Document text
Those who will help nature recover from the Quartz Fire have a big, expensive job Mail Tribune / Jim Craven Tom Sensenig, a Bureau of Land Management forest ecologist, walks through an area where the Quartz Fire burned so hot that it sterilized the soil of any organic matter. The area is part of 100 acres set aside for spotted owl habitat. Many creatures died in the fire, but some survived and have been seen re-entering the area, although there is little food left to forage for. By PAUL FATTIG At each step, Tom Sensenig sank to his ankles in the dusty moonscape that only last month was deep forest duff carpeting the Quartz Creek canyon floor. The scientist, a forest ecologist for the Bureau of Land Management's Medford District, was inspecting a nesting site for a pair of northern spotted owls. The site has been monitored since 1986. But the owls, listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, have flown the forested coop. The 100 acres of habitat set aside for the pair had been blackened by the 6,100-acre Quartz Fire sparked a month ago today by a bolt of lightning. "Presumably, they were intelligent enough to fly away," Sensenig observed. "Where they would have gone, we don't know. There is no prey here now for them. This is no longer suitable habitat for spotted owls." Or for much else, for that matter. Although the fire burned in a mosaic pattern, leaving some areas scarcely singed, the spotted owl habitat was one of the many areas scorched to the earth. Tall trees were charred to their tops when the fire crowned, roaring through the forest canopy. "Look at that 180-foot-tall fir - the crown is burned out of it," Sensenig said as he scanned the skeletal remains of the forest. Nearby, a large madrone had been gutted. Only the shell of a now-hollow trunk supported its charred limbs. Later, kneeling near the seasonal stream, Sensenig stuck his hand into the ash, letting it sift through his fingers. "It burned so intensely through here that it's almost sterile," he said. "The organic material has been completely consumed." Sensenig is part of a team of specialists from the BLM, Rogue River National Forest and the Oregon Department of Forestry that has been studying the impact of the fire that burned for three weeks in the Little Applegate River drainage about 15 air miles south of Medford. More than $11 million was spent battling the blaze, which consumed two remote dwellings. All told, the fire burned 3,466 acres of the national forest land, 1,669 acres of private land, 954 acres of BLM land and 71 acres of state land. The agencies plan to help Mother Nature restore areas hardest hit by the fire by seeding it with native grasses and planting a mixture of conifer and hardwoods. They will also remove bulldozed fire roads and landings created by firefighters. The work is expected to cost at least $1 million. The top priority will be to stabilize sites where erosion will be worst when fall rains begin. Plans call for felling many of the fire-killed trees, laying them down at an angle to hold back sediment washed downhill. The dead trees will also be felled into riparian areas to slow the speed of streams. "We have to plan for the worst," Sensenig said of the steep slopes. "There is essentially nothing left to stop the rain. There is no vegetation left to hold this soil back." In addition to the BLM's spotted owl nesting site, another half dozen similar sites had been identified and monitored throughout the area burned by the fire. But none were burned more than the 100-acre spotted owl nest site along Quartz Creek. The goal is to restore the habitat and continue to manage it for the owls, Sensenig said. Trees and brush weren't the only living things consumed by the fire. During his inspection late Friday morning Sensenig found the skeletal remains of an adult cougar and a kitten, the apparent victims of the fast-moving flames. The remains, largely burned to ash, were found under what had been a log in the creek bed. "It's very difficult to outrun a fire like this," Sensenig said as he cradled their fragmented skulls in his hands. "When it enters the canopy, embers are blown ahead by the wind. "The fire will leap ahead of itself, a quarter of a mile or greater," he added. "It would be very difficult to get away from it." A few hundred feet away was the jawbone and teeth of a deer, presumably another fire victim. The bones looked bleached in the gray ash. But some animals survived the fire. Sensenig found fresh bear and cougar tracks earlier that day in the deep dust of a fireline on the northeast edge of the fire. Three cougars and several bears have been seen in the area since the fire was snuffed out, he said. Like those animals, fire was a natural occurrence in Southern Oregon until mankind began suppressing them about 100 years ago, said the ecologist who has worked in Southern Oregon for two decades. A former firefighter, he has been researching the history of wildfires in the region for about 15 years. On the average, wildfires sparked by lightning would burn an area every 12 to 15 years, he said. "When fire swept through, it would clean the area of brush and smaller trees," he explained. "Trees with thicker bark aren't as susceptible to fire. So the forest density was kept to a low level." With the absence of regular fire, the density has increased to the point where a blaze can wipe out areas like the spotted owl nesting site along Quartz Creek, he said. "This area had been healthy in the sense it had a tremendous amount of habitat," he said. "However, had fire been a frequent component of this ecosystem as it would be naturally, all of these smaller trees would have been cleaned out long ago." As a result, the brush and smaller trees provided ladder fuel, allowing flames to jump to the older trees that had survived cleansing fires in the past, he explained. "This site had old-growth structure and the larger trees were growing well but it was out of sync with nature," he said. "It was out of balance. It was incapable of surviving a natural disturbance like this fire." Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.