Fire Regime

Changing Perceptions of Fire

Not so long ago, fire was perceived as a harmful force to be eliminated at all costs. Yet, despite improvements in skills and equipment, fires cannot always be stopped, and scientists now know it is not always beneficial to stop them. Nearly every ecosystem depends on fire to maintain its health and existence. Fire speeds the process of decay and recycles valuable nutrients back into the soils. Insect pests and plant diseases are controlled. Fires limit the spread of certain plants while encouraging others to grow, and fires create a diversity of plant communities as burned areas recover at different rates. The variety of plants provide a more complex mix of food and cover for wildlife. This increased complexity in turn leads to a greater diversity of wildlife inhabiting the burned regions and a more stable and disaster-resistant ecosystem.

Today, fire management policies reflect both a commitment to public safety and the understanding that fire is a natural component of ecosystems. Park managers still suppress fires that threaten lives and property; now they also ignite prescribed fires to restore natural conditions to areas where fire has been unnaturally excluded.

Prescribed fire is one of the most important tools used to manage fire today. A scientific prescription for the fire, prepared in advance, describes its objectives, fuels, size, and the precise weather and other environmental conditions under which it will burn. If it moves outside the predetermined areas or conditions suddenly change, the fire may be suppressed.

The purpose of many prescribed fires is to reduce fuels. In areas where fires were routinely suppressed, fuels have built up, creating the potential for a much larger, hotter fire than would naturally occur. Prescribed fires reduce ground fuels without harming larger trees. Fires are also used to restore grasslands and habitat diversity.

Prescribed fires burning under optimum weather conditions are beneficial; wildfires caused by the carelessness of humans generally burn under the worst possible weather conditions and can destroy forests and endanger firefighters.

Relict Systems and Fire

The miracle of the Guadalupes lies in the relict mountaintop forests and riparian woodlands. Along with isolated pockets of vegetation around desert springs, they contain a unique diversity of plants and animals that require special conditions that they themselves help to sustain. The long-term trend in this area is toward further desertification and eventual elimination of such special habitats. Very hot fires like the Pine Fire of 1993 greatly accelerate the process, because perimeters of woodlands are instantly destroyed. As woodlands shrink, their capacity to perpetuate their own critical microclimates is impaired. Moist, shaded core areas essential to new growth are diminished. It has been theorized that only with the onset of a major climate change towards cooler, moister conditions will the woodlands reverse their decline and flourish as they did following the last ice age.

Fire and the Future

We know little about the history and impact of natural fires in the Guadalupe Mountains and even less about the past role of humans as agents of fire here. We can only assume that the present ecosystems are those best suited to this time and place. It is a fact, however, that in the absence of fire, fuels proliferate. As the quantity of fuel increases, the stage is set for fires that are ever more destructive.

Obviously, lightning and irresponsible people will continue to cause fires. We must insure that both natural and human-caused wildfires do not burn with catastrophic intensity; such infernos could destroy relict natural zones that are integral to the Guadalupe ecosystem. Prescribed burns carried out during optimal weather conditions can reduce hazardous fuel accumulations and insure that parklands are returned to a state of equilibrium where neither lightning nor human-caused fires can seriously affect the stability of highly significant communities of life. When this goal is achieved, most fires can be monitored and allowed to burn.

 
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    Last updated: February 1, 2021

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