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Wildfires Menace the West
Busy Season Puts a Strain on Fire Bosses
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The Hayman fire sends billowing smoke miles into the sky outside Lake George, Colo. in June.
Photo: Howard Berkes
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2002 Wildfire Season
Major fires
Rodeo-Chediski Fire, Arizona
Acres:
approx. 460,000
Began June 18, 2002
Hayman Fire, Colo.
Began June 8, 2002
Acres: 137,760
Missionary Ridge Fire and Valley Fire, Colorado
Acres: 70,485
Began June 9, 2002
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Flames climb the needles and branches of pine trees in a process called crowning.
Photo: Tim Sexton, National Park Service
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Crews battling the Hayman fire dig firelines.
Photo: USDA Forest Service
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July 24, 2002 --
Last week, more than 4,000 fire bosses, engine and helicopter chiefs, strategists and commanders were mobilizing 15,000 firefighters in the Western United States. One of these people was fire boss Steve Nemore, who has been fighting wildfires for 30 years.
Veterans like Nemore are increasingly rare, and there is concern that people like him may soon become the resource in shortest supply during one of the busiest fire seasons on record. NPR's Howard Berkes reports for Morning Edition.
"How we gonna last? If it's like this now," Nemore asked. "And it's extreme everywhere, there's just not gonna be enough people or equipment…to deal with it."
Don Smurthwaite agrees. He is spokesman for the National Interagency Fire Center, which coordinates the people, equipment and supplies used to fight wildfires. He says that for some of the key fire management positions, the agency has lost 20 percent to 50 percent of its qualified personnel between 1995 and 2000.
What this means, Smurthwaite says, is that more acres will burn because there are not enough managers to safely lead teams of firefighters to battle blazes. To remedy this situation, federal agencies are speeding up the training process and sending more trainees to fight fires alongside experienced managers. The overall plan is to professionalize fire management so it is seen as a career as opposed to a summer job for the young.
In what has been described as one of the busiest fire seasons ever, more than 50,000 fires have burned more than 3.5 million acres in the West.
Many forest ecosystems evolved with fire, and depend on it for their health. But over the last century, a policy of suppressing all fires has led to forests that are badly overgrown. Consequently, when fires occur now, they tend to be much hotter and far more destructive than what would have occured in a strictly natural cycle. Federal agencies have recognized the problem and have turned their priorities to thinning forests and conducting controlled burns to reduce the build up of fuel that can feed a massive wildfire
Search the NPR archives for stories on wildfires.
More Resources:
• U.S. Fire Administration Web site.
• National Fire News daily update.
• Arizona Public Radio archive of stories about the 2002 fire season.
• National Wildlife Coordinating Group Home page on the 2002 fire season in Colorado.
• National Interagency Fire Center Web site listing fires and acreage by state.
• The site of the National Smokejumpers Association, the people who parachute into fires.
• Bureau of Land Management Web site on smokejumpers.
• Learn about the history of wildfires and how they historically are a natural part of an ecosystem's health.
• How to protect your home from wildifires.
• FireHouse Magazine Web site on wildfires.
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