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Klamath Forest Alliance has just released a new Fire Report exploring the fire effects and fire suppression impacts of the 2023 fire season in the Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains. Our newest report, “2023 Klamath-Siskiyou Fire Report: Lessons in hubris and humility in the Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains,” examines four major wildfires that burned in the Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains during the summer and fall of 2023.
The report highlights lessons in hubris with devastating outcomes, long-lasting fire suppression impacts and unnecessarily extreme risks to fire suppression crews. Implemented to reduce acres burned at all costs, and maintain their reputation for aggressive, heavily politicized, backcountry fire suppression efforts, the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest and Klamath National Forest regularly damage unique environments, intact wildlands, water quality, recreational opportunities, and other public resources to maintain a landscape-scale fire deficit, and send a political message.
In the 2023 fire season, land managers on the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest bulldozed into the Kalmiopsis Wilderness Area during the Flat Fire. This was done as political theater and in direct response to the pressure of Oregon State Representative Court Boice to influence the agency’s suppression tactics. Using inventive grammar, Representative Boice demanded that the agency “declare a wise and legitimate emergency,” and “Override Congressional Laws stopping wilderness areas -No equipment allowed.”
The dozerline created in response was built through the Game Lake Campground and Sourgame Botanical Area to nearby Horse Sign Butte in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness Area; however, while the dozerline was being built, the fire was smoldering itself out on an adjacent 29 miles of fire perimeter, unable to burn through the 2018 Klondike Fire footprint, or the rugged serpentine barrens and rocky pine woodlands above the Wild and Scenic Illinois River. These 29 miles of fire perimeter contained no prepared fireline because the habitats simply would not burn so soon after the 2018 Klondike Fire. The Game Lake dozerline was built into this vast unburnable fire perimeter and served political purposes rather than any real role in fire containment.
Similarly, on the 2023 Smith River Complex the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest bulldozed 18 miles across the South Kalmiopsis Inventoried Roadless Area, through the iconic Rough and Ready Creek Botanical Area and across its unique serpentine floodplain. Doing great damage to the South Kalmiopsis Roadless Area and its unusual habitats, fire crews also bulldozed the lower end of the Buckskin Peak Trail up to the forks of Rough and Ready Creek; however, none of these firelines were utilized for or played any role in fire containment. Crews also bulldozed the historic lower McGrew Trail, in the Oregon Mountain Botanical Area west of O’Brien, Oregon and in the West Fork Illinois River watershed.
On the 2023 Anvil Fire significant wildands adjacent to Grassy Knob Wilderness were bulldozed and fire suppression personnel were subjected to unthinkable safety risks. Only after a firefighter was injured and almost trapped deep in the old-growth canopy of the Grassy Knob Wilderness with no viable extraction plan, did fire managers abandon their dangerous and highly improbable initial attack strategy.
Yet, when crews fell back to indirect firelines, they built some of the most damaging wildland dozerlines we have ever seen, and they failed to hold. Instead, the fire was only extinguished on September 25, 2023 after heavy coastal rainfall. Despite publicly claiming, they “were not managing anything, we are attacking” the fire, the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest was forced to loose-herd the Anvil Fire, pushing it away from communities and into incredibly steep, rugged, and heavily forested terrain, where the sheer size of the old-growth trees, the heavy forest canopy — which precludes most forms of medivac via helicopter — and the incredible steepness of the terrain, all combined to make most suppression efforts ineffective and/or incredibly dangerous. At a point, the agency simply had to let the fire burn to prescribed firelines and wait for fall rain. More aggressive, direct, and costly suppression tactics failed again and again on the Anvil Fire, and begrudgingly the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest was forced to acknowledge that they simply could not stop this moderate, relatively slow moving fire no matter what they threw at it.
Although effective at protecting nearby communities from the moderate backing fire, the agency could do little but push the Anvil Fire deeper into backcountry habitats and wait for the fire to naturally extinguish itself with coastal fog and rain. Ultimately, the fire burned a beautiful, productive, and highly beneficial mosaic into some of the West Coast’s most intact coastal old-growth forests, burning from the banks of the Wild and Scenic Elk River north to the Sixes River.
Our Fire Report highlights these and other lessons in hubris, and their damaging environmental effects, hoping that by doing so these tactics will not be emulated in the future. We also highlight lessons in humility, and suppression tactics that encouraged natural process, restored fire to broad landscapes, and responsibly applied tactical ignitions to merge and manage wildfire perimeters, while effectively protecting nearby communities. On the 2023 Six Rivers Lightning Complex, fire managers minimized the impact of modern fire suppression by not chasing fires deep into the backcountry, maximized acres burned at characteristic mixed severity fire effects, used recent fire perimeters to contain or moderate fire behavior and spread. They also successfully managed backcountry lightning ignitions for fire containment, for resource benefit, and for cultural/tribal values, all at the same time.
On the 2023 Six Rivers Lightning Complex fire managers, tribal leaders, and the Six Rivers National Forest took a different approach to both messaging and fire suppression strategy. This approach included messages of co-existence, of tolerance for fire as a process, and of using natural wildfire ignitions to achieve cultural and biological benefit. The effort brought numerous wildfires together into one footprint north of Orleans, California and at the edge of the Siskiyou Wilderness Area. It also brought the Pearch Fire down into the Klamath River and lower Salmon River watersheds, wrapping the fire around Orleans and Somes Bar, California to aid fire containment, protect communities, and reduce suppression impacts.
In total, 62,963 acres were burned, and rather than sending crews deep into the backcountry to fight the fire, while degrading the intact habitats and wildland values of the surrounding region, crews successfully utilized natural ignitions for resource benefit, while also protecting nearby communities. Utilizing an innovative approach, the Six Rivers National Forest maximized the benefits of wildfire on the landscape by utilizing both natural fire progression and thoughtful tactical ignitions.
We tell these stories because each fire season has lessons to learn. In 2023, the lessons were how arrogance, the aggressive suppression of natural process, the use of war-like narratives and potentially damaging technologies are often not only ineffective, but can lead to devastating impacts and extremely high public costs. Likewise, the 2023 fire season holds profound lessons of humility, patience, and co-existence, where the cultural and biological benefits of managing backcountry wildfires have begun to be realized.
We believe the Six Rivers Lightning Complex is a model for progressive and ecological fire management that can be emulated, altered, or improved upon in future wildfire events. Rather than a unique anomaly, we believe this form of indirect suppression and ecological fire management should be part of the regular fire management tool kit and utilized to restore fire to broad landscapes when conditions allow.
This allows fire managers to implement an appropriate management response where backcountry portions of a fire can be managed, while crews aggressively suppress or push fires away from nearby communities. This protects local communities in the long and short term, while restoring fire to a more natural role on the landscape. Ted MacArthur, Forest Supervisor for the Six Rivers National Forest asked the right questions shortly after the Six River Lightning Complex started in remote and relatively intact environments on the Six Rivers National Forest: “How do we develop more resilient, fire adapted ecosystems? How do we have communities that can live with fire and how do we safely deploy firefighters in a way that reduces risk to communities and reduces risk to firefighters?”
The Six Rivers National Forest, along with tribal partners and progressive portions of the fire community demonstrated a new way of looking at fire suppression and answering these questions. The approach focuses more on fire management, the restoration of fire as a natural process when opportunities allow, and full suppression when necessary to protect homes and communities.
According to Karuk tribal member Leif Hillman, “Are opportunities always going to be there, no, but even on years where you know you’re not having such good burn effects, where fire dangers are a lot higher, a local team can still take advantage around the corners and around the edges, there’s always opportunities and being in a position to take advantage of those opportunities is where it’s at.” We could not agree more, and that is why we chose to tell the story of wildfire in the summer and fall of 2023 in the Siskiyou Mountains of southwestern Oregon and northwestern California.
The Six Rivers Lightning Complex provides a realistic model for future fire management, and demonstrates how beneficial it can be to seize opportunities when they are available, and utilize wildfire as a management tool when conditions allow. We encourage fire managers to learn the lessons of humility evident in the management of the 2023 Six Rivers Lightning Complex, and in so doing reap significant cultural and biological benefit. We also encourage local communities to embrace wildfire as a natural process, and to see its responsible management as part of the solution. We understand that wildfire can often be managed in backcountry habitats, accepted as a natural process, and utilized to increase fire resilience, maintain fire adapted habitats, and moderate future fire effects. This can and should be done while prioritizing the protection of communities, infrastructure and public safety during wildfire events.
The management of Six Rivers Lightning Complex and the decades of work by tribal and local community members to foster respect for fire on the landscape played a pivotal role supporting this incredibly innovative and ecologically beneficial model for fire management in the Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains. We look forward to seeing this model expanded, altered for specific situations, or to meet specific landscape needs, improved upon, and implemented throughout the region when opportunities allow. Finally, we applaud the Six Rivers National Forest for not deferring risk another year and for restoring fire to the wildlands of the Siskiyou Crest.
To read the whole report with its detailed fire timelines and analysis check out our “2023 Klamath-Siskiyou Fire Report: Lessons in humility and arrogance in the Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains.”
