Burn in Olympic National Park opposed

LAKE OZETTE, Wash. – A plan to burn a few acres of brush and saplings at the site of the last surviving house and barn on an Olympic National Park homestead has drawn criticism from wilderness advocates.

At the end of the 19th century, about 50 homesteads ringed Lake Ozette. Park officials say the controlled burn would give people renewed access to a cultural resource.

“It provides a window into the past, a window into the time that people were homesteading the rain forests of the Olympic Peninsula,” said park spokeswoman Barb Maynes.

Nothing will be burned until the area is wet enough to keep the fire from getting out of control, but officials said heavy rain may have already postponed the burn until another year.

Opponents say the burn would go against the 1964 Wilderness Act that covers most of the park.

The debate brings back together the parties to a 2004 lawsuit that stopped the park’s plans to replace two backcountry trail shelters that had collapsed under snow during the winter of 1998-99.

Wilderness Watch, Olympic Park Associates, and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) have joined to oppose the burn.

Maynes said meadows and pastures were part of the Rooses Prairie homestead and that they may have predated settlers’ arrival in the area.

“Native Americans may have cleared them to create a mosaic of plant life to attract animals like deer,” she said. “Fire was used by Native Americans pretty much all over the continent, I believe, to enhance game habitat and to promote the growth of certain vegetation.”

Maynes said the deep forests don’t provide the right conditions for salmon berries and other food plants.

Sue Gunn, director of the Washington chapter of PEER, counters that wilderness means no evidence of intrusion by any humans – Native Americans or settlers.

“It’s pretty much doin’ nothin’ to the land,” she told the Peninsula Daily News. “Wilderness is not supposed to have the impact of man on it. Wilderness is really trying to preserve the land before man made his imprint on it.”

Maynes disagrees, saying that the Wilderness Act “does not negate or supersede other acts of Congress, including the Antiquities Act, the Historic Sites Act and the act that established the National Park Service.”

She also points out that the proposal to burn the three acres at Rooses Prairie and, eventually, another 14 acres there and at nearby Ahlstroms Prairie was included in the park’s Fire Management Plan.

“That plan went out for public review twice and was completed early in 2005,” Maynes said, pointing out that wilderness advocates made no objection.

Tim McNulty of Sequim, a trustee of Olympic Park Associates, said the plan received little debate and the organizations have requested more discussion.

McNulty said the groups have not planned how to respond when the park begins its planned burns.