Stretches of deeply charred earth and fish kills in the hundreds or even thousands are what members of a wildfire response team have found in the wake of the Valley Road Fire, which continued to smolder southeast of Stanley with minimal growth at about 48,830 acres on Tuesday.
A Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) team arrived on scene last week to assess the fire's damage and develop a plan of response to ensure a healthy recovery.
"Our main purpose is to protect human health and safety, property, and critical natural and cultural resources," said Ed Cannady, a public relations specialist with the Sawtooth National Recreation Area and a member of the BAER team.
Cannady said some areas of the forest "burned really hot," while other sections were left completely unscathed.
"Over the entire area of the burn is a nice mosaic," he said, adding that pockets of green trees left untouched by the flames dot the otherwise black, lifeless landscape. The BAER team continues to assess the overall damage and an official report may be released as early as Friday.
John Thornton, a watershed specialist, said Warm Springs, Champion and Fourth of July creeks were all hit hard by the blaze and fish kills could reach the thousands.
"This is like nothing we've experienced before," Thornton said. "I haven't seen this intensity of fish kills. We didn't even see one live fish in Champion Creek or Warm Springs Creek."
Thornton said the fish killed include rainbow, cutthroat and bull trout—a threatened species—as well as whitefish and sculpin. He was unaware of any salmon kills in Warm Springs Creek, where chinook have spawned in the past.
Whether the fish were killed by excessive heat and gas released by the fire, by an off-kilter Ph balance caused by ash and soot in the water or by low oxygen levels is unknown, Thornton said.
"That's a part where research is lacking," he added.
While the destruction is hard to swallow, Thornton said a full recovery is likely and it will either be accelerated or slowed by Mother Nature.
"It depends on the type of moisture we get," he said, adding that a deep snowpack and gentle, regular spring rains would be ideal. A low snowpack would not provide enough moisture to promote new growth, while excessively heavy rains would cause erosion, ripping apart hillsides and further damaging streams.
But the future is not as bleak as it may seem, Cannady said.
Much of the burned area was plagued by old-growth lodgepole pine that had been killed by the mountain-pine beetle. The fire will allow the forest to naturally regenerate. According to Cannady, there is already some new growth in areas that avoided deep, severe burns.
"We're going to see aspen (trees) in the lower parts of these drainage's like we haven't seen in our lifetime," he said. "The elk are going to love this."
He added that eventually the forest will be healthier than it was before the fire.
"When people first go in the area, they're going to think, 'Wow, this looks bad,'" Cannady said. "But then they'll start to see it come back ... and they'll realize, 'Wow, this is a natural process.'"
