Collateral Damage: The Environmental Effects of Firefighting
The 2002 Biscuit Fire Suppression Actions and Impacts
In the communities along the Illinois Valley in Oregon, the closest the 2002 Biscuit Fire came to homes were the result of huge backfires lit by firefighters. Photo courtesy of the USFS.
In 2002, severe drought coupled with record-breaking heat, steep mountainous terrain, high hazardous fuel accumulations, and numerous ignitions sparked by lightning storms and arsonists combined in several locations across the western U.S. to create “a perfect storm” of conditions required for large-scale, high intensity wildfires.
Despite the efforts of thousands of firefighters and hundreds of vehicles, aircraft, and equipment, the Biscuit Fire burned for nearly two months. The 499,570 acre Biscuit Fire became the Nation’s largest wildfire in 2002, and was the largest wildfire in Oregon for over a century. At a cost of over $155 million, the siege-like suppression operation also earned the distinction of being the world’s most expensive wildland fire suppression incident in history. Although the fire burned in a mosaic pattern within the natural range of variability for the Klamath-Siskiyou bioregion, the federal government, press, and politicians reacted to the wildfire as if it were a catastrophe. Soon after the Biscuit Fire was contained and controlled, the burned area became the site of the largest Forest Service timber sale proposal in modern history as the agency planned to “salvage” log trees that burned during the wildfire.
Collateral Damage: The Environmental Effects of Firefighting presents brief descriptions of standard firefighting methods along with a general discussion of their, direct, indirect, and cumulative environmental impacts. This general discussion is illustrated by site-specific examples from the Biscuit Fire, using data collected from suppression documents, post-fire assessments, and other official documents created by the U.S. Forest Service. Additionally, this report provides analysis of the relationship between areas ignited during suppression “burnout” operations and subsequent proposed post-fire salvage logging units. This report makes no judgments about the decisions of fire managers nor criticizes the efforts of wildland firefighters. It is assumed that the suppression strategies and tactics were planned and implemented with the highest concerns for the safety of firefighters and the public, protection of private property, local communities, and natural resources. However, from the evidence and analysis presented this report makes the case for a new comprehensive, proactive wildland fire management policy that prioritizes completion of collaborative fire management plans, educates the public about essential fire ecology processes, prepares rural communities for prescribed and wildland fires, implements hazardous fuels reduction and ecological forest restoration projects, utilizes minimum impact suppression tactics, and makes every fire management action serve pre-planned ecological objectives.