MARS operates within landscapes that evolved with fire, due to both lightning ignitions and intentional burning by native Tribes. Dry forests in the eastern Cascades historically experienced frequent, low- to moderate-severity fires that were vital to maintaining their ecological structure and function. However, these fires were consistently suppressed over the past century, contributing to declines in forest health and resilience.

Prescribed fire is a critical land management tool that returns the beneficial effects of fire to these fire-adapted ecosystems in a controlled manner. Prescribed fires help reduce the risk of extreme wildfire, restore forests’ ability to withstand pests and disease, recycle nutrients, increase biodiversity, and improve wildlife habitat.

MARS, like other local land managers, uses a combination of these tools to take care of our landscapes. Mechanical treatments that “thin” forests or remove understory vegetation mimic the role of fire by reducing forest fuels that would otherwise contribute to high-severity wildfire. 

However, prescribed fire is our only tool to treat surface fuels (pine needles, dense shrubs, logs and branches, etc.) that are a primary carrier of wildfire. Fire also has numerous other ecological effects that cannot be replicated by mechanical means, including nutrient cycling and promotion of fire-adapted plant species. Finally, mechanical treatments can have adverse effects and limitations (e.g., soil disturbance, invasive species introduction, terrain restrictions) that can be avoided through the use of prescribed burning.

In our area, the ideal windows for prescribed fire are spring (April-June) and fall (September-October). We seek time periods when the weather conditions would not support extreme, out-of-control fire behavior, but are still dry and warm enough to allow the fire to carry across the landscape and meet our management objectives.

The Klickitat County burn ban allows for burns that are permitted by state or federal fire agencies. All of our prescribed broadcast burns are permitted by the Washington Department of Natural Resources (DNR). 

Our burns, unlike residential/recreational burning that the county burn ban is intended to address, go through a rigorous planning and permitting process. We are required to have teams of people, fire engines, ample water supplies, and other contingencies in place for every burn. We also carefully monitor weather conditions and don't hesitate to call off a burn when conditions don't align with the safety parameters of our burn plans and permits.

Typically, once the county determines that wildfire risk is low enough to rescind the burn ban, the weather conditions are too wet for a prescribed burn to successfully consume forest fuels.

Every time we intentionally ignite a fire, we are accepting some risk that the burn may escape our control or have unintentional effects. However, MARS takes a number of steps to responsibly manage this risk:

• Every burn undergoes a rigorous planning and permitting process to determine the resources and weather parameters necessary for a safe and successful burn day.

• Burns are led by experienced personnel that can make informed decisions and react promptly if something goes wrong.

• Prescribed burns are “contained” from the start: we surround the perimeter of the burn unit with fire lines, roads, or other non-burnable features.

• Fire suppression resources (including fire engines, hoses, and thousands of gallons of water) are pre-positioned on site to help keep the fire “in the box” and quickly address any containment concerns.

• Burns start with a small test fire in a representative area of the burn unit so staff can determine whether the observed fire behavior will be manageable and will meet our objectives. Burn leaders will call off a burn if the fire behavior is not desirable.

• Burn leaders notify local fire suppression and emergency management agencies of our plans before and on burn day. 

Crucially, there is also a risk to not managing our lands with prescribed fire. Allowing vegetation and debris to build up in our forests sets the stage for large, high-intensity wildfires that may have catastrophic impacts on the landscape and our communities.

Our prescribed burns are intended to mimic the low- to moderate-intensity fires that would have frequented these landscapes historically. Typically, our burns have quite low flame heights (only <1 foot to 3 feet tall) with occasional patches of more moderate intensity. On a burn, you may see fire slowly creeping through pine needles, a hotter area where the fire encountered dense brush or saplings, or a patch that didn’t carry fire at all.  Sometimes, larger overstory trees may “torch” (fully consume), but these occurrences are usually isolated to one or a couple trees. We use the tools at our disposal to avoid tree torching in areas that would threaten the containment of the prescribed burn.

The smoke from a prescribed burn may look similar to that of a wildfire; depending on the atmospheric conditions, it might look like a tall plume or more diffuse haze. Unlike that of large wildfires, prescribed fire smoke is localized and relatively short-lived. You may continue to see small amounts of smoke from smoldering debris in the week or two after the burn.

If our burn escapes and is no longer controllable by the resources and personnel on site, we will declare it as a wildfire. This action will activate suppression resources from local fire departments and the Washington Department of Natural Resources, to include personnel, engines, machinery, and/or air resources.

Prescribed burning unavoidably produces smoke. However, smoke from prescribed fire is typically far more localized and shorter-lived than wildfire smoke. While igniting the burn, staff can use certain techniques to pull smoke up and away from sensitive areas like roads and communities. We also choose burn days where the weather and wind direction will minimize smoke impacts.

If you are concerned about the impacts of MARS’s prescribed fire smoke to your health, we have a number of HEPA air cleaners that can be loaned to local community members. Please reach out to Emery Cowan at 303-931-9332 or emery@mtadamsstewards.org to inquire further.

Remember…if you’re close enough to see or smell the smoke from a prescribed fire, you’re close enough to reap the benefits!

Immediately after a burn, you may observe “crown scorch,” where some or all of a tree’s foliage is killed by the heat of the fire. Severe crown scorch may be lethal to a tree, but in most cases our native trees are resilient to these fire impacts and will survive, filling back out within 1-3 years. 

In fact, scorching on Ponderosa pines’ lower branches is an important adaptation: by killing and removing branches that are close to the ground, the fire raises the pine’s canopy height and thus better protects it from future fires.

Because we intentionally set the pace of our prescribed burns, most wildlife have time to travel out of our burn units, or to unburned refugia within the burn unit, during the course of a prescribed fire. Our staff often observe critters fleeing to safety while they are igniting a prescribed fire.

Just as our local forests are fire-adapted, the wildlife that inhabit these forests evolved with wildfire. We often see elk and deer grazing on the nutrient-rich forage that grows after a burn, or woodpeckers enjoying a meal from a fire-charred snag.

Fire has both immediate (“first order”) and longer-term (“second order”) impacts on an ecosystem. Right away, you may notice charred tree trunks; crown scorch; a reduction in leaf litter, twigs, and logs; dead brush and understory plants; and soil impacts. 

As time passes, the landscape responds to and recovers from the burn. Nutrient-dense grasses may resprout, attracting foraging wildlife. You may see a flush of wildflowers and other species whose seeds germinated after fire cleared away leaf litter and understory plants. Over time and repeated burns, the species composition of the site may shift toward more fire-resilient species, with a more open forest structure. The fire’s impacts may interact with other tree stressors such as bark beetles, drought, or disease. MARS’s monitoring program works to track these first- and second-order fire effects so we can better understand how our burns influence the landscape.

We encourage you to engage with the Mt. Adams Prescribed Burn Association (PBA), a coalition of private landowners helping one another use prescribed fire on their lands. MARS is a founding member and coordinator of the PBA, and often provides leadership support, equipment, and training opportunities to PBA members. You can learn more about the PBA at mtadamspba.org.

We also invite community members to attend and observe MARS’s prescribed burns if they’d like to better understand how operations work on the ground. Please reach out to Emery Cowan at emery@mtadamsstewards.org or 303-931-9332 if you’re interested.