MYTH #1: The Park Service's prescribed fire burned down the town of Los Alamos.
FACT: It was not the prescribed fire, but the backfire lit during emergency suppression actions that resulted in fire escaping the project area and spreading to the town of Los Alamos. "Wildfire suppression actions led to the significant fire spread to the west on May 7…It was the suppression action that put fire along Road 4 that resulted in the escape from the project area." [USDA/USDI. 2000. Cerro Grande Prescribed Fire Investigation Report. May 18, 2000] The fires ignited under prescription were all successfully contained and controlled, and never escaped the project area.
DISCUSSION: When Park Service personnel called the Forest Service Fire Dispatch to request additional fire crews to contain some 'slopovers' and 'spotfires' from the prescribed burn, the Forest Service first delayed filling the resource order and then essentially coerced the Park Service into converting the prescribed fire to a wildfire as a means of paying for those extra firefighters through the emergency Fire Fighting Fund. Ironically, all of the original slopovers and spotfires were successfully contained and controlled at a mere 30 acres total before the backfire and big blow-up occurred on May 7, spreading fire across 47,650 acres.
Once the burn was declared a wildfire, it set in motion an institutional reaction that led to aggressive 'contain and control' firefighting tactics. Thus, instead of allowing the prescribed fire to back slowly down the mountain as planned, firefighters lit an unplanned emergency backfire at the bottom of the hill in some of the most hazardous fuels located within the project area. This hasty, coerced decision to begin fighting a wildfire instead of continuing to manage the prescribed fire ultimately led to the ill-fated suppression backfire that escaped the project area and spread to Los Alamos and other communities.
MYTH #2: The prescribed fire plan was wholly inadequate and failed to predict actual fire behavior or fire effects. The prescribed fire raged out of control from the point of ignition.
FACT: The fire behavior and fire effects of the prescribed burning within the project area were entirely within the parameters established in the prescribed burn plan. "Strictly from a fire behavior and fire effects perspective, the fire plan was adequate and appropriately implemented...The prescribed burn as it was implemented exhibited very low intensities and mortality objectives were not accomplished...Actual consumption on the fire ground was considerably less, indicating fuel moisture levels as being higher than expected." [USDA/USDI. 2000]
DISCUSSION: Investigations revealed that there were flaws in the planning and implementation of the prescribed fire; however, Park Service personnel actually had difficulty getting the moist vegetation to ignite and spread. A fast-spreading out-of-control high-intensity crownfire did not occur until after the backfire was ignited. Then, the fire surged across Forest Service lands with high hazardous fuel loads resulting from past fire suppression, livestock grazing, and commercial logging policies.
MYTH #3: The Park Service was reckless and irresponsible, lighting the prescribed fire in extreme drought conditions and ignoring warnings about high winds.
FACT: When the Park Service ignited their prescribed fire, the temperature was 52 degrees Fahrenheit, with 31% relative humidity and upslope winds at 1 to 3 miles per hour. "Observed weather at the time of ignition was solidly within prescribed boundaries for the fuel/vegetation type in which burning occurred." [USDA/USDI. 2000] Moreover, the Park Service did not receive any warnings about the coming strong winds in the spot weather forecast or the 3-5 day extended forecast. "Government officials [National Weather Service] failed to provide any wind predictions in the 3-5 day forecast for the periods of May 7 to May 9...The National Park Service was never warned by the National Weather Service not to burn. All fire weather protocol was followed." [USDA/USDI. 2000]
DISCUSSION: The objectives for burning at that high elevation, naturally moist site on top of Cerro Grande mountain required dry conditions for the vegetation to ignite and burn. Again, Park Service personnel had difficulty getting the prescribed fire to progress because the weather and fuel conditions on that site inhibited fire spread and fuel consumption. Later, weather conditions changed and an unforeseen wind event occurred, and the Park Service had more fire burning than enough people to manage it.
SUMMARY DISCUSSION: The facts revealed by the Cerro Grande Prescribed Fire Investigation Report starkly contrast with the news media's generally sensationalist accounts. Moreover, the media failed to investigate the underlying fire management policy and planning issues that were essential links in the chain of causality behind this wildfire disaster. According to the Executive Summary for the Fire Investigation Report, "The Federal Wildland Fire Policy is sound; however, the success of the policy depends upon strict adherence to the implementation actions throughout every agency and at every level for it to be effective." [USDA/USDI. 2000] (emphasis added) The Forest Service's systemic refusal to fully implement the Federal Wildland Fire Policy, and the Santa Fe National Forest's lack of an approved Fire Management Plan that complies with the Fire Policy, were prime factors driving Forest Service employees to pressure the Park Service into prematurely converting the prescribed fire into a wildfire. Again, if there had been no declaration of a wildfire, fire crews would not have ignited an emergency backfire, and the prescribed fire despite its flaws would not have escaped the project area.
In responding to the Cerro Grande/Los Alamos fire, Congress must confront the facts and avoid reacting to media myths as it did with the Salvage Logging Rider following the severe 1994 fire season. That legislation provided an enormous profit windfall to private timber corporations, but did nothing to reduce wildfire hazards or restore forest health on public lands. Instead, Congress should compel all federal land management agencies, especially the U.S. Forest Service, to fully and immediately implement the Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy. Congress must also provide federal agencies with the resources necessary to do fire management planning, that complies with the Federal Wildland Fire Policy, utilizing the best available science and informed public involvement. Then, Congress must provide the resources necessary to hire and train fire personnel to competently plan and conduct prescribed burning, safely manage wildland fires for resource benefits, and reduce hazardous fuel loads. Ultimately, it is long-term ecological restoration with careful fire reintroduction--not increased commodity resource extraction or aggressive fire suppression--that holds the best hope of preventing future disastrous wildfires in fire-dependent ecosystems of the interior West.