|
|
Overview In 1966 legislation was passed creating a State Foresters Office and providing the State Land Department authorities to prevent and suppress wildland fires on unincorporated state and private lands. The Land Department's protection authorities encompass 22.4 million acres statewide with approximately 25% of those lands generally classified as Sonoran Desert. Since 1976 wildland fire occurrence has more than doubled on State protected lands (Figure 1). In November 1996 the Land Department organized a new Fire Management Division to meet its complex fire protection and management responsibilities. top
The State's Fire Management System
The Land Department's Fire Management Division manages its fire protection responsibilities primarily through cooperative agreements with local fire departments and federal land management agencies. The Division maintains fire agreements with 200 fire departments, every federal land management agency, and many private fire fighting companies. Division personnel are primarily experienced fire managers that see to it that appropriate actions are taken on wildfires. top
A typical fire scenario for our agency begins with an incoming fire report to our Deer Valley dispatch office. Our dispatchers then call the nearest cooperating fire department and request an appropriate number of wildland engines to respond to the fire. The local fire department responds quickly, suppresses the fire while it is still small, returns to station, completes a fire report and sends it along with a billing for labor and equipment charges to our agency.
Fire Management Division personnel typically do not respond to wildfires unless the fire escapes the initial attack actions by the local fire departments. If the fire goes over the hill, more local resources are dispatched until control can be made. If the fire goes beyond the local resource capabilities, the Division will tap into the national resource ordering process that provides a vast amount of firefighting resources from anywhere in the country. In a matter of a few hours up to 500 firefighters and an incident command team can respond to manage a catastrophic wildfire. A recent example of the Division's ability to do this was on the 23,000 acre "Rio" fire in northeast Scottsdale in 1995. The City of Scottsdale and Rural Metro Fire Department requested the state's assistance on this fire. Through this system the State provided 23 fire engines, five water tenders, six helicopters, seven air tankers, 15 twenty-person hand crews, and one incident management overhead team for a total of 459 personnel. These resources came from three State agencies, 11 local fire departments, 12 National Forests, 4 Bureau of Land Management District Offices, 4 Bureau of Indian Affairs Offices, 2 National Parks, and 1 US Fish and Wildlife Service Office. top
During the winter months the Fire Management Division spends most of its time in "preparedness" for the next fire season. This involves training, equipping, planning, prevention, and developing agreements. A large percentage of our preparedness work is providing assistance to our cooperating fire departments in the form of training and equipping. The Division typically trains about 1000 fire department personnel in basic and advanced wildland fire training. Fire department personnel are not authorized to respond to wildland fires on State or Federal lands until they have been through our training. The Division maintains a cooperative fire equipment program where excess federal excess property is refurbished into wildland firefighting vehicles that are issued to fire departments. Approximately 152 wildland fire vehicles from this program are on loan to fire departments. Many new rural communities begin their fire department operations with equipment from this program.
Our Division fire managers believe that the Land Department's firefighting system that utilizes existing local resources is a very cost-effective method of meeting our legislative mandate. If our agency had to develop its own fire protection forces and fire stations in every part of the state where wildfires occur, our budget needs would be astronomical. Fire department cooperators enjoy this relationship due to the capability of maintaining their wildland firefighting skills and to make some additional revenue. top
Sonoran Desert Fire Management Concerns: A Field Manager's Perspective
Public perception has changed significantly the last twenty years regarding the worth of Arizona's Sonoran Desert, in both economical and environmental terms. Land values of some Sonoran parcels are exceeding prime forested summer home acreage. In the late 1970's when I started in this fire business, it was common practice to take minimal action on desert fires to reduce fire suppression costs. Justifying high dollar suppression methods was difficult on a square mile of State Land where annual revenue was less than $200.00 from grazing leases. The suppression tactic of choice was to back off to the best road or barrier, and perform firing operations. This tactic has the advantage of low suppression cost but has a disadvantage in that it sacrifices acreage. It is still a commonly used method when necessary, but firefighters are now more aware that the Sonoran Desert has significant environmental and economic value. In our planning efforts, the Fire Management Division now rates most Sonoran Desert areas in a "high" suppression category, meaning that aggressive initial attack will take place under high to extreme fire danger conditions. top
Over recent years I have talked to land developers and real estate people after a fire has passed through their Sonoran Desert acreage. Some have suggested significant losses, especially for the individual landowners attempting to sell smaller acreage, but others have indicated no expected land devaluation. I believe the many variables in the real estate business make it impossible to assume that all wildfires reduce Sonoran Desert land value. One real estate broker who contacted me after two large fires in 1992 burned some of his clients property in Scottsdale stated that one of the burned properties could be financially benefitted since native plant transplanting costs as required under Scottsdale's ordinance would no longer be a factor. On the other hand, we have project managers from Del Webb and Troon Corporations telling the fire community that they are very concerned about fire damage in their planned subdivisions areas and have offered financial assistance to local fire departments to assure aggressive attack is provided. A question arises frequently to our Land Department Fire Managers: Should we still be taking aggressive action on desert wildfires where development is eminent? Even with native plant ordinances, most developers are still slicking off the vegetation and then coming back in and replanting with reclaimed on-site plant material supplemented with various nursery stock. We have coined the term "Disney Desert" to describe this phenomenon.
Most wildland fire managers are under the belief that fire does not play a favorable or natural role to the Sonoran Desert ecosystem. We know our primary carrier of the desert fires are the nonnative annual grasses. The Mediterranean and brome grasses are two of the predominant species that I see on our state trust lands after a wet winter/spring season. Wildfire burning in these annual grasses quickly ladders into the desert shrubs and trees providing remarkable fire behavior during the summer months. In some areas on the Rio Fire the fire traveled 30 miles per hour with flame lengths approaching 60 feet. top
Research on fire effects in the desert has been limited, but most studies have shown a drastic change in the vegetation makeup (Phillips 1992; Rogers 1985; McLaughlin and Bowers 1982). When you walk through an area of unburned desert with stately 100 to 250-year old saguaro cacti that do not show any fire scars, a common sense assumption jumps out that fire occurrence was extremely low in the Sonoran Desert. A study done (Rogers, 1985) on a few of our state fires south of Florence and north of Carefree Highway that occurred in 1979 and 1980 showed a dramatic decrease in saguaro populations (68% mortality with future expectations of 85%) with conclusions that another fire in the same area within 30 years would completely eradicate the specie in the burned area. State Trust lands at Carefree Highway and I-17, and many of the north facing slopes in the Phoenix Mountain Preserves that have burned several times in the last 20 years show very little hope for saguaro regeneration. Fire managers are also concerned over the fire effects on threatened and endangered wildlife species such as the desert tortoise and the willow flycatcher. Fire may negatively affect these species, but to what degree is uncertain.
Once a fire occurs in the desert, it often sets the stage for future fires. If you look at old desert burns, the annual grass loading in the burn area is typically much higher. It appears that fires give the non-native annual grasses a competitive edge over other vegetation, at least for a few years. In my 19 years of fighting fire in the desert, I am starting to experience many "repeats," or fires burning in areas that burned several years ago. More Sonoran Desert fire effects research is needed to provide fire managers a better basis to develop appropriate land management practices to reduce damaging wildfire occurrence. The Division has been recently partnering with the Arizona Department of Transportation in experimenting with right-of-way vegetation management to reduce wildfires. Treatments such as prescribed burning, herbicide application, and establishment of native grasses have shown some promise. top
A major concern to my agency is fire suppression costs (Figure 2). Suppression costs have risen dramatically in the 1990's. In 1986 our five year average costs were $273,000 and in 1996 our five-year average cost was $2.1 million. This is attributed to a variety of causes, including urbanization, more aggressive suppression actions, and an increase in fire behavior due to vegetation buildup.
Urbanization exacerbates our fire suppression problem by taking firefighting resources away from the fire itself and placing them at structures in a defensive pattern. Many of our desert fires will eventually threaten lives and property if aggressive suppression action is not taken. In these "urban interface" incidents the wildfire often swallows acreage while firefighters attempt to protect a house where the owner has done little to prevent vegetation buildup. Many residents who build in the interface seem to do their best at placing their homes in the worst possible place for wildfires, such as top of steep hills inaccessible by fire trucks. Fire managers diligently pump out public information providing homeowners with fire proofing procedures, but in reality very few people bother. All it requires to protect most homes in the desert adequately is a string trimmer to cut the annual grasses 30 to 150 feet around the house. This is simple compared with what landowners have to do that reside in the forested and chaparral regions of the state. top
The Fire Management Division estimate the costs of its smallest fires to be $958 each. A twenty-person crew costs $4,000 per day, an air tanker costs about $5,000 per drop, a helicopter depending on size costs $500 to $7,000 per hour, a local fire department wildland engine with three firefighters costs $800 per day, and lastly even our State inmate fire crews get fifty cents per hour. This is why a fire like the Rio fire can cost taxpayers $2,000,000.00.
The Land Department has been managing fires in the Sonoran Desert since 1966. An efficient State fire suppression organization through cooperative agreements is in place and results in cost savings to Arizona taxpayers. Social, economic and environmental factors have caused fire managers to change their views on fire suppression practices in the Sonoran Desert. The public is telling our leaders that we need to preserve natural desert open space near our homes. The Land Department's newly legislated preserve initiative will certainly play a major role in providing the means for communities to retain undeveloped Sonoran Desert. Urban encroachment into the wildland areas without consideration for fire protection is a major problem that fire managers are constantly facing. Urban interface fires such as the Rio fire easily overload our local fire protection organizations and are costly in terms of damage and firefighting expense. The future challenge to fire managers will be to apply effective land management practices and fire suppression or prevention strategies to decrease damaging wildfires and associated costs. We must also become involved in non-traditional wildland fire issues such as local zoning, building standards, subdivision planning, and infrastructure development to reduce future interface problems. top
Phillips, Barbara G. 1992. History of Fire and Its Impacts at Tonto National Monument. National Park Service, Tonto National Monument.
Rogers, Garry F. 1985. Mortality of Burned Cereus giganteus. Ecology 66(2): 630-632
McLaughlin, S.P. and J.E. Bowers. 1982. Effects of Wildfire on a Sonoran Desert Plant Community. Ecology 63(1) 246-248.