Incident: Meriwether
Released: 8/19/2007
By LARRY KLINE, IR Staff Writer - 08/19/07
Eliza Wiley IR photo editor - Denise Pengeroth, wildlife biologist with the Helena National Forest, stands in a severely burned area up in the Coulter campground area where the Meriwether fire burned hot and fast. GATES OF THE MOUNTAINS WILDERNESS - Electricity ripped through the hot July air, crackling amongst the limestone cliffs of the Meriwether Canyon. Sparks struck dry timber high on Sacajawea Mountain, and the age-old dance of fire and forest began anew.Glowing logs and fiery pine cones tumbled down the rock, landing in the dry, dense stands of ponderosa pine.
As the fire grew on the gully floors, it began to encounter the steep walls of the iconic wilderness area, which inspired Meriwether Lewis more than two centuries before.
Like water flowing from a wide, lazy expanse of river into a narrow canyon, the flames gathered speed through rising draws and gulches, gaining energy from the wind and the compounding heat. The fire generated its own convection currents, fueling itself.
Soon, what started as a puff of smoke high in mountain-goat country became a racing inferno driven by fuel, wind and topography. A plume climbed thousands of feet into the air. Wind-driven embers sparked new spot fires a mile away.
Dave Madden piloted a Forest Service boat through the canyon in the early days of the Meriwether fire. He saw the blaze roar up Field's Gulch.
"It looked like something out of 'Nova,' " he said, referring to the PBS science program. "Swirling gas and sparks. It was surreal, really ... this huge column of embers and ashes - red, gold and white."
Fire has shaped the Western landscape for millennia, returning every few years or every few centuries. Sparked by lightning or humans - on purpose or by accident - fire is a natural process, spurring new growth and bringing diversity to old stands.
Over the past hundred years, people have altered the landscape, changing the tumblers that unlock explosive blazes. But nature still responds to conditions humans can't control, a timeless cycle of death and rebirth.
A mosaic
The Meriwether fire has scorched more than 42,000 acres in the Gates of the Mountains Wilderness, the Beartooth Wildlife Management Area and the Sieben Ranch since its beginning July 21.
A recent boat ride along the Missouri River revealed a widely varying landscape from one drainage to the next. Along the river, a creeping grass fire has killed some trees, but most of the greenery is intact. Walk up Mann Gulch or Coulter Canyon, and landscape soon reveals the effects of more intense fire.
Some areas now are home to black trunks standing in a moonscape of ash and gaping root holes, their heat-deformed branches curled to the sky. The soil is topped with dead ashes. Streaks and circles of white are all that remain of logs or bushes incinerated by the heat.
But in some places just 50 yards separate these apocalyptic scenes from living trees and flowering brush. The soil is dark and able to support new life. Living roots still can be found beneath black stubs of burnt scrub grass.
Some spots already are home to fresh green shoots.
This mosaic is exactly what forest managers expect after this sort of fire.
Fuel buildups in high elevations mean fires there, though infrequent, typically replace whole stands of Douglas fir.
"It's pretty impressive how much stand replacement occurred with that fire," Helena National Forest ecologist Lois Olsen said. She's working on the incident management team, and recently flew over the burned areas.
"There are large patches that don't have any living trees in them right now," she said. Other areas are still green, she added.
"I don't know that this is anything that you would consider abnormal," Olsen said.
Much of the interior of the area is dominated by Douglas fir, with ponderosa pine taking over in the lower elevations at the edge of the wilderness.
Under what forest managers call a "natural fire regime," frequent, variable-intensity burns will leave open stands of mature ponderosa pine. The fires leave gaps in stands of Douglas fir.
In some instances where fuels built up over time, the Meriwether fire burned young and old trees alike.
The mix of topography, fuels and weather holds different fortunes for soils, grasses and underbrush, different types of trees, and wildlife.
Understory
As fire sweeps through the area, it burns some of the smaller trees, along with shrubs, grasses and the buildup of needles and other litter on the forest floor.
The litter serves as a physical barrier to grass and shrub growth. Removing the material increases the amount and diversity of forbs and grasses beneath the canopy, Olsen said. Opening up stands of Douglas fir promotes new growth of snowberry and other brush.
"A lot of shrubs will re-sprout immediately after fire," she said.
Trees
The thick, flaky bark of a ponderosa pine breaks off as it burns, protecting the cambium, which is responsible for the trees' bark and tissue growth. Greg Morris, the fire management officer for the Townsend District of the Helena National Forest, likens it to the protective material used on space shuttles.
If at least 10 percent of a tree's crown remains green, he said, the plant likely will survive.
Frequent, low-intensity fires eat up the grass and small trees in the ponderosa pine forest, leaving larger trees to grow stronger in open stands.
Scorched pines release fresh pitch, which trees use as their defense against insects. In a natural fire regime, frequent burns prompt trees to produce more pitch.
As the tree grows older, the layers of pitch form a protective, armor-like coating. When such a tree dies the layers of sap make it resistant to rot. Dead ponderosa snags may stand 100 years after the tree has died, providing habitat for owls and other species.
Douglas fir bark is thick and corklike, insulating the cambium. As the trees grow larger, they become quite fire-resistant, though not as hardy as the ponderosa pine, Olsen said.
They'll survive as long as the fire doesn't reach too high into the canopy. Long exposure to extreme heat also will kill Douglas fir.
Fires essentially "reset the clock" for fuel levels, Morris said. The length of time for new growth depends on how the fire burned through the area. In some places, seedlings were spared from the blaze. Other places will see growth in three to five years. Some places may take longer to recover.
Wildlife
Wildfires rarely kill animals, Helena National Forest wildlife biologist Denise Pengeroth said. The mountain goats, bighorn sheep, mountain lions, black bears, deer, elk and large raptors such as eagles and falcons living in the Gates of the Mountains Wilderness and the Beartooth Wildlife Management Area likely escaped ahead of the flames.
Those animals will return as food returns, the elk and deer benefiting from a new spurt of grass and shrub growth, Pengeroth said. They'll have to be more wary, however, because the fire has removed cover that shielded the animals from hunters and predators.
Freshly burned areas immediately attract some species, she said. Hungry bark beetles will attack weakened stands of trees, drawing the black-backed woodpecker and other bird species with them.
According to Pengeroth, the coarse, woody debris left over from the fire benefits some small mammals, like red-backed voles, which in turn draw predators like the American marten.
Soil
In many areas, the Meriwether fire had a moderate effect on soils, burning most of the ground litter, charring the organic matter but not altering the underlying mineral soil, Helena National Forest hydro geologist Bo Stuart said. Lightly colored ash may be found in those areas, he said.
In some spots, particularly in the upper reaches of Meriwether and Coulter canyons and in some parts of the Willow Creek drainage, the fire had more severe effect on soils. The fire may have burned all organic material, or duff, from the top layer of dirt and turned the underlying mineral soil red or orange, Stuart said.
The effects on soils can impact plant regrowth and the dirt's ability to withstand erosion during cloudbursts.
At times, the soils actually take on water-repellent characteristics. These changes, when combined with shallow bedrock, can result in flash floods during significant rain events. The topography of the Gates of the Mountains has been shaped in part by these fire-and-flood events, Stuart said.
Nature at work
"This isn't catastrophic," Olsen said. "This isn't devastation. It's a real big change. That's how I view it.
"In the natural world, it's not a catastrophe. We think about it in humans' time and terms, rather than nature's time," she added.
Forest fires naturally occur in cycles stretching over a century or two. Stands grow thick and dense, providing fuel. Then it's only a matter of weather's spark.
"The higher elevations, its number's up," Pengeroth said. "That's what's happening in a lot of places. It's time for it to burn."
Would a fire have these same effects if humans and the suppression efforts of the past century were removed The answer's yes in some places, no in others - but in the end it's hard to tell. American Indians once used fire for their own purposes, and that process has ceased. Suppression efforts continue, though some blazes start running before firefighters can contain them.
"We're dealing with a hand that's been dealt to us by our society," Morris said.
Pengeroth agreed. She noted the increasing infestations of pine beetles throughout Montana. Those bugs prefer dense stands and weak trees. Many factors are at play, but the frequency of fire is one of them. Trees will die, whether it's by fire, beetles or some other cause.
"Nature marches on," she said. "We've just altered a process."
Gates of the Mountains tour-boat manager predicts fire won't effect business in long run
The limestone cliffs of the Gates of the Mountains still sport most of their trees, as the canyon largely survived the effects of the Meriwether fire. Some trees have turned brown from the heat of ground fires, which never crowned in the idyllic canyon along the Missouri River.
"It's still there. The canyon ... somehow protected itself," Gates of the Mountains Boat Tours Manager Tim Crawford said.
He said the tour company probably lost $60,000 this summer due to the fire, but its future should be secure.
"I don't think there's a long-term effect on this business," he said.
"Actually I think it's going to be good for the forest in the long run," Crawford added. "The tour itself is still strong and is still there. A lot of heavy burning went on away from the water."
The tour's furthest downstream view is Mann Gulch, the site of the tragic deaths of 13 men in a fire 58 years ago. The gulch has burned once more, offering sightseers a glimpse into the past.
Crawford would like to see the Meriwether picnic area reopen to the public, although he acknowledges the Helena National Forest's concerns over possible flash flooding.
