Partnerships help expand preparation work for fire season and helps with forest management

While it’s the big wildfires that usually make the news, there are hundreds of smaller fires barely noticed by the public at large, but local fire agencies are not idle between those events and spend the majority of their time planning for fire season and working to reduce the chances of the next big fire.

Much of the work involves coordinating with various state and federal agencies to manage forests through fuels reduction and strategic planning.

On August 2, the Forestry Department eased fire restrictions due to the amount of monsoon activity, but there have already been a number of fires that have burned about 200,000 acres throughout the state by the end of July.

While the Black Fire affected about 11,000 acres west of Roosevelt in the Superstition Mountains, there have been several other wildfires that have burned at least 10,000 acres, including the Wildcat, Sand Stone, Skeleton and Freeman, which burned up more than 32,000 acres between Florence and Oracle in mid-July. 

The Watch fire in San Carlos, believed to be set by an arsonist, burned more than 2,000 acres, destroyed 21 homes, and was officially contained on July 17.

There have been dozens of other fires, some named, some not, and the Forestry Department continuously works with other agencies to ensure the safety of the public and firefighters and to protect the environment using the best available data.

“We have predefined areas that are identified for us to hold fires back: It’s our pre-attack lens, if you will,” says Barry Johnson, Fire Management Officer for the Tonto National Forest (TNF) Globe Ranger District. “For any fire that starts anywhere in our district, we know where our lines are, we know our plan and we have that all identified.”

The predefined areas are known as PODs, Potential Operational Delineations, that delineate the region not by the political lines of numerous jurisdictions, but by natural lines including fuel type, geography and weather patterns.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture defines PODs in part as, “cross-boundary, collaborative, and integrative fire planning that can support place-based implementation of the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy. PODs are based on best available science about fire operations and risks to communities, ecosystems, and responders. The PODs process is holistic. It brings together local managers and stakeholders to plan for future fires using a sophisticated science framework.”

Given that the Globe-Miami-San Carlos region is a patchwork of various federal agencies, including numerous national forests, Bureau of Land Management land and the San Carlos Reservation, the integrative approach attempts to make firefighting and forest management less ponderous when it comes to getting things done.

In recent years, the Globe Ranger District and other agencies have worked with the San Carlos Tribe to reduce excessive vegetation and clear out non-native species that can act as fuels for both man-made and natural fires throughout the region.

With the help of federal funding from the USDA provided through a 638 Agreement with the Tribe, fuel reduction efforts in a number of national forests, including Apache-Sitgreaves, the Coronado and the Tonto, have been well underway. Those efforts have stepped up this year with the acquisition of two masticators—also known as mulchers or brush cutters—that can take out smaller trees to reduce fuels and also make fire roads easier to navigate.

The work is the first phase of a multi-year “keystone partnership agreement” to treat 2,314 acres in the Highway Tanks project northeast of Globe in the Globe Ranger District.

The project is a collaboration between the Tonto National Forest and San Carlos Apache Tribe under the overarching San Carlos Apache Tribal Forest Protection (TFPA) landscape that includes the Apache-Sitgreaves, Coronado, Tonto National forests and the San Carlos Apache Tribal Lands.

Keystone agreements are partnerships “that allow the Forest Service to execute priority projects quickly and efficiently while facilitating new local agreements and/or expanding existing agreements at the region and unit levels,” according to a June 2024 press release from TNF.

“We’re working with our neighbors and tribal partners to masticate our POD boundaries,” Johnson says. “We’re helping fund them to get bulldozers, a road grader and a couple of masticators for these projects and they’re gonna provide the operators and employ them on our lands.”

Fighting fires in national forests has evolved over the years, as changing climate and dense vegetation makes the threat of wildfires a year-round possibility. In response, forest management has been overhauled as well, after years of fire suppression that has led to thick vegetation that can only be cleared out by fire.

In addition to clearing out vegetation using man and machine, prescribed burning is also a useful strategy, but it can take years of preliminary work to accomplish. When the conditions are right, natural fires are sometimes left to burn, but with man-made fires, about 80% of the wildfires that happen in the state, local agencies do not hesitate to put them out.

“That fire exclusion has put us in the situation that we’re in now, but the solution isn’t so simple,” says Justin Wedo, Fuels Fire Management Officer for the TNF Globe District. “Putting the fires out is causing this problem, so do we then stop putting them out?”

Whether or not to put “natural” fires out depends in large part on weather conditions and the amount of fuels that can quickly lead to out-of-control wildfires that can “nuke” the whole area, Wedo says.

He added that sometimes when the conditions are right the fire can burn and lead to “desirable fire effects,” but if the area is extremely dry the fire can “stand up and take off.”

“For it to bounce back to a more resilient condition could take generations,” Wedo says. “We know we need to let fire take its course as part of the ecosystem. It’s a tool for us to use, for the Earth to use, but if you don’t know what you’re doing with it you can probably cause more damage and do more harm than good.”

In addition to its 638 agreement with San Carlos, which provided about $32 million for equipment and staffing, $24 million of which went to Tribal interests, the Mule Deer Foundation has contributed time, money and effort to help with habitat rehabilitation to benefit the environment and recreational hunters.

“We’re mitigating fuels and creating habitat for wildlife as well as creating buffer areas for when we have wildfires,” Johnson says. “Those masticators are prepping our natural features and grinding 50 feet off the side of the road, which is a lot more of a buffer for us to hold a firing operation or do a prescribed burn. That makes it easier to get equipment in too.”

But the best way to fight fires is to not start them in the first place. While natural fires started by monsoon lightning is nature’s way of long-term fire suppression, man-made fires are far and away the most common and most destructive type.

Common causes include careless disposal of cigarette butts, dragging trailer chains that throw up sparks, or overheated vehicles parked on dried out vegetation that might ignite.

“With human caused fire, you have to smash it and keep it as small as you can or put it out safely,” Johnson says. “Success for us is putting out the fire without anybody getting hurt. At the top of our list is, obviously, public and firefighter safety.”

The Forestry Department has released a booklet, Living With Wildfire, a homeowner’s guide to fire prevention that explains southwestern fire behavior and offers advice for reducing the chances of unintentionally setting off the next wildfire.

“It all comes down to common sense,” Johnson says. “Get rid of those cigarette butts appropriately, and be aware of your surroundings. We have to remind people every day. Together, if we all pay attention, we can avoid some of these fire situations.”