Fire Management

Many visitors will notice piles of logs and brush along park roads. These are made from dead, diseased, down, and overcrowded trees. Piles are allowed to dry for about a year, then burned in the wintertime when conditions are right.

NPS Photo/Peter Densmore

 

Fires are part of a natural process in places like Bryce Canyon, but they can be dangerous in highly visited areas without any form of management. There have been many thoughts on the best way to protect popular places and their visitors from fire over the years. These thoughts have changed as lessons have been learned. Some lessons in fire management can be learned after a single incident. Others took decades. Today we use what we have learned to manage fire by balancing benefits to the ecosystem with protection of people and property.

 

Lightning can start fires that clear out underbrush, leaving room for older, mature trees.

Fire Suppression in Bryce Canyon

Before 1911, low-intensity ground fires were common in Bryce Canyon and on the Paunsaugunt Plateau. These ground fires, usually caused by monsoon season’s thunderstorms, would clear the underbrush of small plants and saplings, leaving room and resources for older, mature trees. On average, Bryce Canyon would see one of these fires about every 7-8 years. This changed, however, with the introduction of fire suppression policies in the early 1900s. By the 1970s, fire managers began to realize the consequences of suppressing all fires.

Decades without fires had allowed trees to grow closer together and fuel to build up on the forest floor. In fact, Bryce Canyon forests have seen a 200% increase in fire fuel accumulation since 1916, due to fire suppression! As a result, these forests became more susceptible to the same fires that managers were trying to protect them from. The newer fires also started to become larger and more dangerous. Since the 1970s, fire managers have been trying to return natural fires to their ecosystems when possible. However, it can be challenging to control fires in a forest that has been impacted by fire suppression, even decades later.

See a more in-depth timeline of National Park Service fire management over the last Century and a half at the NPS Interactive Wildfire History Timeline. For more information on Bryce Canyon's fire history, visit the Fire History page.

 

Area affected by the 2009 Bridge Fire shortly after the fire.

NPS Photo

What We Learned

In 2009, lightning struck in Bridge Hollow, an area of Dixie National Forest, starting the Bridge Fire. The Bridge Fire was permitted to burn, with the hope that it could help use up extra fire fuel built up during the fire suppression era. Instead, unpredictable weather soon turned it into the largest fire in Bryce Canyon’s history.

The Bridge Fire is a great example of a stand-replacing fire that can happen in a late-succession forest. The abundance of fuel in this area allowed the fire to burn hot and fast. Of the 1,856 acres that burned within the park boundary, 701 acres were classified as a high severity burn. This had a clear impact in the years following the fire. In some areas, the Bridge Fire burned so hot that it sterilized the soil, preventing the growth of any new plants for a time. With the original plants completely burned and no new growth, there were no roots to stabilize the soil. Instead, trail crews had to construct erosion barriers, including water bars, along trails and drainages to minimize damage from the heavy monsoon rains later in the year.

In the face of the Bridge Fire, the Riggs/Lonely Fire in 2018 was a huge success story for fire management. Both the Riggs and Lonely Fires were, like the Bridge Fire, started by lightning and allowed to burn in dense forests that hadn’t been impacted by fire in years. However, fire managers were better prepared to respond to the Riggs/Lonely Fire than they were to the Bridge Fire. Following a structural fire assessment in 2011, the Bryce Canyon fire crew had begun thinning the forest near Rainbow Point by gathering fallen branches, cutting trees, and making piles of the wood. To counteract the Riggs/Lonely Fire, fire managers made the decision to implement a backburn along the Bristlecone Loop using these burn piles.

Burn piles on the east side of the trail were lit, while the west side of the trail was kept wet. The resulting fire was then carefully directed towards the Riggs Spring Loop trail to use up any fire fuel before the Riggs/Lonely Fire could move into the park on its own. Without the construction of the burn piles following the Bridge Fire, it might not have been safe to light a backburn to help control the Riggs/Lonely Fire.

 

Burn piles offer fire managers more control over what fuels will be burned.

NPS Photo

 

What is a Burn Pile?

Burn Piles

When you visit Bryce Canyon today, you may see large piles of sticks or logs in a teepee-like shape in various places. Perhaps they are along the road, by one of the trails you are hiking, or even near the campground you are staying at. These structures are burn piles, and they are often constructed in areas that see a lot of people. But why?

Burn piles can be a useful tool for a prescribed burn, as they allow fire managers to specifically control what kinds of fuel the fire is burning. For example, a burn pile could be made from excess branches and logs that have fallen to the forest floor, from sections of hazardous trees that have been cut down, or a combination of both! Burn piles also help fire managers to keep prescribed burns from spreading in sensitive locations, including places that are near buildings or populated areas. To help with that, prescribed burns at Bryce Canyon are often lit during the winter while there is some snow on the ground.

 

Prescribed Fires

Although fires are natural in ecosystems, it is difficult to allow them to occur without any kind of management – especially in places that are highly visited by the public. This is where prescribed burns are useful. By intentionally setting fires in specific places, fire managers can control the exact location of a fire in an ecosystem. They can also make sure that these fires will not spread too fast and become destructive. Prescribed burns are often used to help thin out forests that have become too dense due to fire suppression, and to restore pre-suppression plant communities. There are many different strategies for implementing a prescribed burn, but the easiest one to see at Bryce Canyon are the same kinds of burn piles that were used to control the Riggs/Lonely Fire.

 

Present and Future

Fire has played an important role in western forest ecosystems for millions of years. Today, fire managers respond to fires based on how they started. Any human-caused wildland fire will be completely suppressed, but a naturally ignited fire can often be managed instead. As much as possible, Bryce Canyon fire managers aim to reintroduce lightning-caused fires by allowing them to perform their natural, ecological role. By doing so, we hope to watch these fires create diversity in plant communities throughout the park and eliminate heavy fuel accumulation from years of fire suppression. Sound simple?
It might be more complicated than you would think.

 

Why Has Fire Management Become More Complex?

Modern Wildfire Management

Over the last 30-40 years, fire management has become more complex. In these decades, wildfires have grown in size, intensity, and frequency. This trend will likely continue in the future, as we face the consequences of fire suppression policy and a changing climate. As more people recreate in national forests and parks, and as more people are building homes closer to wildland areas, today’s wildfires are posing higher risks to human lives. Going forward, fire managers will be challenged with finding ways to help ecosystems and local communities become both welcoming and resilient to natural fires. Visit the Fire Safety page for more information on how to safely build a fire and leave no trace.

Do you live near a wildland area? Learn about the Wildland Urban Interface, and how you can help keep your home safe!

 

The Color Country Interagency Fire Center is an interagency dispatch center that is responsible for dispatching and coordination of wildfires and incidents for approximately 16.5 million acres.

Color Country Interagency Fire Center

Interagency Fire Management

Bryce Canyon National Park is located near land run by other federal land management agencies, including Dixie National Forest and Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. Fires that start on land managed by one agency can easily spread to land managed by others. As a result, the Bryce Canyon fire crew works locally with the US Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and other state and municipal level agencies (like the Utah Department of Natural Resources) to respond to wildfires and other incidents.

The Bryce Canyon fire crew will also respond to national incidents by working with the Color Country Interagency Fire Center in Cedar City, UT. Color Country covers approximately 16.5 million acres of land, split between Utah and Arizona. The Color Country Interagency Fire Center is responsible for dispatching and coordinating firefighting efforts for that land. They may also work with other federal agencies to create teams that can then respond to incidents that may occur nationally. To learn more about wildland fire management, visit the NPS Fire In-Depth page.

 

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  Fire Ecology

  Learn more about forest succession and plant and animal adaptations to fire

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  Fire History

  Learn more about the history of fire suppression and recent major fires in Bryce Canyon

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  Fire Safety

  Learn more about fire safety.