June 16, 2023 • 38 mins
With a winter characterized by substantial precipitation and robust vegetation growth in the Great Basin, many are curious about the implications for the upcoming fire year.
On Episode 13 of the Living With Fire Podcast, Christina Restaino, Assistant Professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, engaged in a discussion with Joe Smith, a research scientist at the University of Montana, and Jeremy Maestas from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, about the connection between rain, snow, and fire risk in the Great Basin.
Smith and Maestas are part of a team of researchers who have developed a new tool to predict wildfire probability in the Great Basin. This tool incorporates historical data and current conditions to provide fire probability maps, offering valuable insights for Land Managers in the region.
Maestas highlighted the impact of the increased vegetation growth, explaining, “All this growing vegetation production is going to build up out there and there's no amount of livestock and insects in the world that are going to eat it all. So, it'll build up on the landscape and probably show up next year in the fire probability maps."
Discussing the natural wet and dry cycles that characterize the Great Basin, Maestas and Smith shared their findings. Smith's research, based on 32 years of data, shed light on the implications of these patterns for potential fires. "We should be particularly concerned when transitioning from a wet cycle to a dry one," Smith advised.
What does all this mean for Great Basin residents? Restaino suggested a proactive approach, emphasizing the importance of creating defensible spaces around homes and collaborating with the community. This preparation will help residents stay vigilant in the face of potential fire risks in the coming year.
Resources:
· Great Basin rangeland fire probability tool
· A Homeowner’s Guide to Cheatgrass
· Be Careful! Cheatgrass is extremely flammable!
· Fire Adapted Communities: The Next Step in Wildfire Preparedness
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jeremy Maestas (00:00):
all this water that came this year is going to
(00:02):
have consequences for uspossibly next year. Right
because of all this growingvegetation production is going
to build up out there andthere's no amount of livestock
and insects in the world thatare going to eat it all. So
it'll build up on the landscapeand probably show up next year
in the fire probability maps.
Megan Kay (00:29):
This is the living with fire podcast, brought to
you by the University of NevadaReno extension. High their walk
Welcome back to the living withfire podcast. I'm your host,
Megan Kay, Outreach Coordinatorfor the living with FIRE
program. And as I'm recordingthis in my basement in Reno,
Nevada, it's raining outside alot. Hopefully, you can hear
(00:50):
that and hopefully my basementdoesn't flood. But that's just
indicative of this crazy wet andwild winter slash spring we've
been having here in the GreatBasin. And on this episode,
we're going to learn what all ofthis precipitation means for the
upcoming fire year. So you'renot going to hear too much from
me this episode, thisconversation was facilitated by
(01:13):
the director of the living withFire Program. Christina was
Donna. I'm Christina
Christina Restaino (01:18):
Rossano. I'm on the faculty here at usr
Megan Kay (01:22):
she spoke with Joe Smith.
Joe Smith (01:24):
So my name is Joe Smith. I am a research scientist
at the University of Montana,
Megan Kay (01:31):
and Jeremy mised. US
Jeremy Maestas (01:33):
Hey everybody, Jeremy miasta is here with the
USDA Natural ResourcesConservation Service.
Megan Kay (01:39):
So I'm just going to hand it off. And let's hear what
Christina has to say about thisepisode.
Christina Restaino (01:43):
I would just point out that, in this episode,
we really tried to untangle therelationship between rain and
snow. Right. So how much rain issnow that we get in a winter and
what that means for the fireseason coming up? And I think
that all of us in the GreatBasin region right now are
(02:05):
really curious about what toexpect this year, right? It's
like, okay, we've had this bigwinner. We haven't had a lot of
fire in the past couple years.
We know that's related to thedrought. So what does it mean
when we get a lot of rain andsnow? What does that mean for
fire? So it's a fun conversationthat kind of dives into that.
(02:30):
Let's get into the real meat ofthe discussion here. And really
start to talk about what all ofthis precipitation in the Great
Basin means when we're thinkingabout the fire year. So what do
we expect to happen with fire inthe Great Basin this year, after
this big winner,
Jeremy Maestas (02:49):
fire risk is not created equally across the
landscape is where I would startin describing this. And so for
listeners out there, who areprobably familiar most with
forests, and forest fires,there's always enough fuel in a
forest to have a large fire,right. And so the scenario in
(03:12):
which we have large fire yearsin forests is determined mostly
by the amount of moisture in thevegetation. So things are really
wet. They're not going to igniteand burn at larger scales, at
least the likelihoods lower,okay. But remember that the
nature of the Great Basin, mostof it is not forested, it's
(03:35):
actually shrub lands, grasslandsopen country. In in that
scenario, what we call rainslands. Fire probability is
determined more by the amount offuel, vegetation build up a
fuel, we don't have enough fuelevery year to have large fires.
(03:57):
So those are two differentscenarios. And in that case, it
takes time for grass enoughgrass to build up to have a
large shrub land or grasslandfire year. So Joe can unpack
some of his work. I don't wantto be a spoiler here, but we
(04:19):
learned some really coolinsights about what it takes to
set us up for large fires. Andmaybe he can speak to that a
little bit more here.
Joe Smith (04:29):
Yeah, that's a perfect setup. You know, be
thinking about that fuellimitation idea, you know? Yeah,
how much how much fire is goingto occur in a given year really
depends on how much fuel isthere but that's how much fuel
(04:50):
is there is not just determinedby what grew this year, or by
what grew you know, in thespring Leading up to the, to the
fire season. It's, it'sdetermined by that plus
carryover from previous years.
So, you know, if a bunch of youhave a really productive year,
(05:12):
you're going to have a lot ofsort of stand standing dead
vegetation, and you're also justgoing to your, your perennial
plants are just going to grow alot because of that. So you're
going to have bigger plants withmore biomass. And not all of
that is going to go away, youknow, it's not all gonna get
(05:34):
eaten by herbivores or compactedby snow, some of that's going to
be there again next year. So youhave this kind of this build up
that happens across years. Andactually, in the Great Basin, at
least in most of the GreatBasin, especially in Nevada. How
(05:54):
much fire you get in a givenyear is actually more correlated
with what happened last yearthan it is with what happens
this spring. So, you know, forif we're thinking about this
2023 fire season even moreimportant than what was this
winter? Like? Or what's thespring? Like? You want to be
thinking about what happenedlast, you know, May, June, July?
(06:16):
The there's quite a bit highercorrelation between those
conditions in this upcoming fireseason than there are between
you know, what, what kind of awinter was it this this winter?
Jeremy Maestas (06:32):
Yeah, it blows me away about Joe's work.
Because it's pretty common tohave a big wet year or a big dry
winter and say, Boy, we're gonnahave a heck of a fire year, this
year, whatever. And that's truewhen it comes to forests. But
it's not the same when it comesto these open grassland
(06:52):
shrubland ecosystems thatcharacterize most of the great
bass. And so the big reveal inhis work was like, it's really
about what happened last year.
And we now have the ability toquantify that and see it at
large scales and say, Okay,well, have we really set
ourselves up this year, based onwhat happened last year,
Christina Restaino (07:12):
just to unpack all of this a little bit,
right. So in a year, wherethere's been a lot of rain, and
snow, we expect there to be moreproduction of grasses and shrub
land stools. So the vegetationitself will grow more. But what
you're saying, Joe, is that in ayear in which things actually
(07:34):
grow more, it might take a year.
And then it might be that nextsummer, we might expect there to
be more fire in these ecosystemsthat just created a lot of
plants and fish that eventuallybecome fuels. Right? It's all
those when when we talk aboutfuels in the forest world, we're
not talking about gasoline andand in the fire world, right? In
(07:56):
general, we're we're talkingabout sticks and grasses and
shrubs on the ground. Sometimeswe use that that word liberally
and people don't understand fordirect fuel. So so that are you
saying, Joe, that that we mightnot expect this immediate summer
to be a big fire year in theGreat Basin, but maybe look out
(08:18):
for next year?
Joe Smith (08:21):
A great overview. And and I think that's exactly
right. I think this this big,you know, this big winter, we're
going to see the consequences ofit, but we might not see it
until next year. And I thinkanother another aspect to think
about besides besides just howmuch fuel is out there is, you
(08:42):
know, how much how much of thatfuel is dead versus alive? I
think so this is kind of wherethis is where you can you can
kind of think, okay, maybe,maybe this fuel conditioning
issue does matter a little bitfor rangelands, but you just
have to think about it a littlebit differently than you do in
forest. So in a year, like ayear like this, you know, we
(09:06):
didn't have a lot of growth lastyear, we've been climbing, you
know, the Great Basin has beenclimbing its way out of a
drought that peaked in about thesummer of 2021. And so we didn't
have a lot of growth in 2021. Wedidn't have a lot of growth in
2022. We're getting that growthnow. We're getting that that
(09:28):
fuels accumulation now. But inthis summer, a lot of the fuel a
lot a large proportion of thefuel that's out there is going
to be green stuff that grew thisyear. So I think there's there
is a little bit of a an elementof you know, the fuel condition
matters. And I think that whenyou have when you have a larger
(09:53):
proportion of the fuel that'sdead, you know, that's that
standing dead that that carriedover from past yours I think
that's really a recipe for, youknow, a volatile fire year.
Megan Kay (10:06):
Let's take a quick break
I wanted to take a quick breakto talk about the living with
Fire Program. Maybe you foundthis podcast and you're
wondering what is the livingwith FIRE program? Well, we've
been around since 1997. We'remanaged by the University of
(10:27):
Nevada Reno extension. And we'rereally a collaborative effort
amongst federal, state and localfirefighting agencies, as well
as resource management agenciesto help people adapt, prepare
and live more safely withwildfire. So if you haven't
already, check out our websiteliving with feiyr.com, where
you'll find all of our resourcesand tools that will help you
(10:47):
with more safely with wildfire.
Okay, back to the show.
Christina Restaino (10:56):
Good time, I think for one of you to just
define what the Great Basin is
Jeremy Maestas (11:03):
the Great Basin hydrologically is where it's
like the Hotel California ofwater, rain and snow that falls
in the Great Basin stays in theGreat Basin, it never leaves.
And so we have a series ofmountain ranges across the
region that run generally northsouth. And in between all of
(11:25):
those ranges, we have these bigopen valleys where all the water
that comes off the mountainsgoes into the valleys and
evaporates in essentiallyterminal lakes. So instead of
flowing out to the ocean, watergenerally just stays within this
big region that we call theGreat Basin centered, really on
(11:45):
top of Nevada, but spanningparts of Utah, Idaho, Oregon,
and in California.
Joe Smith (11:53):
I think like like any of these polygons that we put on
maps, it has fuzzy edges, andthose where those edges fall
depends on who you ask. And sothere's the kind of hydrologic
gray base and wherever youeverything is inwardly draining
and that's that's kind of acommon, common understanding.
(12:14):
But then there's also I thinkfor AI if you ask more of a
plant ecologist or a wildlifebiologist, they'd probably give
you more of a plant baseddefinition. So the the sort of
unique thing about the thewestern portion of it is just
how dominated it is by bywintertime precipitation. So
(12:38):
when you get into the the other,you know the sagebrush
ecosystems more on the otherside of the Continental Divide
your mud and much more of asummer precepts. system. And so
the the Great Basin, when Ithink of the Great Basin, I kind
of think of it a little bitbroader than then just the
hydrologic, Great Basin myextended up into, you know,
(13:00):
further into southern Idaho andparts of Oregon that don't
really fit that, that in orderthat we draining hydrologic
definition intersect. Yeah, Iwould
Jeremy Maestas (13:09):
add that it's it's like Joe's saying, really
arid, and you know climaticallyextreme, we're in the winter, we
get, we can get really cold anda lot of snow. But in the
summer, it's super hot and dry.
And so those extremes drive, thelimited amount of production we
(13:30):
get in terms of vegetation inthe region, and it's made it
really a tough place to live andsettle. And the evidence of that
is like if you go on GoogleEarth at night, you ever seen
that map with like the lights atnight, it'd be one of the
darkest places left in NorthAmerica. And that's why we like
living in it. Yes, exactly.
Christina Restaino (13:53):
I see really good stars for my backyard. Joe,
I'm curious you work in in thespace of predicting the
probability of what of what theprobability of fire will be for
the fire season. And I've lookedat the fire probability map for
(14:15):
this year, and it is higher thanlast year. So let's talk a
little bit about that. And whyis it higher than last year and
then kind of dive in a littlebit of you know, who uses those
maps? How do you make themthings like that? But I'm just
curious, because even thoughwe're we didn't have a lot of
growth last year, and we're,we're, why is it expected that
(14:39):
we might have a little bit of anelevated probability of fire
this year?
Joe Smith (14:44):
Yeah. So I mean, the short answer is that it's a
little higher this year becauseyou can't really get any lower
than it was last year. You know,2020 21, like I said earlier was
the depths of that. out. Thatwas that was about the worst
that God said, Really, at leastin sort of, you know, recent
(15:08):
memory. Last, you know, decadeor so 2021 was really one of the
lowest production years thatthere was, that's why 2022 is
just so exceptionally you know,those probabilities were, were
exceptionally low across most ofthe great base. And so, you
(15:32):
know, we've been sort ofclimbing our way out, you know,
I wouldn't say that we'recompletely out of out of the
drought yet. But we've beenclimbing our way out. And so
it's just, it's, it's going tobe rising, those I would expect,
actually, the next year is evengoing to be higher, just because
(15:54):
of what's happened this winter.
So yeah, that's that's kind ofthe the short version. That
Christina Restaino (16:03):
makes sense, though. And I think that helps
people understand, it certainlyhelps me understand because I
think that, you know, we have tounderstand like the baseline
probability of fire is alwaysgoing to be a certain amount in
the Great Basin, right? This isa fire prone landscape. And so
it's, it's interesting thatwe've, we've been in kind of the
(16:25):
lowest probability of fire forthe past few years because of
this big drought, right. And sonow we're expecting all of this
new growth, which is going toincrease the fire risk. But it's
also going to bring all youknow, it's a balance, because
it's also going to bring moreforage to the range lands, more
productivity, recharging of thegroundwater, it's also going to
(16:49):
bring with it some flooding andsome fire risks of sites, these,
these these balances of howthese, you know, climatic
variations, kind of influencedthe day to day of life in the
Great Basin. I don't know if youwant to comment on that. Jeremy,
before we move on to talkingabout these maps a little bit
more?
Jeremy Maestas (17:09):
Yeah, the variability in conditions out
there is a definingcharacteristic of the Great
Basin, as we talked aboutearlier, wild fluctuations
between year to year terms ofhow much moisture we get, how
the vegetation responds. And, ofcourse, the wildlife
(17:30):
populations, the people thathave been on these landscapes,
they're all following thosepatterns are of boom and bust.
And so if you look at the mapsthat Joe produced, because he
was able to leverage, you know,30 years of, of satellite
imagery, were able to go back intime and kind of see that year
(17:52):
to year variation. So in anygiven year, the patterns of
large fire risks really arearen't the same. But there are
some observations maybe we candive into here, more in terms of
like, the northern Great Basin,right when you get up along the
Snake River plain, EasternOregon, and a Winnemucca, Nevada
(18:15):
north, you know, that area, moreyears than not tends to have a
higher probability of largefires. And some of that goes
back to what Joe was talkingabout in terms of grass and find
fuels. And the build above thatis more often happening in that
part of the Great Basin, asopposed to Southern Nevada,
(18:37):
where it's a rare, exceptionalyear where you're gonna get
enough production to really havea huge fire being likely
Megan Kay (18:47):
just take a quick break.
Wildfire is stressful, andwildfire, evacuations are
stressful. That's why the livingfire program is created our
wildfire evacuation checklist.
It's a really simple checklistto help you learn how to pack a
go bag, and prepare your home inyour family, even your pets for
(19:10):
wildfire evacuation. I'veincluded the checklist in the
links in the show notes below.
So be sure to check that out.
You can also find it on ourwebsite at living with
feiyr.com.
Christina Restaino (19:26):
So, Joe, you make these wildfire probability
maps and we've alluded to themquite a bit. But let's get down
to kind of what goes into makingthese and why are they necessary
to make?
Joe Smith (19:40):
Yeah, so these these maps are really sort of designed
to fit into a unique gap in theexisting fire risk products that
are already out there. There'sthere's a lot of fire danger
products that have beenproduced. Things like the
(20:01):
National Fire Danger RatingSystem. And then there's also
things there's there's productsthat that look at fire risk over
over a really long, long timeperiods. Right? What we produced
was a product that kind of looksat, you know, what's, what's the
(20:23):
what's the fire risk for theupcoming fire season. So it's
this internet intermediatetimescale between products like
the National Fire Danger RatingSystem, which tell you about
like, what's the fire risk inthe next like, 48 hours to maybe
a week. And then those longerterm products on the other side,
so we're kind of trying to fitit right in the middle there. So
(20:46):
that's, I guess, that's sort ofthe context for for these
products that we developed. Andthe other I guess, the other
important context is sort of thetechnology side of things. You
know, until very recently, wejust didn't have high resolution
data on vegetation production.
That was dynamic. So we couldsay something about what was
(21:11):
produced in an average year. Butwe didn't, we didn't have a
dynamic product that told us,you know, okay, what was
produced last year? Was it aboveaverage, or was it below
average? Now we have our ourmodels use data from the range
land analysis platform, so thatthat product gives us annually,
(21:32):
percent cover and an estimate ofproduction in pounds per acre,
for every 30 meter pixel ofrange lands across the whole
west. So that gives us sort of athe missing missing link of fuel
amount that that you'd actuallyneed to make these sort of
(21:57):
annual longer range forecastsfor the great bass. And so what
we're basically doing iscombining the cover vegetation
cover and production data,that's an annual timestep from
from the Rangeline analysisplatform, with some drought
metrics and precipitationmetrics, from some gridded
(22:20):
meteorological datasets, andthen we're, you know, combining
combining those as machinelearning models to try to
predict what the what theconditions are, like, how ripe
is it, you know, for a fire at agiven given location? So that's,
that's kind of the gist of themodels and what what they do. So
(22:44):
we release them, we can we canmake a prediction or a forecast
for the upcoming fire season,starting in about in a typical
year, starting in aboutFebruary, and then we can update
that throughout the spring. Who,
Christina Restaino (23:04):
who uses the maps? Like, how is the data
ultimately, right? Because it'sthis kind of this complicated
distillation of a lot ofdifferent data, you've got the
vegetation data, you've got theclimate data, you use models to
bring it all together? And thenkind of how is it applied and
used? Yeah,
Jeremy Maestas (23:25):
the maps are especially beneficial to like
those federal land managementagencies like the Bureau of Land
Management, or Forest Service,that are stewards of a great
portion of the region justbecause of the public land
ownership there. So you havesome of our larger local BLM,
(23:52):
fire and fuel staff, who arestarting to look at this product
alongside those traditionalmetrics that Joe mentioned, like
the National Fire Danger RatingSystem, and other indicators so
that they can improve theirpreparedness going into the fire
season. So throughout the fireseason, they're running around
(24:15):
their district trying to assessfire conditions and imagine that
challenge of communicatingwhat's going on across your area
when for example, you areresponsible for Harney County,
Oregon, which is six and a halfmillion acres in size, one
county. Okay. And sohistorically, they're using
(24:37):
climate and weather data andother Predictive Services that
can provide some coarseestimates. They're using their
local knowledge and some fieldsampling of vegetation. For the
first time with Joe's product,we've got a real time forecast
of vegetation conditions acrossevery single acre in their
district. And it's dynamic soyou can see it change across the
(25:01):
district is not all uniformlydistributed. There's parts of
it, that might be higherprobability of a fire than
others. And so they can use thatinformation to inform things
like resource allocation. Whereare we going to put our
firefighters our dozers? Howmuch do we need to ask for this
year in our district? Do we needto talk about closures to the
(25:26):
public in certain areas acertain time of the year just
because what we know is likelyto happen. And so the public
might encounter those things.
But have the agencies have thedata to better support the
rationale for why they do that.
Joe Smith (25:40):
It's, you know, firefighters, the the fire
suppression community is reallythey are reacting in real time
to conditions on the ground, youknow, they are really going to
be looking at things liketemperature and wind speed and
humidity. Those are like the bigthings that drive the decision
making process. And duringfirefighting, it's not how much
(26:04):
you know how much cheatgrassgrew there last year or
whatever, like that's, thatplays a role in what happens
during a fire. But the big thebiggest drivers are weather. So
this is this is really, I thinkthis this product is really
aimed more toward managers whocan do something about
(26:25):
management before a fire startsis really about pre fire
management rather than theactual act of firefighting
itself.
Jeremy Maestas (26:35):
You know, one point that scientists have has
put out there in the last coupleof years is that more acres of
these range land ecosystems areburning than forested ecosystems
across the US across the West.
And that's especially true sinceabout 2000. So, when we set
national policy when it comes tofire management, it's usually
(27:00):
around forest fire. But, youknow, when you have more acres
being burned on our grasslands,and shrublands. Today, I think
there's a growing awareness thatwe need to allocate more
resources towards that to helpaffected communities and in the
region. And, you know, this typeof work can help bring those
(27:25):
resources to the Great Basin ina timely fashion to ensure that,
you know, we, we enhance theeffectiveness of our
firefighting community, tobeyond where it's at today,
which is really high, likesomething like 97% of all fires
that start in the Great Basinare put out before they become
more than 1000 acres in size. Sowe're already hyper effective
(27:48):
fire suppression. But thereality is that that 3% That
gets away from us are gettingreally big.
Megan Kay (28:00):
Let's take a quick break.
I hope you're enjoying theepisodes so far. Just wanted to
quickly let you know that thesewildfire probability maps for
the Great Basin that we've beendiscussing. They're available
online, and we included a linkto the maps in the show notes
(28:20):
below. So when you get a chance,go check them out. Okay, back to
the show.
Christina Restaino (28:32):
Jeremy, you were just discussing how, you
know, in the past two to twodecades, I think you said so the
past 20 years, you know, we'veexperienced most of our largest
range land fires, what'schanging in the Great Basin that
is making these kind ofuncharacteristic large fires
(28:52):
occur?
Jeremy Maestas (28:54):
Yeah, you know, I always like to caveat our fire
discussions by saying fire isnot neither bad nor good. It It
just is. It's a part of thissystem. But the reality is that
it's not 1850 anymore in theGreat Basin. By that I mean
before a European settlementwhere we brought livestock and
(29:16):
invasive species and all theseother changes to the system. So
today, when we have fire, wehave plants from other
continents, invasive species,invasive annual grasses in
particular, like cheatgrass thatare waiting in the wings to take
over and replace the perennialnative vegetation that
(29:39):
characterizes the great bass. Sohistorically, large fire years
in the Great Basin happened, butthey were more rare, infrequent
and driven by that accumulationof our perennial native
perennial grasses, bunch ofgrasses that are out there on
the landscape and when we gotenough of that built up enough
(30:02):
dead material across thelandscape, we'd have a big fire
here. What we see today and welook at Joe's data, he actually
mapped this out for us lookingback, you know over the last 30
years is that we fluctuate inour perennial grass production
from year to year. And that'slargely stayed fairly stable in
(30:26):
terms of the amount of of grassproduction coming from our
native native grasses. What'schanged though, is that
cheatgrass and other invasivegrasses, have been slowly
increasing over that 30 yearperiod such that the amount of
above ground production or grassbiomass that's out there, in
(30:48):
some years can exceed the amountof our native grasses today. So
in 2016, I think that was thefirst year that we documented
that happening, we had moregrass production come from
invasive species than than ournative grasses. Why does that
matter? It means that thoseyears in which were set up to
(31:09):
have enough fuel to have largefires are becoming more and more
frequent, because of invaders,like cheatgrass that have filled
in the what used to be like baresoil interspaces, in a more of a
desert environment, right, wedidn't have anything growing
there, essentially. Now you putthis other plants in the middle,
and it creates a very continuousgrass fuel bed that allows those
(31:36):
fires to become really large.
And that problem is largely whatwe think is driving some of the
patterns that we're observing interms of larger, more frequent
fires, especially in thenorthern part of the great face.
Christina Restaino (31:52):
After these years where we've seen a lot of
rain like and snow like we hadthis year, would we expect more
cheatgrass to grow?
Jeremy Maestas (32:01):
So we should see really good cheap grass
production, unfortunately,because higher moisture this
year,
Christina Restaino (32:09):
and so Joe, is the cheat grass production
taken into account in theprobability maps that you guys
create?
Joe Smith (32:16):
So yes, and no, it actually turned out that that
information didn't really add awhole lot in terms of how well
the models worked. So for rightnow, anyway, we're just relying
on last year and the yearbefore. But future iterations of
(32:37):
this might might use a bit moreinformation about current years,
kind of spring gross,
Christina Restaino (32:45):
that it does take into account. Yeah, but it
does take into account last yearin the year before she crashed
scruff, like that. Plant is partof what you're seeing in the
models.
Jeremy Maestas (32:55):
Yeah, like what Joe mentioned earlier in the
podcast, all this water thatcame this year is going to have
consequences for us possiblynext year. Right? Because all
this growing vegetationproduction is going to build up
out there. And there's no amountof livestock and insects in the
world that are going to eat itall. So it'll build up on the
landscape and probably show upnext year in the fire
(33:19):
probability maps. And the
Christina Restaino (33:21):
year after using two years. Yeah, so it
could be a legacy that's kind ofyou know, to me, the moral of
the story here is that, really,there's a priming that has to
occur for to get that big fireyear in the Great Basin, right,
where it's like, you have tohave that big winner, and then
(33:42):
the productive spring andsummer, and then fast forward a
year or two. And so if we have areally big drought next year,
that could really set it up evenmore because we've had all this
growth and then everything willdry out. Right. So it's that
combination of production ofgrass, and shrubs, and woody
(34:02):
biomass in general combined withyou know, what are the current
conditions existing on on thelandscape when a fire could be
ignited? Right. So it's likethat combination of the two. So
like anything in the GreatBasin, the story is complicated.
But
Joe Smith (34:19):
yeah, yeah, that's a pretty good description.
Actually, the the wet dry cyclesin the Great Basin are pretty
regular. And that's when we youknow, we should be really
worried as when we're coming outof a wet cycle into the into the
dry portion of the cycle.
Christina Restaino (34:37):
So to me, I would think the call to action
as a resident in the Great Basinis to spend this summer doing
some really good defensiblespace action around my home and
collaborating with my communityand kind of taking this time to
prepare, anticipating that nextyear will be will want to be on
guard for what could happen inthe sagebrush ecosystems around
(34:59):
our committee. It is what a
Jeremy Maestas (35:01):
perfect tee up Christina because that's where
my head was going like, youknow, the upshot of this work is
that we can forecast with with agreat degree of accuracy, the
probability of large fire, wenow know that it's not just
(35:21):
driven by woody vegetation,which is often the focus of fuel
management. But in these rangeland or shrub Land Systems, it's
grassy fuels that drive largefire. So if you're a community,
you talk about defensible space.
In addition to the woody fuelsmanagement you might do around
your infrastructure and yourroads so that people can safely
(35:43):
fight fires, you need to thinkabout grass. So if you're doing
mowing alongside of roads, andyou mow the brush off, so that
your flame lengths aren't toohigh, but then all you do is
open it up for cheatgrass toexplode. That's something we'd
ask you to consider managing to.
(36:04):
So maybe some integratedtreatments where we use
herbicides to actually kill thatinvasive annual grass. So we
don't have that herbaceousproduction alongside of our
roads or infrastructure that,you know, might serve as a
source of ignition source. We'redoing this on larger scales with
(36:28):
landowners and in the publicland management agencies, you
know, to implement things liketargeted grazing, where we focus
livestock grazing in hugepastures to try to break up the
the amount of grass fuels thatbuild up over the landscape. So
those are definitely things thatthis year people should be
thinking about, especially inthose regions on Joe's map that
(36:52):
are kind of in that uppermoderate to high elevated
probability of fire. Soremember, grass fuels drive
these large fires, so it's notjust about managing your shrubs
and trees.
Megan Kay (37:09):
Thank you for listening to the living fire
podcast. You can find morestories and resources about
wildfire at our website livingwith fire.com The living with
FIRE program is funded by theBureau of Land Management, the
Nevada Division of Forestry andthe US Forest Service and were
managed by the University ofNevada Reno extension, an equal
opportunity institution
all this water that came this year is going to
(00:02):
have consequences for uspossibly next year. Right
because of all this growingvegetation production is going
to build up out there andthere's no amount of livestock
and insects in the world thatare going to eat it all. So
it'll build up on the landscapeand probably show up next year
in the fire probability maps.
Megan Kay (00:29):
This is the living with fire podcast, brought to
you by the University of NevadaReno extension. High their walk
Welcome back to the living withfire podcast. I'm your host,
Megan Kay, Outreach Coordinatorfor the living with FIRE
program. And as I'm recordingthis in my basement in Reno,
Nevada, it's raining outside alot. Hopefully, you can hear
(00:50):
that and hopefully my basementdoesn't flood. But that's just
indicative of this crazy wet andwild winter slash spring we've
been having here in the GreatBasin. And on this episode,
we're going to learn what all ofthis precipitation means for the
upcoming fire year. So you'renot going to hear too much from
me this episode, thisconversation was facilitated by
(01:13):
the director of the living withFire Program. Christina was
Donna. I'm Christina
Christina Restaino (01:18):
Rossano. I'm on the faculty here at usr
Megan Kay (01:22):
she spoke with Joe Smith.
Joe Smith (01:24):
So my name is Joe Smith. I am a research scientist
at the University of Montana,
Megan Kay (01:31):
and Jeremy mised. US
Jeremy Maestas (01:33):
Hey everybody, Jeremy miasta is here with the
USDA Natural ResourcesConservation Service.
Megan Kay (01:39):
So I'm just going to hand it off. And let's hear what
Christina has to say about thisepisode.
Christina Restaino (01:43):
I would just point out that, in this episode,
we really tried to untangle therelationship between rain and
snow. Right. So how much rain issnow that we get in a winter and
what that means for the fireseason coming up? And I think
that all of us in the GreatBasin region right now are
(02:05):
really curious about what toexpect this year, right? It's
like, okay, we've had this bigwinner. We haven't had a lot of
fire in the past couple years.
We know that's related to thedrought. So what does it mean
when we get a lot of rain andsnow? What does that mean for
fire? So it's a fun conversationthat kind of dives into that.
(02:30):
Let's get into the real meat ofthe discussion here. And really
start to talk about what all ofthis precipitation in the Great
Basin means when we're thinkingabout the fire year. So what do
we expect to happen with fire inthe Great Basin this year, after
this big winner,
Jeremy Maestas (02:49):
fire risk is not created equally across the
landscape is where I would startin describing this. And so for
listeners out there, who areprobably familiar most with
forests, and forest fires,there's always enough fuel in a
forest to have a large fire,right. And so the scenario in
(03:12):
which we have large fire yearsin forests is determined mostly
by the amount of moisture in thevegetation. So things are really
wet. They're not going to igniteand burn at larger scales, at
least the likelihoods lower,okay. But remember that the
nature of the Great Basin, mostof it is not forested, it's
(03:35):
actually shrub lands, grasslandsopen country. In in that
scenario, what we call rainslands. Fire probability is
determined more by the amount offuel, vegetation build up a
fuel, we don't have enough fuelevery year to have large fires.
(03:57):
So those are two differentscenarios. And in that case, it
takes time for grass enoughgrass to build up to have a
large shrub land or grasslandfire year. So Joe can unpack
some of his work. I don't wantto be a spoiler here, but we
(04:19):
learned some really coolinsights about what it takes to
set us up for large fires. Andmaybe he can speak to that a
little bit more here.
Joe Smith (04:29):
Yeah, that's a perfect setup. You know, be
thinking about that fuellimitation idea, you know? Yeah,
how much how much fire is goingto occur in a given year really
depends on how much fuel isthere but that's how much fuel
(04:50):
is there is not just determinedby what grew this year, or by
what grew you know, in thespring Leading up to the, to the
fire season. It's, it'sdetermined by that plus
carryover from previous years.
So, you know, if a bunch of youhave a really productive year,
(05:12):
you're going to have a lot ofsort of stand standing dead
vegetation, and you're also justgoing to your, your perennial
plants are just going to grow alot because of that. So you're
going to have bigger plants withmore biomass. And not all of
that is going to go away, youknow, it's not all gonna get
(05:34):
eaten by herbivores or compactedby snow, some of that's going to
be there again next year. So youhave this kind of this build up
that happens across years. Andactually, in the Great Basin, at
least in most of the GreatBasin, especially in Nevada. How
(05:54):
much fire you get in a givenyear is actually more correlated
with what happened last yearthan it is with what happens
this spring. So, you know, forif we're thinking about this
2023 fire season even moreimportant than what was this
winter? Like? Or what's thespring? Like? You want to be
thinking about what happenedlast, you know, May, June, July?
(06:16):
The there's quite a bit highercorrelation between those
conditions in this upcoming fireseason than there are between
you know, what, what kind of awinter was it this this winter?
Jeremy Maestas (06:32):
Yeah, it blows me away about Joe's work.
Because it's pretty common tohave a big wet year or a big dry
winter and say, Boy, we're gonnahave a heck of a fire year, this
year, whatever. And that's truewhen it comes to forests. But
it's not the same when it comesto these open grassland
(06:52):
shrubland ecosystems thatcharacterize most of the great
bass. And so the big reveal inhis work was like, it's really
about what happened last year.
And we now have the ability toquantify that and see it at
large scales and say, Okay,well, have we really set
ourselves up this year, based onwhat happened last year,
Christina Restaino (07:12):
just to unpack all of this a little bit,
right. So in a year, wherethere's been a lot of rain, and
snow, we expect there to be moreproduction of grasses and shrub
land stools. So the vegetationitself will grow more. But what
you're saying, Joe, is that in ayear in which things actually
(07:34):
grow more, it might take a year.
And then it might be that nextsummer, we might expect there to
be more fire in these ecosystemsthat just created a lot of
plants and fish that eventuallybecome fuels. Right? It's all
those when when we talk aboutfuels in the forest world, we're
not talking about gasoline andand in the fire world, right? In
(07:56):
general, we're we're talkingabout sticks and grasses and
shrubs on the ground. Sometimeswe use that that word liberally
and people don't understand fordirect fuel. So so that are you
saying, Joe, that that we mightnot expect this immediate summer
to be a big fire year in theGreat Basin, but maybe look out
(08:18):
for next year?
Joe Smith (08:21):
A great overview. And and I think that's exactly
right. I think this this big,you know, this big winter, we're
going to see the consequences ofit, but we might not see it
until next year. And I thinkanother another aspect to think
about besides besides just howmuch fuel is out there is, you
(08:42):
know, how much how much of thatfuel is dead versus alive? I
think so this is kind of wherethis is where you can you can
kind of think, okay, maybe,maybe this fuel conditioning
issue does matter a little bitfor rangelands, but you just
have to think about it a littlebit differently than you do in
forest. So in a year, like ayear like this, you know, we
(09:06):
didn't have a lot of growth lastyear, we've been climbing, you
know, the Great Basin has beenclimbing its way out of a
drought that peaked in about thesummer of 2021. And so we didn't
have a lot of growth in 2021. Wedidn't have a lot of growth in
2022. We're getting that growthnow. We're getting that that
(09:28):
fuels accumulation now. But inthis summer, a lot of the fuel a
lot a large proportion of thefuel that's out there is going
to be green stuff that grew thisyear. So I think there's there
is a little bit of a an elementof you know, the fuel condition
matters. And I think that whenyou have when you have a larger
(09:53):
proportion of the fuel that'sdead, you know, that's that
standing dead that that carriedover from past yours I think
that's really a recipe for, youknow, a volatile fire year.
Megan Kay (10:06):
Let's take a quick break
I wanted to take a quick breakto talk about the living with
Fire Program. Maybe you foundthis podcast and you're
wondering what is the livingwith FIRE program? Well, we've
been around since 1997. We'remanaged by the University of
(10:27):
Nevada Reno extension. And we'rereally a collaborative effort
amongst federal, state and localfirefighting agencies, as well
as resource management agenciesto help people adapt, prepare
and live more safely withwildfire. So if you haven't
already, check out our websiteliving with feiyr.com, where
you'll find all of our resourcesand tools that will help you
(10:47):
with more safely with wildfire.
Okay, back to the show.
Christina Restaino (10:56):
Good time, I think for one of you to just
define what the Great Basin is
Jeremy Maestas (11:03):
the Great Basin hydrologically is where it's
like the Hotel California ofwater, rain and snow that falls
in the Great Basin stays in theGreat Basin, it never leaves.
And so we have a series ofmountain ranges across the
region that run generally northsouth. And in between all of
(11:25):
those ranges, we have these bigopen valleys where all the water
that comes off the mountainsgoes into the valleys and
evaporates in essentiallyterminal lakes. So instead of
flowing out to the ocean, watergenerally just stays within this
big region that we call theGreat Basin centered, really on
(11:45):
top of Nevada, but spanningparts of Utah, Idaho, Oregon,
and in California.
Joe Smith (11:53):
I think like like any of these polygons that we put on
maps, it has fuzzy edges, andthose where those edges fall
depends on who you ask. And sothere's the kind of hydrologic
gray base and wherever youeverything is inwardly draining
and that's that's kind of acommon, common understanding.
(12:14):
But then there's also I thinkfor AI if you ask more of a
plant ecologist or a wildlifebiologist, they'd probably give
you more of a plant baseddefinition. So the the sort of
unique thing about the thewestern portion of it is just
how dominated it is by bywintertime precipitation. So
(12:38):
when you get into the the other,you know the sagebrush
ecosystems more on the otherside of the Continental Divide
your mud and much more of asummer precepts. system. And so
the the Great Basin, when Ithink of the Great Basin, I kind
of think of it a little bitbroader than then just the
hydrologic, Great Basin myextended up into, you know,
(13:00):
further into southern Idaho andparts of Oregon that don't
really fit that, that in orderthat we draining hydrologic
definition intersect. Yeah, Iwould
Jeremy Maestas (13:09):
add that it's it's like Joe's saying, really
arid, and you know climaticallyextreme, we're in the winter, we
get, we can get really cold anda lot of snow. But in the
summer, it's super hot and dry.
And so those extremes drive, thelimited amount of production we
(13:30):
get in terms of vegetation inthe region, and it's made it
really a tough place to live andsettle. And the evidence of that
is like if you go on GoogleEarth at night, you ever seen
that map with like the lights atnight, it'd be one of the
darkest places left in NorthAmerica. And that's why we like
living in it. Yes, exactly.
Christina Restaino (13:53):
I see really good stars for my backyard. Joe,
I'm curious you work in in thespace of predicting the
probability of what of what theprobability of fire will be for
the fire season. And I've lookedat the fire probability map for
(14:15):
this year, and it is higher thanlast year. So let's talk a
little bit about that. And whyis it higher than last year and
then kind of dive in a littlebit of you know, who uses those
maps? How do you make themthings like that? But I'm just
curious, because even thoughwe're we didn't have a lot of
growth last year, and we're,we're, why is it expected that
(14:39):
we might have a little bit of anelevated probability of fire
this year?
Joe Smith (14:44):
Yeah. So I mean, the short answer is that it's a
little higher this year becauseyou can't really get any lower
than it was last year. You know,2020 21, like I said earlier was
the depths of that. out. Thatwas that was about the worst
that God said, Really, at leastin sort of, you know, recent
(15:08):
memory. Last, you know, decadeor so 2021 was really one of the
lowest production years thatthere was, that's why 2022 is
just so exceptionally you know,those probabilities were, were
exceptionally low across most ofthe great base. And so, you
(15:32):
know, we've been sort ofclimbing our way out, you know,
I wouldn't say that we'recompletely out of out of the
drought yet. But we've beenclimbing our way out. And so
it's just, it's, it's going tobe rising, those I would expect,
actually, the next year is evengoing to be higher, just because
(15:54):
of what's happened this winter.
So yeah, that's that's kind ofthe the short version. That
Christina Restaino (16:03):
makes sense, though. And I think that helps
people understand, it certainlyhelps me understand because I
think that, you know, we have tounderstand like the baseline
probability of fire is alwaysgoing to be a certain amount in
the Great Basin, right? This isa fire prone landscape. And so
it's, it's interesting thatwe've, we've been in kind of the
(16:25):
lowest probability of fire forthe past few years because of
this big drought, right. And sonow we're expecting all of this
new growth, which is going toincrease the fire risk. But it's
also going to bring all youknow, it's a balance, because
it's also going to bring moreforage to the range lands, more
productivity, recharging of thegroundwater, it's also going to
(16:49):
bring with it some flooding andsome fire risks of sites, these,
these these balances of howthese, you know, climatic
variations, kind of influencedthe day to day of life in the
Great Basin. I don't know if youwant to comment on that. Jeremy,
before we move on to talkingabout these maps a little bit
more?
Jeremy Maestas (17:09):
Yeah, the variability in conditions out
there is a definingcharacteristic of the Great
Basin, as we talked aboutearlier, wild fluctuations
between year to year terms ofhow much moisture we get, how
the vegetation responds. And, ofcourse, the wildlife
(17:30):
populations, the people thathave been on these landscapes,
they're all following thosepatterns are of boom and bust.
And so if you look at the mapsthat Joe produced, because he
was able to leverage, you know,30 years of, of satellite
imagery, were able to go back intime and kind of see that year
(17:52):
to year variation. So in anygiven year, the patterns of
large fire risks really arearen't the same. But there are
some observations maybe we candive into here, more in terms of
like, the northern Great Basin,right when you get up along the
Snake River plain, EasternOregon, and a Winnemucca, Nevada
(18:15):
north, you know, that area, moreyears than not tends to have a
higher probability of largefires. And some of that goes
back to what Joe was talkingabout in terms of grass and find
fuels. And the build above thatis more often happening in that
part of the Great Basin, asopposed to Southern Nevada,
(18:37):
where it's a rare, exceptionalyear where you're gonna get
enough production to really havea huge fire being likely
Megan Kay (18:47):
just take a quick break.
Wildfire is stressful, andwildfire, evacuations are
stressful. That's why the livingfire program is created our
wildfire evacuation checklist.
It's a really simple checklistto help you learn how to pack a
go bag, and prepare your home inyour family, even your pets for
(19:10):
wildfire evacuation. I'veincluded the checklist in the
links in the show notes below.
So be sure to check that out.
You can also find it on ourwebsite at living with
feiyr.com.
Christina Restaino (19:26):
So, Joe, you make these wildfire probability
maps and we've alluded to themquite a bit. But let's get down
to kind of what goes into makingthese and why are they necessary
to make?
Joe Smith (19:40):
Yeah, so these these maps are really sort of designed
to fit into a unique gap in theexisting fire risk products that
are already out there. There'sthere's a lot of fire danger
products that have beenproduced. Things like the
(20:01):
National Fire Danger RatingSystem. And then there's also
things there's there's productsthat that look at fire risk over
over a really long, long timeperiods. Right? What we produced
was a product that kind of looksat, you know, what's, what's the
(20:23):
what's the fire risk for theupcoming fire season. So it's
this internet intermediatetimescale between products like
the National Fire Danger RatingSystem, which tell you about
like, what's the fire risk inthe next like, 48 hours to maybe
a week. And then those longerterm products on the other side,
so we're kind of trying to fitit right in the middle there. So
(20:46):
that's, I guess, that's sort ofthe context for for these
products that we developed. Andthe other I guess, the other
important context is sort of thetechnology side of things. You
know, until very recently, wejust didn't have high resolution
data on vegetation production.
That was dynamic. So we couldsay something about what was
(21:11):
produced in an average year. Butwe didn't, we didn't have a
dynamic product that told us,you know, okay, what was
produced last year? Was it aboveaverage, or was it below
average? Now we have our ourmodels use data from the range
land analysis platform, so thatthat product gives us annually,
(21:32):
percent cover and an estimate ofproduction in pounds per acre,
for every 30 meter pixel ofrange lands across the whole
west. So that gives us sort of athe missing missing link of fuel
amount that that you'd actuallyneed to make these sort of
(21:57):
annual longer range forecastsfor the great bass. And so what
we're basically doing iscombining the cover vegetation
cover and production data,that's an annual timestep from
from the Rangeline analysisplatform, with some drought
metrics and precipitationmetrics, from some gridded
(22:20):
meteorological datasets, andthen we're, you know, combining
combining those as machinelearning models to try to
predict what the what theconditions are, like, how ripe
is it, you know, for a fire at agiven given location? So that's,
that's kind of the gist of themodels and what what they do. So
(22:44):
we release them, we can we canmake a prediction or a forecast
for the upcoming fire season,starting in about in a typical
year, starting in aboutFebruary, and then we can update
that throughout the spring. Who,
Christina Restaino (23:04):
who uses the maps? Like, how is the data
ultimately, right? Because it'sthis kind of this complicated
distillation of a lot ofdifferent data, you've got the
vegetation data, you've got theclimate data, you use models to
bring it all together? And thenkind of how is it applied and
used? Yeah,
Jeremy Maestas (23:25):
the maps are especially beneficial to like
those federal land managementagencies like the Bureau of Land
Management, or Forest Service,that are stewards of a great
portion of the region justbecause of the public land
ownership there. So you havesome of our larger local BLM,
(23:52):
fire and fuel staff, who arestarting to look at this product
alongside those traditionalmetrics that Joe mentioned, like
the National Fire Danger RatingSystem, and other indicators so
that they can improve theirpreparedness going into the fire
season. So throughout the fireseason, they're running around
(24:15):
their district trying to assessfire conditions and imagine that
challenge of communicatingwhat's going on across your area
when for example, you areresponsible for Harney County,
Oregon, which is six and a halfmillion acres in size, one
county. Okay. And sohistorically, they're using
(24:37):
climate and weather data andother Predictive Services that
can provide some coarseestimates. They're using their
local knowledge and some fieldsampling of vegetation. For the
first time with Joe's product,we've got a real time forecast
of vegetation conditions acrossevery single acre in their
district. And it's dynamic soyou can see it change across the
(25:01):
district is not all uniformlydistributed. There's parts of
it, that might be higherprobability of a fire than
others. And so they can use thatinformation to inform things
like resource allocation. Whereare we going to put our
firefighters our dozers? Howmuch do we need to ask for this
year in our district? Do we needto talk about closures to the
(25:26):
public in certain areas acertain time of the year just
because what we know is likelyto happen. And so the public
might encounter those things.
But have the agencies have thedata to better support the
rationale for why they do that.
Joe Smith (25:40):
It's, you know, firefighters, the the fire
suppression community is reallythey are reacting in real time
to conditions on the ground, youknow, they are really going to
be looking at things liketemperature and wind speed and
humidity. Those are like the bigthings that drive the decision
making process. And duringfirefighting, it's not how much
(26:04):
you know how much cheatgrassgrew there last year or
whatever, like that's, thatplays a role in what happens
during a fire. But the big thebiggest drivers are weather. So
this is this is really, I thinkthis this product is really
aimed more toward managers whocan do something about
(26:25):
management before a fire startsis really about pre fire
management rather than theactual act of firefighting
itself.
Jeremy Maestas (26:35):
You know, one point that scientists have has
put out there in the last coupleof years is that more acres of
these range land ecosystems areburning than forested ecosystems
across the US across the West.
And that's especially true sinceabout 2000. So, when we set
national policy when it comes tofire management, it's usually
(27:00):
around forest fire. But, youknow, when you have more acres
being burned on our grasslands,and shrublands. Today, I think
there's a growing awareness thatwe need to allocate more
resources towards that to helpaffected communities and in the
region. And, you know, this typeof work can help bring those
(27:25):
resources to the Great Basin ina timely fashion to ensure that,
you know, we, we enhance theeffectiveness of our
firefighting community, tobeyond where it's at today,
which is really high, likesomething like 97% of all fires
that start in the Great Basinare put out before they become
more than 1000 acres in size. Sowe're already hyper effective
(27:48):
fire suppression. But thereality is that that 3% That
gets away from us are gettingreally big.
Megan Kay (28:00):
Let's take a quick break.
I hope you're enjoying theepisodes so far. Just wanted to
quickly let you know that thesewildfire probability maps for
the Great Basin that we've beendiscussing. They're available
online, and we included a linkto the maps in the show notes
(28:20):
below. So when you get a chance,go check them out. Okay, back to
the show.
Christina Restaino (28:32):
Jeremy, you were just discussing how, you
know, in the past two to twodecades, I think you said so the
past 20 years, you know, we'veexperienced most of our largest
range land fires, what'schanging in the Great Basin that
is making these kind ofuncharacteristic large fires
(28:52):
occur?
Jeremy Maestas (28:54):
Yeah, you know, I always like to caveat our fire
discussions by saying fire isnot neither bad nor good. It It
just is. It's a part of thissystem. But the reality is that
it's not 1850 anymore in theGreat Basin. By that I mean
before a European settlementwhere we brought livestock and
(29:16):
invasive species and all theseother changes to the system. So
today, when we have fire, wehave plants from other
continents, invasive species,invasive annual grasses in
particular, like cheatgrass thatare waiting in the wings to take
over and replace the perennialnative vegetation that
(29:39):
characterizes the great bass. Sohistorically, large fire years
in the Great Basin happened, butthey were more rare, infrequent
and driven by that accumulationof our perennial native
perennial grasses, bunch ofgrasses that are out there on
the landscape and when we gotenough of that built up enough
(30:02):
dead material across thelandscape, we'd have a big fire
here. What we see today and welook at Joe's data, he actually
mapped this out for us lookingback, you know over the last 30
years is that we fluctuate inour perennial grass production
from year to year. And that'slargely stayed fairly stable in
(30:26):
terms of the amount of of grassproduction coming from our
native native grasses. What'schanged though, is that
cheatgrass and other invasivegrasses, have been slowly
increasing over that 30 yearperiod such that the amount of
above ground production or grassbiomass that's out there, in
(30:48):
some years can exceed the amountof our native grasses today. So
in 2016, I think that was thefirst year that we documented
that happening, we had moregrass production come from
invasive species than than ournative grasses. Why does that
matter? It means that thoseyears in which were set up to
(31:09):
have enough fuel to have largefires are becoming more and more
frequent, because of invaders,like cheatgrass that have filled
in the what used to be like baresoil interspaces, in a more of a
desert environment, right, wedidn't have anything growing
there, essentially. Now you putthis other plants in the middle,
and it creates a very continuousgrass fuel bed that allows those
(31:36):
fires to become really large.
And that problem is largely whatwe think is driving some of the
patterns that we're observing interms of larger, more frequent
fires, especially in thenorthern part of the great face.
Christina Restaino (31:52):
After these years where we've seen a lot of
rain like and snow like we hadthis year, would we expect more
cheatgrass to grow?
Jeremy Maestas (32:01):
So we should see really good cheap grass
production, unfortunately,because higher moisture this
year,
Christina Restaino (32:09):
and so Joe, is the cheat grass production
taken into account in theprobability maps that you guys
create?
Joe Smith (32:16):
So yes, and no, it actually turned out that that
information didn't really add awhole lot in terms of how well
the models worked. So for rightnow, anyway, we're just relying
on last year and the yearbefore. But future iterations of
(32:37):
this might might use a bit moreinformation about current years,
kind of spring gross,
Christina Restaino (32:45):
that it does take into account. Yeah, but it
does take into account last yearin the year before she crashed
scruff, like that. Plant is partof what you're seeing in the
models.
Jeremy Maestas (32:55):
Yeah, like what Joe mentioned earlier in the
podcast, all this water thatcame this year is going to have
consequences for us possiblynext year. Right? Because all
this growing vegetationproduction is going to build up
out there. And there's no amountof livestock and insects in the
world that are going to eat itall. So it'll build up on the
landscape and probably show upnext year in the fire
(33:19):
probability maps. And the
Christina Restaino (33:21):
year after using two years. Yeah, so it
could be a legacy that's kind ofyou know, to me, the moral of
the story here is that, really,there's a priming that has to
occur for to get that big fireyear in the Great Basin, right,
where it's like, you have tohave that big winner, and then
(33:42):
the productive spring andsummer, and then fast forward a
year or two. And so if we have areally big drought next year,
that could really set it up evenmore because we've had all this
growth and then everything willdry out. Right. So it's that
combination of production ofgrass, and shrubs, and woody
(34:02):
biomass in general combined withyou know, what are the current
conditions existing on on thelandscape when a fire could be
ignited? Right. So it's likethat combination of the two. So
like anything in the GreatBasin, the story is complicated.
But
Joe Smith (34:19):
yeah, yeah, that's a pretty good description.
Actually, the the wet dry cyclesin the Great Basin are pretty
regular. And that's when we youknow, we should be really
worried as when we're coming outof a wet cycle into the into the
dry portion of the cycle.
Christina Restaino (34:37):
So to me, I would think the call to action
as a resident in the Great Basinis to spend this summer doing
some really good defensiblespace action around my home and
collaborating with my communityand kind of taking this time to
prepare, anticipating that nextyear will be will want to be on
guard for what could happen inthe sagebrush ecosystems around
(34:59):
our committee. It is what a
Jeremy Maestas (35:01):
perfect tee up Christina because that's where
my head was going like, youknow, the upshot of this work is
that we can forecast with with agreat degree of accuracy, the
probability of large fire, wenow know that it's not just
(35:21):
driven by woody vegetation,which is often the focus of fuel
management. But in these rangeland or shrub Land Systems, it's
grassy fuels that drive largefire. So if you're a community,
you talk about defensible space.
In addition to the woody fuelsmanagement you might do around
your infrastructure and yourroads so that people can safely
(35:43):
fight fires, you need to thinkabout grass. So if you're doing
mowing alongside of roads, andyou mow the brush off, so that
your flame lengths aren't toohigh, but then all you do is
open it up for cheatgrass toexplode. That's something we'd
ask you to consider managing to.
(36:04):
So maybe some integratedtreatments where we use
herbicides to actually kill thatinvasive annual grass. So we
don't have that herbaceousproduction alongside of our
roads or infrastructure that,you know, might serve as a
source of ignition source. We'redoing this on larger scales with
(36:28):
landowners and in the publicland management agencies, you
know, to implement things liketargeted grazing, where we focus
livestock grazing in hugepastures to try to break up the
the amount of grass fuels thatbuild up over the landscape. So
those are definitely things thatthis year people should be
thinking about, especially inthose regions on Joe's map that
(36:52):
are kind of in that uppermoderate to high elevated
probability of fire. Soremember, grass fuels drive
these large fires, so it's notjust about managing your shrubs
and trees.
Megan Kay (37:09):
Thank you for listening to the living fire
podcast. You can find morestories and resources about
wildfire at our website livingwith fire.com The living with
FIRE program is funded by theBureau of Land Management, the
Nevada Division of Forestry andthe US Forest Service and were
managed by the University ofNevada Reno extension, an equal
opportunity institution
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