đ„ Colorado's 'new normal' when every season is wildfire season
The latest edition of Burning Questions rounds up recent wildfire news and research in the West
Welcome back to the Burning Questions newsletter. If you havenât yet read our inaugural edition, you can catch up on what weâre about here, and our subsequent installment here. Â
Sine our last edition, even more wildfires have torched Colorado.
âRoughly a dozen wildfires have erupted across Colorado in the last eight days, destroying homes, forcing evacuations and signaling a vicious start to what's considered traditional fire season,â reported Axios Denver on April 22.
A growing narrative in the press is not pretty.
Consider these headlines from within the past week: âPeak Colorado wildfire season will start earlier and last longer, predict forecasters;â âColorado officials warn 2022 could be the worst wildfire year in state history;â and âHow bad will Coloradoâs 2022 wildfire season be? Experts say to expect a new normal.â
That ânew normalâ headline from The Denver Post wasnât a one-off. âColoradans coming to terms with ânew normalâ after active fire day across the state,â reported Denver7. (Not everyone is on board with the narrative, however. NPRâs Kirk Siegler last week cited the chief historian for the U.S. Forest Service throwing cold water on the word âunprecedentedâ and saying upwards of 30 million acres in the West tended to burn every year before the U.S. got so good at fire suppression.)
With that in mind, in this edition weâll discuss more recent wildfire news across the West, as well as break down the latest updates from some higher-ed researchers on a wildfire study project weâve been tracking.
For a refresher on what weâre all about here at this newsletter, weâre Riley Prillwitz and Leah Thayer, a recent Colorado College journalism grad who minored in journalism and a graduating senior journalism minor respectively, who are interested in bridging the gap between hard scientific climate research and everyday media communications. Weâve teamed up with a group of Colorado climate researchers currently working on a project titled âThe role of soil microbiome resilience in ecosystem recovery following severe wildfire.â
This research is led by Colorado College Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Rebecca Barnes and Colorado State University Associate Professor of Soil and Crop Sciences Mike Wilkins, along with a team of interdisciplinary scientists. Their research seeks to investigate the effects of severe wildfires on soil ecosystems by assessing the soil chemistry of historically burned areas of Colorado forests.Â
For a full rundown of the project, read our first and second editions here.
đŹ Now, on to that research update we promised
Leah hereâŠ
Recently, our Burning Questions team had the opportunity to sit down ~virtually~ with CSU graduate student Amelia Nelson to see whatâs happened since the last time we checked in. Nelson and others in Wilkinsâ lab at CSU work on bioinformatics, which entails a variety of different scientific disciplines including microbiology, environmental science, and computational sciences. Nelson works and studies with the Wilkinsâ lab, where her role in this project has been to collect and analyze data from the burn pile soil samples from their field site in North Park, Colorado.Â
At this point in the project, Nelson has been able to analyze âmarker gene dataâ from soil samples, which she explains as, âdata that tell us about compositional shifts in the burn piles over time.â Nelson said they have sampled soil from within the burn piles, and soil from outside the burns, using the latter as control samples for comparison. In this kind of genetic analysis, scientists are basically testing samples to see if various genes are present or not; in the case of this research with soil samples, they were looking specifically for ectomycorrhizal fungi species to see how their presence in the soil changes after fire. (You can read our last Burning Questions edition for a refresher on ectomycorrhizal fungi.)
Nelson and her team have so far gathered some preliminary results from these data, including one important finding that suggests it takes a lot longer for soils to recover from fire than you might think.Â
âWhen we look at the entire bacterial and fungal communities from within these burn piles, it takes 60 years for them to not look statistically different from the communities in the control sample,â Nelson says.Â
This could mean that it takes over half a century for soils to fully recover from severe fire. Think about that for a moment. Iâll be in my eighties rocking that nursing home life before the soils of Cameron Peak return to their normal state. Whatâs notable is that this research is unique. âThere havenât been tons of studies on the types of forests weâre looking at â the upland coniferous forests of the Rockies â and on these high-severity type fires,â Nelson says.Â
While such a long recovery time might seem bleak, Nelson described other preliminary results from the marker gene data as âreally great.â Basically, they found that while it can take 60 years for the overall soil community to recover, it only took 20 years for the ectomycorrhizal fungi to return to normal relative abundance in the burn pile soils â a breakneck speed, apparently.Â
When wrapping up this research update for us, Nelson stressed that while that 60-year timeline for soil recovery is long, their research is still investigating if that is truly the big number that matters. âSo far, we are seeing that the ecologically important species, like those ectomycorrhizal fungi, are actually not taking that long to recover,â Nelson says.Â
The next step for the Wilkins Lab and Nelsonâs continuing research will be to process metagenomics data from 60 specific soil samples. Metagenomics was a new word for me too, so donât worry, Iâve got that definition right here: According to the National Human Genome Research Institute, metagenomics is the study of the âstructure and function of entire nucleotide sequences (DNA) from all the microbes present in a bulk sample.â The purpose of this analysis will be exploring the potential direct functions of various important microorganisms in these recovering soils, and how that might change in response to fire.Â
Nelson reflects on her driving motivation in the project since fire has become âso close to homeâ after she made the move to Colorado from the Midwest. She vividly remembers looking across a smokey red sky during the Cameron Peak fire in 2020, and says it was one of the first moments she thought, Iâm actually seeing climate change. This was a wake-up call for her and why sheâs so motivated in this research. At that moment, Nelson says, she thought to herself, OK this research really is relevant and important, no question about it now.
A New Age of Fighting Wildfires
Riley here with a look on the history of wildfire containment, the growth of firefighting in the United States, and how some western states are trying to mitigate future catastrophic fires.
We have Benjamin Franklin to thank for volunteer firefighter âclubsâ or âco-ops,â which grew in popularity for fighting house fires and protecting populated areas. This was especially so in smaller towns and rural counties. In the 1930s, this idea expanded to wildfires in U.S. forests, as volunteers flocked to put them out before danger struck.Â
âIn 1935, the Forest Service established the so-called 10 a.m. policy, which decreed that every fire should be suppressed by 10 a.m. the day following its initial report,â according to the U.S Forest Society. For decades, this was how officials dealt with wildfires, but scientific research in the â60s showed that this may have not been as beneficial to forests as once believed.Â
Though this policy has not been top protocol for almost 50 years, it created lasting effects. Dry brush long overdue for a good burn leaves excessive kindling and creates larger wildfires. Furthermore, a current âlet it burnâ policy, in which fires are left to their own devices until deemed dangerous, has now also come in for criticism as reckless.
Hold on, Iâm not done scaring you just yet. Since the looming threat of permanent climate change hangs over our heads, megafires and âfire-induced stormsâ are not so much of an anomaly as they are becoming the norm for wildfires and their side-effects. PBS recently discussed the most recent U.N. climate report that predicts âcatastrophic wildfires in the coming decades.â
So what now? We hang our heads and wait to burn in a fiery doom of destruction like weâre in some apocalyptic action film? Scientists donât think so â at least, not yet. New data and research collected may suggest new techniques of firefighting that could balance the need for wildfires to continue the lifecycle of the forest without it becoming detrimental and destructive.Â
Against this backdrop, The Colorado Sun recently reported the need for Colorado firefighters to adapt to change as they work, especially in suburban areas. The story details how firefighters were âoverwhelmed by the speed and intensityâ of the Marshall fire in Boulder, which tore through more than 1,000 homes in a matter of hours because of high winds. Grasslands fires of similar size have occurred âthree times in five years.âÂ
The article also highlights new dangers the changing climate poses with wildfires, and discusses multiple reevaluation processes throughout the state of Colorado.Â
South Metro dreams of acquiring its own road graders to supplement those owned by Douglas County. A satellite data company executive whose own home was ruined by smoke from the Marshall fire pictures fleets of suburban brushcutters ready to trim fire breaks on red flag days. Colorado Springs scrambles to warn a constant turnover of new homeowners in its military-transient community of new urban interface fire dangers.
Additionally, new fire sensor technology underwent testing in Gilpin County, Colorado. The new gadgets, called N5 Sensors, are referred to as âburglar alarms for fires.â They send alerts for when they detect a wildfire in a designated location.Â
So far, they successfully alerted researchers in a controlled burn â36 minutes before the 911 call cameâ and can even tell the difference between drifting wildfire smoke from another state and a dangerous wildfire in the immediate area.Â
Out in California, indigenous people have turned back to traditional controlled burns that were not only an important part of their culture for thousands of years, but also a healthy management of the forest life cycle. These controlled burns carefully manage the brush of the forest floor and allow regrowth as well as suppress the dangers of intense wildfires in the area.Â
For years, the government did not allow such ceremonies out of fear of fire and lack of knowledge about the importance of the process. Now, experts are realizing this may be the best way to prevent future catastrophic wildfires in the state.Â
âI think itâs really important that we donât think about traditional burning as: what information can we learn from native people and then exclude people and move on with non-natives managing the land,â Beth Rose Middleton Manning, professor of Native American studies at the University of California, Davis, told NPR. âBut that native people are at the forefront and leading.âÂ
In Oregon, research coming out of Oregon State University shows that wildfires are more likely caused by fire traveling from private land into remote forests, rather than the other way around as previously assumed. This finding could help with the implementation of new laws and bills that could prevent major wildfires from forming in this manner, especially since data in Colorado suggests that many causes for wildfires in the state are still unknown. An article from Denverâs 5280 magazine also highlights the difficulties of fire investigation throughout the state.Â
With all of this research in mind, the method of firefighting could change rapidly. Legislators and top fire officials might consider keeping the new technology in mind as they continue to dish out wildfire mitigation grants. It could be the difference between life and death â between a wildfire and a megafire, and for the future health of the planet.
About that ânew normalâ: Every Day is âWildfire Seasonâ
Since our last newsletter, yet another fire broke out in Boulder, this time at the base of the Flatirons on March 26.Â
A hiker, Ben Holden, captured footage of the so-called NCAR fire as it burned on the side of the cliffs and posted it to Twitter. The video shows billows of smoke, zooms in on the flames, and then pans to a slew of hikers running towards the parking lot, according to Holden.Â
Fires like these are stirring conversations around the way wildfires are now happening at any moment in time. In years past, there was something of a âwildfire seasonâ so to speak when winter weather and cold climate brought in a blanket of safety giving Coloradans a chance to catch their breath and reset for the next fire. But as Denver 7 recently put it, there are essentially no safe days in Colorado anymore in terms of wildfire.Â
âWhat semblance of security snow cover once provided evaporated this past weekend as Colorado's second major fire threatened roughly 8,000 residential buildings,â wrote Eric Shank in Salon Magazine on March 31. âAnd perhaps most shockingly, the wildfire roared through a snowy landscape.â
Now, with an extended drought plaguing the state, wildfire has the opportunity to strike at any moment, snow present or not. Michael Smith, the incident commander in Boulder County, spoke to The New York Times, saying, âI think this is just a sign of the way things are going to go.â
đ„Wildfire Wire đ„
â The Culprit remains at large: scientists still donât know what caused the start of the Marshall fire in Louisville, Colorado in December. âResearchers participating in three separate studies to explore the 6,000-acre blaze, which began just before noon on Dec. 30, said they havenât been able to pinpoint what caused the fire to destroy 1,084 houses and damage 37 commercial buildings,â reported The Scientific American. The only clue provided in the article as to the intensity of the fire was âclimate changeâ and the effects it has on wildfires, which is what we have been talking about plenty in this newsletter.Â
đ âWith a busy fire season already underway, Colorado firefighters are preparing to add another item to their toolbox: night-vision-equipped helicopters,â Denverâs KDVR reported.
âïž A few weeks ago in Montana, it was announced that a group of âyouthsâ are suing the state over âtheir right to access a clean and healthful environment in a case scheduled to go to trial next year.â Montana is one of the states in the West currently suffering from a megadrought because of climate change, which creates hazardous wildfire situations. When the trial takes place â itâs scheduled to start Feb. 6, 2023 â it will be the first youth climate trial in U.S. history.Â
đ¶âđ«ïž âHealth risks associated with the increasing presence of wildfire smoke in western Colorado during the summer has shifted the focus of Garfield Countyâs long-standing air quality monitoring program,â The Aspen Times reported.
đłïž In past editions, we discussed a local ballot initiative in Colorado Springs in all of its glory; since then there have been even more updates. Last month, a wildfire mitigation committee of 12 members held its first meeting. The goal of the Wildfire Mitigation Advisory Committee is to âincrease the buffer around Colorado Springs with wildfire mitigation efforts, to decrease the severity of wildfires.â The committee has a budget of up to $20 million for efforts against disastrous wildfires in the Pikes Peak region of Colorado.
đ âThe Colorado Fire Commission has endorsed a plan for a new authority that would adopt and enforce sweeping new statewide regulations on development in some of the most wildfire-prone parts of the state,â Colorado Public Radio reported.
đž As for the rest of Colorado, lawmakers passed three new House Bills for mitigation project grants throughout the state. The bills would provide around $27.5 million for efforts âto encourage mitigation strategies and combat more frequent and intense wildfires.â In the nine years between 2008 and 2017, mitigation only occurred in 6% of high-risk areas for wildfires throughout Colorado, and sponsors of the bill think it is high time for lawmakers to use their power to make a change.Â
đ Colorado College senior journalism minor Jon Lamson has launched a Substack newsletter called New England Climate Dispatch that covers âclimate policy, environmental justice, and social movements in New Englandâ and âprovides a mix of original reporting and climate news from across the region.â
đĄ For homeowners throughout Colorado, having a house burn up because of wildfire is a devastating loss of precious valuables and a place full of important memories. A new House bill, HB-1111, aims to provide more up-front support for those whose homes are affected or burned in a natural wildfire. Colorado Newsline explained the debate as lawmakers argued how much homeowners should receive for insured items directly after a fire, rather than months, or even years, later.Â
đ” Meanwhile, check that insurance policy. âAfter the most destructive blaze in Coloradoâs history, only 8% of homeowners were found to hold guaranteed replacement coverage,â Trish Zornio wrote in The Colorado Sun.
đŁïž Coloradoâs Democratic U.S. senator, Michael Bennett said âItâs clear: climate change is driving longer wildfire seasons and more severe fires in Colorado. If we donât act, we risk handing the next generation a state that none of us recognize.â
đ” A local Colorado musician takes inspiration from the stateâs devastating 2020 wildfires and turns it into a song. David Lawranceâs new debut single, âSeeds We Sow,â speaks of accepting growth and new life after devastation and destruction. He sings alongside his bandmates, dubbed David Lawrence & the Spoonful. You can listen to the song here.
đ âA group of students from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts is in town for seven weeks to study the effects of the wildfires on local communities,â says The Colorado Switchblade, a local Substack news source by Jason Van Tatenhove. In the newsletter, Tatenhoven shared audio from an interview with the students where they ask him about his experience living in Estes Park during major Colorado wildfires.Â
đïž In this yearâs NPR 2022 College Podcast Challenge, Lehigh University student Grace Fuller submitted an entry titled âIn Search of Home.â In this podcast, for which she was a finalist in the contest, she discusses her personal experience with losing her home to the Marshall fire in December 2021. (Fun fact: Colorado College student Anya Steinberg â21 won the contest in 2021).Â
đĄ On the topic of podcasts, The Hotshot Wake Up is a podcast created by firefighters who share the latest information on wildfires. On their Substack page, they include graphics, articles with further information, and of course each episode of their podcast. We think it is worth checking out to learn even more about wildfires.
đŠ« Leave it to Beaver: Wildlife researchers discovered that not only can beavers protect certain areas from wildfire, they also play a huge part in the ecological recuperation after a wildfire occurs. In a new NPR segment for Morning Edition, Alex Hager talks with scientists about how beaver dams create resulting wetlands that are âpartially fire resistant,â which is evident among the many acres of burned land from the two 2020 Colorado wildfires. Meanwhile, just a few months ago an article in Scientific American discusses similar ideas, including the ability of beaver dams to filter out ash and fire pollutants from a habitat.Â
Burning Questions is created by Colorado College senior Leah Thayer and recent CC grad Riley Prillwitz and as part of their journalism practicum. The project seeks to help bridge a gap between wildfire science research and journalism. đŹ Enter your email address to subscribe and get the newsletter in your inbox each time it comes out. You can reach us with questions, feedback, or tips by emailing burningquestionscc@gmail.com