The Chronicle
A report recently released by the Center for Natural Lands Management provides an in-depth look into the prescribed burning conducted around Thurston County last year.
“2017 was notable as a prescribed burn season of smoke, heat and funding challenges,” according to the report. “Though we were unable to complete some of our highest priority Thurston County burns, overall, the program demonstrated great resiliency and ended up with another year of impressive results.”
All told the program purposefully charred 2,037 acres as a part of 80 prescribed burns on seven different properties around Puget Sound. Additionally, Puget Sound crews were able to successfully conduct 13 burns totaling 1,442 acres in Oregon as part of an updated memorandum of understanding with The Nature Conservancy.
The prescribed burning first sparked up in late May at Joint Base Lewis-McChord with a focus on Ponderosa pine litter reduction.
Highlights from the report include factors that were outside of the control of South Sound Ecological Burn Program officials, such as uncharacteristic heavy smoke that settled over Puget Sound during the summer due to large wildfires in western sections of both the United States and Canada. That smoke inundation forced fire crews to cease operation on numerous occasions, totally three weeks in shutdowns total during what is typically the busiest time of the burning season.
Prescribed burning began in Thurston County on July 12 at Glacial Heritage near Rochester. Those operations then expanded to include the Tenalquot Prairie area through Aug. 1 when smoke from around the region shut down the operation for two weeks. Once the smoke cleared, operations resumed on 14 acres at Wolf Haven near Tenino.
Shortly thereafter, an offsite wildfire jumped onto the Scatter Creek Wildlife Area and wound up burning 345 acres, or nearly half of the property. Cleanup operations for that wildfire burnt up the rest of the funds allocated for prescribed burns, effectively bringing the prescribed burn season to an end.
Historically the prairies of south Puget Sound have been controlled by periodic wildfires and fires purposefully lit by local Native American tribes. Those wildfires kept the prairies free of large tree cover and helped to control the spread of shrubs and weeds, leading to a patchwork of wildflowers and other delicate native flora.
According to the Center for Natural Lands Management report, “The prairies were interspersed with coniferous and deciduous woodlands and wetlands. Prairies and oaks were maintained through frequent anthropogenic fire until around the mid-1800s.”
As European settlers filled the region, those burning practices were halted and wildfires were put out quickly as a matter of course. Over time, those native prairies turned into farm lands, housing developments and industrial areas, or they were taken over by dense conifer forest.
“Lack of managed fire during the past 150 years has contributed to significant habitat loss and impact to native species,” read the report. “Today, residual native prairies are thought to be restricted to about three percent of their former extent.”
Controlled burning efforts have been taking place since 1987, and this year the South Sound restoration and burn program was awarded the Pacific Northwest Society of Ecological Restoration “Program of the Year Award,” along with restoration and burn program manager, Mason McKinley, who was awarded the annual “Special Award” for his role in the development and success of the burn program over the past decade.
Other local areas targeted by the burn program this year included the Mima Mounds, Deschute Prairie and Fisher Ranch.
