Not far from where a single bolt of lightning ignited the Castle Rock Fire in mid-August, life has already begun to return to burned areas.
In the midst of a charred stretch of once-verdant meadow on the south side of Warm Springs Road near Rooks Creek, slender blades of grass 3 to 5 inches tall give the ash-covered, jet-black soil a greenish hue.
The thin stems of grass are Great Basin wild rye, Sawtooth National Forest botanist Kim Pierson said while touring the fire area last Friday. The species of grass native to the Intermountain West grows in large clumps 3 to 9 feet tall and is usually found in dry meadows.
Even for Pierson, an expert with an in-depth knowledge of how native plant communities recover after fire, the presence of such upstarts so early on is startling.
"The native grasses are already coming back," she said excitedly.
Poking around in the blackened dirt surrounding the blades of grass, Pierson scraped away some of the dusty soil so the wild rye's below-ground growing points could be seen. Because the flames didn't burn too intensely as they swept over the meadow, the growing points escaped harm while the tall, above-ground stems burned hot enough to be reduced to ash.
To Pierson's right, was a moist area that actually burned during the fire. Growing out of the damp soil and small bits of standing water were the pointed shoots of water sedge.
Nearby, clumps of 6-inch blackened stems were all that remained from another species of plant, this one obviously some type of shrub.
Looking to the twisted and tortured-looking shapes, Pierson said they're the root crowns of willow bushes, which are another fire-hardy species capable of withstanding flames because they, too, have below-ground growing points. She said that in time most of the willow clumps would send forth new growth, perhaps as early as this fall.
Of course, not every area burned by the Castle Rock Fire will experience the same levels of natural regeneration.
Pierson said that especially in those areas where active fire suppression efforts took place, natural recovery may have to take a back seat to human intervention. She said that could include artificial reseeding of bulldozer lines and hand lines, recontouring of scarred areas and other actions to minimize the physical impacts from the fire suppression effort.
To that end, Pierson and a number of other federal agency folks with specific expertise are this week developing a list of draft recommendations for post-fire recovery. The group—called an interagency Burned Area Emergency Response team, or BAER for short—hopes to have a preliminary draft of its recommendations in plan form by Friday, Sept. 14.
John Chatel, a Sawtooth National Forest fisheries biologist, heads up the BAER team. Also included in the team are experts in the fields of hydrology, botany, soil sciences, wildlife biology, silviculture, range, trails and public information.
From the local government sector, the team has invited Blaine County Commissioner Larry Schoen to be a member.
Further down Warm Springs Road in the Frenchman's Bend area, Pierson slowed her government SUV when she spotted several mule deer in a forested area that received a light-intensity burn during the fire. Beneath a canopy of mostly unburned conifer trees, the small herd of six to eight mule deer poked around in the burned area, seemingly unconcerned with the passing of the vehicle.
Pierson said other plant and tree species that will begin showing new growth as early as next spring includes penstemon, arrowleaf balsamroot, lupine and quaking aspen.
Aspen in particular do well in the aftermath of fire, Pierson said.
She said that when the above-ground portions of an aspen stand burn, the below-ground stems are stimulated into sending forth new stems in a sort of feedback loop process.
Pierson said that by next summer, some of those aspen shoots could stand as tall as two meters. She said the single stems with their extra-large, succulent leaves will be a veritable smorgasbord for deer and other browsing wildlife.
"It's like ice cream for them," Pierson said.
One of the BAER team's main focuses will undoubtedly be the many fish-bearing streams lacing the Castle Rock Fire area.
On Friday, Dan Kenney, fisheries biologist for the Sawtooth National Forest's Ketchum and Fairfield ranger districts and a member of the BAER team, scanned a portion of Warm Springs Creek heavily impacted by a series of mud and debris flows that tore down surrounding hillsides on Sept. 5. Kenney was standing on top of a new 4-foot-deep deposit of mud, sand and rock that had briefly dammed the creek.
However, by Friday, erosive action from Warm Springs Creek had worn a narrow channel around the west side of the flow.
Rather than viewing the slide as disastrous for the health of the creek, Kenney said that in the long run at least, the stream will actually benefit.
"It's a natural process," he said. "In a way it's a way a stream renews itself."
Kenney said landslides bring woody material and small gravel into a creek system, and that can benefit fish and aquatic insects. He said for trout, the fine one-quarter-inch to one-inch pea gravel serves as fresh spawning material once the smaller sandy particles wash downstream.
Kenney said that in the immediate vicinity of the slide, trout and other aquatic organisms will decline at first, but in the long term, those areas will be replenished from stream areas not as heavily impacted.
"By next spring there will be plenty of fish and bugs back in this section," Kenney said.
Pierson said that to protect homeowners in the burn area, officials have plans to install a number of weather monitoring stations in select areas. The gauges will measure precipitation and indicate how much would be enough to cause a flash flood.
She said that in such an event, some as-yet-unspecified system would be used to alert public officials and threatened homeowners of the pending flooding.
"If you get a 100-year rain, which is not unheard of, you could move a house," she said.
For her part, Pierson would prefer to allow naturally occurring, locally genetically adapted seed to provide the basis for land-based regrowth to whatever extent possible. She said that throughout the burned area, the soil harbors a natural seedbed that will commence growing once moisture has a chance to reach it.
Pierson sifted through a handful of soil she said contains native seed.
"In here there's going to be a lot of seed that will spread," she said.
But she said that where noxious weeds are of concern, the BAER team will likely recommend an immediate seeding program this fall before the snow falls. She said that because cheatgrass and other undesirable nonnative weed species do well in disturbed areas like bulldozer lines, those areas will likely be the primary focus of reseeding efforts.
And officials won't be planting seed considered most desirable for grazing sheep and cattle.
"We're not going to seed with something like crested wheatgrass," Pierson said. "The last thing we would want to see is a monoculture coming in."
Rather, Pierson said the team will consider natural diversity and wildlife needs first.
Plant species highlighted by the BAER team as likely candidates for reseeding actions include such natives as Idaho fescue, mountain brome, bluebunch wheatgrass, Great Basin wild rye, Sandberg wheatgrass, bottlebrush squirrel tail and mountain big sagebrush.
Pierson said that to help reduce erosion and keep the native seed in place once it's scattered, the team will likely suggest some sort of mulching material be used. She said if at all possible, they hope to not have to recommend the use of straw as was used on the post-fire recovery effort for the 2005 Valley Road Fire near Stanley.
After the straw was placed in that effort, it was discovered that one of the vendors providing the mulching material had brought in straw full of weed seed, Pierson said. More preferable for the Castle Rock Fire would be to use wood mulch, she said.
Sawtooth National Forest botanist Kim Pierson holds up a sample of soil from within the Castle Rock Fire burn area. She said soils throughout the fire area contain a remnant seedbed that will contribute to regrowth of burned areas. Photo by Willy Cook
