers, which do most of their foraging by catching insects in midair. \u201cBut eventually [in 10 to 30 years] those conditions would be created by the fire on its own.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Salvage logging doesn\u2019t improve the habitat, it just speeds up the disappear\u00adance of the burned forest.<\/p>\n<p>Still, the U.S. Forest Service\u2019s motto is \u201cLand of Many Uses,\u201d and one of the major uses is timber harvest. As long as burned forests are seen as lifeless areas, the monetary return of salvage logging will be an attractive option. In the first couple of years after a burn, salvage-logged timber is just as valuable as green timber, and the large trees can be very valuable. Because dead trees quickly degrade (the work of all those wood-boring beetles), environmental regulations are sometimes waived un\u00adder emergency orders to speed up the logging process. And very large dead trees, which are far more valuable as wood than smaller trees, aren\u2019t always protected by the same regulations that cap the harvest of big live trees.<\/p>\n<p>All told, salvage logging made up only about 11% of all the wood harvested on Forest Service land in the 2018 fiscal year. And all the logging on Forest Service land, burned or unburned, accounts for only about 10% of all the wood logged in the United States each year; the rest comes from private timber lands. If salvage logging is a drop in the bucket, Hutto had asked, back in Montana, then why do it at all?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA burned forest isn\u2019t the first place you should cut, it\u2019s the last place,\u201d he said. \u201cIf it\u2019s about wood, let\u2019s look at the green forest. There\u2019s a billion acres of green forest that\u2019s not nearly as special as this forest right here.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery gallery-slideshow has-nested-images featured \" style=\"\" aria-label=\"forests affected by fires\"><figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-ElkCreek.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-ElkCreek-720x480.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-ElkCreek-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-ElkCreek-480x320.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-ElkCreek.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"\" alt=\"Landscapes across the mountainous West are a patchwork of forest types\u2014and in most cases, forest fire is the agent that creates those mosaics. Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\">Landscapes across the mountainous West are a patchwork of forest types\u2014and in most cases, forest fire is the agent that creates those mosaics. <em>Section of the Rice Ridge fire, Montana, photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-burnedhillside.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-burnedhillside-720x480.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-burnedhillside-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-burnedhillside-480x320.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-burnedhillside.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"\" alt=\"The landscape here looks like a mosaic of forest, new forest, and burned forest. Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\">Even in very large fires, typically only about one-third of the area within the fire perimeter burns at high severity. <em>Alice Creek, Montana, photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-BassCreek.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-BassCreek-720x480.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-BassCreek-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-BassCreek-480x320.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slideshow-BassCreek.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"\" alt=\"In this landscape near Bass Creek, Montana, swaths of green forest intermingle with the red and black of moderate and high severity patches. Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\">In this landscape near Bass Creek, Montana, swaths of green forest intermingle with the red and black of moderate and high severity areas. The resulting patchwork of habitats helps give the western landscape its characteristic beauty and diversity. <em>Photo by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>\n<p><strong>While the debates continue over how to handle postfire forests<\/strong> and whether to fight forest fires in the first place, climate change is upping the ante by drying out forests and making fire seasons longer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTen years ago, scientists were very hedgey when talking about climate change,\u201d Schoennagel told me. \u201cNow it\u2019s front and center.\u201d In a 2017 <em>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences <\/em>paper, Schoennagel put this idea right into the title: \u201cAdapt to More Wildfire in Western North American Forests as Climate Changes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The evolution in attitudes is appar\u00adent in the <em>Quadrennial Fire Review<\/em>, a joint publication of U.S. Forest Service Fire and Aviation Management and the Department of the Interior Office of Wildland Fire. The most recent one, published in 2015, went so far as to envision a change in philosophy \u201cfrom war on fire to living with fire.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery gallery-slideshow has-nested-images featured alignright\" style=\"\" aria-label=\"studying fire-killed trees\"><figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/hugh-tree-climbing-720x720.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/hugh-tree-climbing-720x720.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/hugh-tree-climbing-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/hugh-tree-climbing-1280x1280.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/hugh-tree-climbing-480x480.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/hugh-tree-climbing.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" alt=\"climbing dead, fire-killed trees to study insects. Image courtesy of Hugh Powell.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\">In the late 1990s, the author climbed fire-killed trees to study the abundant insects that provide a food source for woodpeckers like the Black-backed. <em>Image courtesy of Hugh Powell.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/cerambycid-720x720.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/cerambycid-720x720.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/cerambycid-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/cerambycid-1280x1280.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/cerambycid-480x480.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/cerambycid.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" alt=\"long-horned wood-boring beetle, Cerambycidae, a burn specialist. Image courtesy of Hugh Powell.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\">A long-horned wood-boring beetle, one of the types of insect that specialize on laying eggs in trees killed by forest fires. <em>Image courtesy of Hugh Powell.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/hugh-sooty-720x720.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/hugh-sooty-720x720.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/hugh-sooty-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/hugh-sooty-1280x1280.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/hugh-sooty-480x480.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/hugh-sooty.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" alt=\"soot-covered author doing fieldwork in the late 1990s. Image courtesy of Hugh Powell.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\">Climbing sooty trees all day leads to some epic laundry challenges. The author in 1999, during fieldwork. <em>Image courtesy of Hugh Powell.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/only-you-copy-720x712.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/only-you-copy-720x712.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/only-you-copy-768x760.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/only-you-copy-1280x1266.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/only-you-copy-480x475.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/only-you-copy.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" alt=\"smudgy the black-backed woodpecker illustration. Image courtesy of Hugh Powell.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\">A modest proposal: Could a woodpecker named Smudgy ever catch on as a sidekick for Smokey Bear, to spread awareness of the positive ecological impacts of fire? <em>Image courtesy of Hugh Powell.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>\n<p>The report even suggested, in very polite language, the possibility of ad\u00adjusting Smokey Bear\u2019s attitude. \u201cCore messaging,\u201d the report said, \u201cwould emphasize that fire is a natural, neces\u00adsary, and productive occurrence.\u201d (Back in 2000, I had briefly tried to promote a new sidekick for Smokey. I called him Smudgy the Black-backed Woodpecker, but he never caught on.)<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, many Western com\u00admunities have begun to encourage landowners to make their homes more fire resistant, using Cohen\u2019s research as a jumping-off point. Two federal initiatives, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nfpa.org\/Public-Education\/By-topic\/Wildfire\/Firewise-USA\">FireWise<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/fireadapted.org\/\">Fire Adapted Communities<\/a>, help organize these public information campaigns and help homeowners, fire departments, and local authorities work together.<\/p>\n<p>The goal is to get people to under\u00adstand that they live next to a recurring natural hazard, not too different from living in a beach house during hurri\u00adcane season. Instead of logging burned forests, why not meet timber needs by thinning the forests around towns and along predetermined evacuation routes, like the ones we already have for people fleeing hurricanes? That\u2019s a step that could actually save lives when a crown fire does strike.<\/p>\n<p>From the Canyon Creek burn I drove west to the city of Bend, which sits beneath a trio of 10,000-foot volcanoes known as the Three Sisters, to spend a day off with friends. In this adventure-sports town, we decided to skip all the mountain biking, trail running, sport climbing, river rafting, and fly-fishing to do something really spectacular: go hiking in a forest burned during the 2017 Milli Fire.<\/p>\n<p>We wound lazily up the trail, my friends\u2019 Australian shepherd, Taz, running up ahead and coming back to report on the situation. As we gained elevation, we moved out of Douglas-fir and lodgepole pine into a hushed stand of mountain hemlock, burned black but with a shock of red-singed needles still drifting gently onto the forest floor. A Townsend\u2019s Solitaire was singing.<\/p>\n<p>Farther still, we emerged onto a hill\u00adside of subalpine fir that had burned as severely as anything I\u2019ve ever seen. This was one of those fully gothic stands, where the trunks are powdery black and the ground is an unrelenting gray.<\/p>\n<p>We were in the Three Sisters Wilder\u00adness by now, where logging isn\u2019t allowed due to Wilderness Act protections. This was that rare scene in today\u2019s outdoors where nothing was the matter. The for\u00adest was already pursuing its own course of action. Trees that had spent the last two centuries storing up the energy of the sun were about to turn it all loose again in one great years-long exhale, and push life\u2014beetles, woodpeckers, bluebirds\u2014out of their sturdy bodies one last time.<\/p>\n<p>A bird skittered its nails on the bark of a fir. There was some tentative peck\u00ading, and a pause to listen for beetles. A flash of soft, gray-barred flanks, a flash of yellow. Almost too appropriately, it was a Black-backed Woodpecker. It turned its back to me and disappeared.<\/p>\n<p>I thought of Hutto, walking along the road at Rice Ridge, falling silent as he reflected on his 30 years of research in burned forests.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBasically, it\u2019s just a magical place,\u201d he had told me. \u201cThat\u2019s the bottom line.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From the Summer 2019 issue of Living Bird magazine. Subscribe now. A yellow plastic sign stapled to a skinny black tree warned ENTERING BURN: STAY ON ROADS AND TRAILS. It<a class=\"excerpt-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/old-flames-the-tangled-history-of-forest-fires-wildlife-and-people\/\" title=\"ReadOld Flames: The Tangled History of Forest Fires, Wildlife, and People\">&#8230; Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":39895,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_tec_requires_first_save":true,"_birdpress_living_bird_toc":0,"_birdpress_living_bird_toc_title":"","_birdpress_featured_image":false,"_birdpress_hero_toggle":false,"_birdpress_hero_type":"image","_birdpress_hero_image_type":"image","_birdpress_hero_style":"default","_birdpress_hero_ratio":"","_birdpress_hero_h1":"","_birdpress_hero_media_id":0,"_birdpress_hero_media_array_id":[],"_birdpress_hero_media_array":[],"_birdpress_hero_media":0,"_birdpress_hero_video_id":0,"_birdpress_hero_video":0,"_birdpress_hero_youtube":"","_birdpress_hero_content":true,"_birdpress_hero_byline":"","_birdpress_hero_byline_bottom":"","_birdpress_hero_button_link":"","_birdpress_hero_button_text":"","_birdpress_hero_button_color":"","_birdpress_hero_date":false,"original_guid":"","_birdpress_hide_search":false,"_birdpress_page_width":"","_birdpress_global_cta":false,"_birdpress_widget_sidebar":"","_birdpress_next_article":0,"_birdpress_next_article_title":"","_birdpress_prev_article":0,"_birdpress_prev_article_title":"","_birdpress_sub_navigation_id":0,"_birdpress_sub_navigation":"","_birdpress_sub_navigation_title":false,"_birdpress_anchor_navigation_id":0,"_birdpress_anchor_navigation":"","_birdpress_postType":"both","_birdpress_categoryID":0,"_birdpress_tagID":0,"_birdpress_parentPostID":0,"_birdpress_parentPostTitle":"","_birdpress_menuID":0,"_birdpress_menuName":"","_birdpress_listHeader":"","_birdpress_listLayout":"card-display","_birdpress_listColumns":"","_birdpress_maxItems":12,"_birdpress_listPaginate":true,"_birdpress_displaySort":true,"_birdpress_sortOrder":"DESC","_birdpress_sortBy":"date","_birdpress_listID":"","_birdpress_listClass":"","_birdpress_displayImages":true,"_birdpress_displayCaptions":false,"_birdpress_displayExcerpts":false,"_birdpress_attTop":"","_birdpress_attBottom":"","_birdpress_showLogos":false,"_birdpress_post_logo":0,"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_topic":0,"wds_primary_content-format":0,"wds_primary_cornell-lab-project":0,"wds_primary_host-project":0,"wds_primary_read-more-tag":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[998,1043],"content-format":[1055],"cornell-lab-project":[1069],"host-project":[],"read-more-tag":[],"class_list":["post-39894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","topic-news-and-features","topic-science-conservation-news-and-features","content-format-article","cornell-lab-project-living-bird-magazine"],"metadata":{"associated-posts":[""],"wpa_off":[""],"_edit_lock":["1708441194:1"],"_edit_last":["1"],"_thumbnail_id":["39895"],"wdsi_message_id":[""],"wdsi_do_not_show":[""],"custom-byline":["<h5>Story By Hugh Powell; Photographs by Jeremy Roberts<\/h5>\r\n<small><em>Black-backed Woodpecker by Jeremy Roberts\/Conservation Media.<\/em><\/small>"],"banner-video":[""],"banner-image":["https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/BBWOodpecker-Roberts.jpg"],"fallback-videobanner-image":[""],"original_guid":[""],"banner-text-style":["light"],"banner-style":["default"],"featured-image-display":["no"],"hide-from-search":["no"],"_birdpress_next_article":[""],"_birdpress_prev_article":[""],"_webdados_fb_open_graph_specific_image":[""],"_webdados_fb_open_graph_specific_description":[""],"_wds_focus-keywords":[""],"_wds_trimmed_excerpt":["From the Summer 2019 issue of Living Bird magazine. Subscribe now. 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