Tested By Fire When Flames Run Wild Fire Tore Through The Frank Church Wilderness, But Most Remains Untouched
Elk couldn’t outrun it and birds couldn’t outfly it. The inferno exploded down the Idaho wilderness canyon with speed and fury of Biblical proportions.
More than a dozen piles of bones remain on the blackened earth where panicked deer, elk and a bear had succumbed to smoke and flame after seeking refuge in a thicket.
Wind created by the blaze was fierce enough to singe, sandblast and mummify a chukar. The carcass was on a rock outcropping away from flammable vegetation.
The bird’s head was cocked back as though it barely had time to say, “What the hell… .”
Brush Creek had always been a sanctuary for these creatures. On Aug. 18, it was their death chamber.
“The winds and fire came down that drainage like a train,” said Rick Dorony, caretaker of the Flying B Ranch. Dorony had taken a stand that day, using a fire hose to defend the guest ranch buildings at the mouth of Brush Creek on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River.
“Nothing escaped,” Dorony said, his clothes black with soot from a morning of ranch chores six weeks after the fire. “If we hadn’t been prepared, we’d be dead, too.”
Heroics saved this decades-old ranch that was grandfathered to continue operating inside the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness. (See related story.)
Outside the private property boundaries, however, the land and the wildlife were on their own.
This is wilderness. Most human intervention with natural forces is prohibited by law.
For the next few decades, the 11,000 people who float the frothing Middle Fork whitewater each summer will judge how well nature takes care of itself.
“As dry as it was and as severe as the fires were, the overall impacts on the Middle Fork area are small,” said Sherri Hughes, river ranger for Salmon-Challis National Forest.
This summer’s fires affected only 18 miles of the river’s 100-mile corridor. River runners next season will see burned snags around several campsites. They’ll notice three outhouses were lost.
They’re also likely to see a burst of greenery from earth that now looks like charcoal.
What they won’t see are scars from miles of weed-friendly fire line. Summer firefighting efforts inside the wilderness were centered around the handful of Forest Service cabins and private inholdings, such as the Flying B Ranch.
Mother Nature does the fire control on the rest of the wilderness for free.
And Mother Nature’s performance evaluation is excellent, experts say.
The Salmon River and its Middle Fork are stunning attractions at the heart of a multi-million dollar recreational tourist industry.
The rivers are scenic masterpieces, even though every square mile of this wilderness has been licked by fire at one time or another.
Holly Akenson, a wildlife biologist for the University of Idaho, narrowly escaped firestorms at Taylor Ranch, her wilderness base, and later at the Flying B.
“Our sense was that the entire world had burned,” she said. “After all, we were at the point where two 175,000-acre fires joined together to form the largest fire in the nation.”
However, when Akenson and her husband, Jim, were able to fly over the wilderness, they were equally amazed at how much was left unscathed.
The word catastrophe is an understandable description for the summer’s wildfires, especially if you’re among the wildlife or property owners in a torched canyon, or an outfitter whose state-designated hunting area has been charred.
“It’s a mess in the Frank,” said Bruce Cole, a Moscow, Idaho, native whose outfitting supplements his insurance business in Salmon, Idaho. “The fires burned so hot they sterilized the ground. The trails are clogged with downed trees. And who’s going to take care of the elk that are likely to starve this winter?
“When a fire burns a house, you can rebuild in a few months. When fire burns the elk range in an outfitter’s permit area, it affects his business for years.”
The 15 land-based outfitters operating in the River of No Return Wilderness region lost an average of $24,000 in business this season, according to the Idaho Outfitters and Guides Association. The group has not predicted the impact on hunting camps for next year.
In Cole’s niche of the woods, the fires left a bleak scene. His archery camp was destroyed and some deer and elk will suffer this winter.
But the bigger picture is much brighter, experts say. Here are some of their observations on key recreational resources:
* Big-game: Idaho Fish and Game Department biologists Mike Scott and Greg Painter surveyed the wilderness by aircraft on Sept. 18. They confirmed that wildlife was lost during firestorms in some intensely burned canyons. However, they said prospects for widespread winterkill are low. Overall big-game winter range suffered moderate to little impact, they reported.
University of Idaho biologists say the winter range in certain drainages is in worse condition than the aerial surveys indicate.
“From our own aerial observations, we have noticed the burned grasslands and rocky shrub fields do not appear to be very burned from the air, but on the ground there is absolutely no live vegetation,” said Jim Akenson, who had returned to his wilderness base at the Taylor Ranch.
Winterkill, he said, is a high probability for elk, deer and bighorn sheep in the Big Creek area, where 30 miles of winter range burned while the Akensons trotted away ahead of the flames.
The best-case scenario would be fall rains that encourage new grass growth followed by light snowfall to help these animals survive the first winter after the fires, Akenson said.
Deep snow and cold could decimate herds.
Either way, the grass should be thicker and greener in most burned areas in a year or two, although the jury is still out regarding the loss of bitterbrush and other shrubs important to wintering deer.
Any changes in hunting permit quotas for next fall will be made following the Idaho Fish and Game Department’s aerial winter big-game surveys.
* Fisheries: The Middle Fork was stuffed this fall with cutthroat trout eager to take almost anything an angler might dangle in the water. Forest Service and Idaho Fish and Game Department biologists concur that fires and related erosion are not likely to change that scenario.
Increased nutrients the fires introduce to tributaries could be a boon to fish starting in about four years.
* Trails: Arterials and ridge trails will be the easiest going in burned areas for a year or so.
Washouts will affect trails in burned areas for a couple of years and windfall will be a maintenance problem for a decade, trail experts say. But only a small portion of the region’s trails are seriously affected by fires.
In Montana, for example, only 33 of the 2,234 trail miles in the Flathead National Forest were in burned areas. The Bitterroot National Forest trails were among the hardest hit in Montana, with 250 of 1,513 miles affected.
The region’s most heavily impacted trail systems are in the western portion of the River of No Return Wilderness, where a third of the 650 wilderness trail miles maintained by the Payette National Forest were affected.
Most wilderness work must be done with hand tools.
“We started working to clear trails while the fires were still burning,” said Clem Pope, trail maintenance coordinator for the Krassle Ranger District. “Arterials to the Chamberlain Basin and Big Creek and Cold Meadows are already passable for pack and saddle stock.
“We won’t get to the full repair job or to the secondary trails until next year.”
Pressure has been exerted on the Forest Service internally and externally to suspend rules prohibiting use of chain saws in the wilderness.
Clearing trails with hand saws is more expensive and time-consuming than with power saws.
“We figure about $150 a log for cutting out trails using crosscut saws,” said Tom Bonn, trails engineer for the Sawtooth-Challis National Forest. “It’s about $10 to $15 a log when using chain saws.”
Lauri Matthews, one of the forest’s wilderness rangers, said maintenance with hand tools isn’t necessarily more expensive, it just occurs at a slower pace.
The fires are an opportunity to highlight the effectiveness and skills involved in using mule trains, crosscut saws, shovels, Pulaskis and ingenuity to make wilderness routes passable again, she said.
“This is part of what makes wilderness unique,” she said. “It’s part of the reason people value wilderness.
“We don’t have to abandon that ethic because some people are crying that the sky is falling.”
* River running: Rafters can expect a higher than normal number of logs creating hazards in the Middle Fork and possibly the Salmon River next season.
Few other impacts from fires and no changes in river permits are expected, but outfitters and local businesses are worried the world might have a different impression.
“Every report on CNN or other national news this summer showed huge fires and vast blackness,” said Grant Simonds, Idaho Outfitters and Guides Association executive director.
“This is an opportunity for the Forest Service to work with the private sector to develop education on fire ecology,” he said.
The aftermath of fires, he added, can be an attraction for recreational tourists.
Simonds envisions outfitters taking people into the wilderness in rafts and on horses and comparing old burns and new burns to show that fire is normal in Salmon River country.
“Fire has been part of the landscape a lot longer than people,” he said. “Despite what you saw on TV this summer, we’re already breathing clean mountain air in Salmon while they’re still sucking smog in downtown Houston and L.A.”