The 2007 fire season was the latest in a series of busy years for wildland fire agencies and firefighters. The fire season roared to life in the spring in the Southeastern United States, gave firefighters a bit of a break in June, and returned with a vengeance in July in the West. After tapering off in most parts of the country in September, fire season made a curtain call in Southern California in October. This season turned out to be one of the busiest since 1960, reinforcing the belief of many experts that wildland fire is in an era of change.

Recap of the Fire Season

As the country emerged from winter, forecasters predicted a potentially serious early fire season in the drought-stricken Southeast and Southwest. Many swamp lands in Georgia and Florida were missing a key ingredient (water) and were prime candidates for wildfires. These predictions were confirmed as dozens of fires in the Southeast kept crews working hard during April and May. Fires heavily impacted the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, burning 330,000 acres in the refuge. By the time fires tapered off,  more than a million acres had burned in southeastern Georgia and northern Florida.

June was a relatively calm month fire-wise, thanks to good firefighting and amenable weather conditions.  The most significant wildfire in June was California’s Angora Fire near the southwest side of Lake Tahoe. This fire burned 3,100 acres and destroyed more than 230 homes, while forcing hundreds of people to evacuate.

The wildfire situation changed dramatically in early July, when repeated waves of thunderstorms — many of them coming with little or no rain — pelted the interior west and the northwest with lightning. Hot temperatures and breezy conditions greeted lightning fires, comprising the perfect recipe for wildfire growth.

The progression of the national preparedness level reflected the nation’s worsening wildfire situation in July. (The national preparedness level is a 1-5 scale that reflects the tempo of wildland firefighting and national resource commitment.) On the Fourth of July, the preparedness level was at a modest 2. In a span of just 15 days, the preparedness level leaped upward and topped out at level 5 on July 19. The national preparedness level would remain at its highest level for almost six consecutive weeks.

During the month of July, the western and eastern geographic areas within the Great Basin out West were particularly hard hit with wildfires. Nevada alone saw 900,000 acres burn in a three-week period in July, and Utah and southern Idaho burned almost 1.4 million acres during the month. The largest Great Basin fire was the Murphy Complex (actually six fires that burned together), which straddled the Nevada-Idaho border and burned 653,000 acres of grass and sagebrush. Eventually, more than 3.2 million acres burned in the two Great Basin geographic areas.

In mid July, fire managers saw a sign they had been dreading. Fire occurrence was starting to move out of the relatively light fuels of the Great Basin and progress into higher elevations and heavier fuels in the Sierras, Cascades and Rocky Mountains.  Fires in heavy fuels require much more work to put out, which would tax firefighting resources already stretched thin.  By early August, more than two dozen large fires and fire complexes were entrenched in mountainous areas of the country, and the demand for certain firefighting resources, like helicopters, fireline supervisors and Hotshot crews, was growing.

Firefighters doggedly worked through the rest of the western fire season in August and September. Many of the immense fires in Idaho and Montana were too remote for effective initial attack and were destined to grow large and burn far into September. The Northern Rockies geographic area (encompassing northern Idaho and Montana) would eventually see more than 1.1 million acres burn in 2007.

In early October, fire managers in most parts of the country welcomed autumn precipitation, and the moisture helped dampen the handful of lingering fire complexes in Idaho and Montana.  By that point, the United States had more than 73,000 wildland fires reported, which had burned more than 8.2 million acres. At the fire season’s peak, more than 19,000 people were assigned to fire suppression or support.

By mid-October, however, a huge portion of the Southeastern United States was back in drought conditions; and the Appalachian States, particularly Tennessee and Kentucky, experienced scattered large fires burning in fallen leaves and brush.

The autumn wildland fire outlook noted significant wildland fire potential in Southern California, based on abnormally dry fuels and the seasonal occurrence of hot, dry Santa Ana winds. This prediction turned out to be right on.

Destructive, Indiscriminate Fury

Fire season returned to the national stage during the third week of October, when hot, dry Santa Ana winds struck Southern California, triggering a series of major fires. In a five-day period of gale-force winds winds, more than 20 large fires burned a half million acres, before onshore winds laden with moisture calmed the blazes. The fires caused massive evacuations, affecting approximately 500,000 people. Most of the large fires were burning on state and county lands, but federal firefighting resources from all agencies pitched in to help.

The late season outbreak of fires in Southern California pushed the annual tally of acres-burned to more than 9 million acres, making 2007 the second busiest fire season on record since 1960. Each of the past four fire seasons has eclipsed 8 million acres burned — a benchmark not previously reached since modern records started being kept in 1960.  Six of the10 busiest fire seasons in terms of acres burned have occurred since 1999.

Reading Between The Lines

What are some key insights from the 2007 fire season?

First, the factors of hotter and longer fire seasons, biomass accumulation, and homes built in the fringes of wildlands are converging and changing the conventional thinking of fire managers across the spectrum. Over the past decade, the average annual acres-burned has skyrocketed, exceeding previous decadal averages by as much as 50 percent. Fires aren’t necessarily becoming more frequent, but they are certainly getting larger.

Second, by both design and necessity, fire managers are adapting strategies and tactics in the face of these trends. With finite amounts of resources, like helicopters, airtankers, wildland engines and hand crews, fire managers have to make tough choices about where and when they will deploy resources. All too often, their choices are dictated by the presence of structures in the path of wildfires. Wildland fire agencies are now firmly in an era in which fires in wildernesses and other isolated areas are going to receive less attention than they would have in past years, simply because fire managers’ options are limited.

Third, even though 2007 was a very busy year, it was a relatively good year from a safety standpoint.  Tragically, five persons involved with firefighting and fire management lost their lives in 2007, but this is the lowest number of firefighting fatalities in a year in the last 25 years.

The 2007 fire season was a fast-paced and busy one, and experts at the National Interagency Fire Center see this year as emblematic of the new era in fire suppression.

Caption 3: Homes under threat in the Santiago Fire southeast of Los Angeles.

Photo credit: Inciweb