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Wash. fire cleanup could break record

The Forest Service may spend $28-million to reduce further harm to the exposed land.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published October 29, 2006

CONCONULLY, Wash. - Smoke still rises from smoldering stumps in north-central Washington, months after a wildfire roared through 274 square miles of state and federal land.

To protect the hundreds of miles of scorched roads, trails, river channels and wildlife habitat from erosion, the U.S. Forest Service hopes to spend $28-million over the next two years to complete what may be the most expensive rehabilitation project it has ever undertaken.

"The flames have died down, and the firefighters have gone home, but the work is just beginning," said Doug Jenkins, a Forest Service spokesman.

The large fire - the result of two fires joining after being sparked separately by lightning in July - burned 175,184 acres just south of the Canadian border, briefly threatening the hamlets of Conconully and Loomis, tucked away in the thick Okanogan and Wenatchee national forests.

The forests, devastated by a bark beetle outbreak, provided ready fuel. In some areas, all the ground cover or duff - small or downed trees and branches, bushes and shrubs - burned away. Standing trees are but scorched sticks, their root systems beyond repair. Soil has been seared to a fine, gray ash. Twenty-three percent of the fire zone burned severely.

The most expensive post-fire rehabilitation effort came after a blaze in Colorado's Pike-San Isabel National Forest, which consumed 133 homes en route to scorching 215 square miles in 2002, said forest spokeswoman Cass Cairns. The recovery cost was $18.1-million.

The Washington recovery effort doesn't try to replace what has been damaged by the fire, but to reduce further harm to now-fragile land that is exposed to the elements. The Forest Service already received $14-million to begin the work this fall before heavy snow falls, and officials hope the rest of the money will be approved next year to complete the project.

Erosion poses the biggest risk, resulting in landslides and sediment loading in streams important to threatened and endangered fish, said Mel Bennett, a forest hydrologist assigned to the recovery team.

An estimated 270 truckloads of straw have been delivered to the fire area alone. It will be dropped by helicopter in 1-ton bales over the heaviest burn areas. The straw provides cover from rain and snow for scorched soil.

Less severely burned areas are to be fertilized to help damaged plants recover. Roughly 7,000 acres are to be seeded with sturdy grasses, and workers will clear such noxious weeds as diffuse knapweed and Dalmatian toadflax that could choke out emerging plants.

Terry Lillybridge, a plant ecologist on the team, estimates a 50-50 chance of success.

[Last modified October 29, 2006, 00:52:18]