Winter's snowpack expected to keep summer blazes small
By Peter Sachs / The Bulletin
WASHINGTON - Experts say that this year's above-average snowpack across much of Oregon will most likely delay the start of the fire season.
Officials of the U.S. departments of Agriculture and Interior testified at a Senate hearing Wednesday that large swaths of the Southwest, Rockies and Plains would probably see a more severe fire season than normal.
Oregon's season is more difficult to predict at this point, though, experts say.
"If you delay the onset, usually you reduce your probability of getting lots of large fires and lots of acres," said Terry Marsha, a meteorologist at the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center in Portland.
Marsha said climatologists and wildfire experts from across the West are meeting in Boulder, Colo., this week to create the official outlook for this year's fire season. The forecast should be released by next week.
George Ponte, a forester at the Oregon Department of Forestry, said the connection between dry winters and fires is not a strong one. For instance, Oregon's dry winter in 2004-2005 led to a relatively calm fire season.
"The winter weather does have an effect on when fire season starts," said Ponte, who is based at the ODF's office in Prineville. "But it doesn't really have an effect on the severity. What really impacts the severity is the weather in the late spring and obviously during the summer."
Since late-spring weather can have such a big influence on the fire season, federal officials were a little less certain about Oregon's outlook.
The Department of Agriculture's firefighting budget was the subject of tough questions from Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., at Wednesday's hearing.
"I am not convinced that you all spend the dollars you get in the right way, and on the right programs," Wyden told Agriculture Department under secretary Mark Rey.
Rey said the department is well prepared for the upcoming season, and plans to deploy more than 18,000 firefighters and as many as 393 airplanes and helicopters across the nation. But Rey conceded that even though there is a $500 million contingency fund this year that may not be enough if his department is forced to draw on greater resources than it anticipates.
The Department of Agriculture would then have to look for available funds elsewhere, including possibly coming to Congress for more money, Rey said.
"What's troubling to me about this ... is that fighting fires is to some extent a financial shell game," Wyden said in criticism of how the Department of Agriculture tries to find more funds. When it comes to that, "All I hear from the Appropriations Committee is, 'no mas.'"
As in past years, Oregon will likely contract two airplanes to keep on standby during the fire season, though there are no plans to get any helicopters this year, the ODF's Ponte said.
Almost 830 wildfires burned in the state last year and consumed 11,588 acres, according to data compiled by the Oregon Department of Forestry. Those numbers put the year on the low end of historical averages for number of fires and acres burned.