FIRE REHABILITATION

Lightning caused wildfire is a natural part of the ecosystems in the West, and a dominant force in the development of our plant communities.  Before settlement by Europeans in North America, the aboriginal peoples used fire to manipulate plant communities to create a better environment for themselves.  When Europeans came to North America, they did not understand these interactions and suppressed fire, as represented by the Smokey Bear character.  In recent years, the scientific community has come to realize that fire is important in sustaining many of the native plant communities.  

Most of our rangelands have developed because of specific fire-return intervals.   By suppressing
fire, we did not eliminate it, but we have changed the size and impact of fire on the rangeland
ecosystem.  Wildfires have increased in size and intensity, as the number of fires was reduced by
suppression.  These larger, more intense burning fires can cause: degradation of watersheds and
associated water quality; alter plant communities over extensive areas; allow a place for introduced
invading weeds to establish; increase loss of topsoil through erosion; cause loss of air quality due to
smoke impacts; loss of forage for wildlife and livestock; and degradation of archaeological sites.

Rehabilitation Techniques

Reesetablishing a vegetative cover on burned sites is an overriding concern because of observed wind and water erosion.  Such erosion has short-term impacts on water quality and riparian systems but long-term impacts on possible plant communities due to soil loss and species changes, such as invasion of cheatgrass and other weedy species.   Reseeding is used to stabilize the site.  The most important aspect is to get the seed covered.  Drilling the seed is the most effective method, but requires level surfaces free from obstacles and debris, such as burned tree stumps.  Broadcast seeding, followed by chaining to cover the seed, ranks second.  The least effective method is to simply broadcast the seed, but this method may be required in steep, rocky, inaccessible areas.

Total Land Treatment = 129,183 acres
For BLM acres burned see the Fire section

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