Impacts of Wildfire
Post by 2022 student Grace Martin
As an Animal and Veterinary Science major, I came into this class with no knowledge of forestry or wildfires. Although it has only been three days, I feel as if I had a better understanding of these topics because of the hands-on experience I am getting out in the field gathering data. Being able to immerse yourself in the field of what you are studying is an unreal experience. Before this trip, I never thought I would be able to walk through a field in Montana and name almost every plant I see, and now am able to name nearly every plant we pass. Even though I had little to no experience with forestry or wildfires, I have surprised myself with how quickly I have picked up the material.
We had the opportunity to talk to MT DNRC, which gave me some fascinating insight on fire control and how they respond to situations like the Bobcat fire. I was amazed when they said humans cause around 60-70% of their fires, and given how dry the weather is, a fire can start with something as simple as a spark from something dragging from a car. With this project, we have four different plots to compare: thinned and burned, unthinned and burned, unthinned and unburned (control group), and thinned and unburned. Having these various types of plots to compare made it very easy for someone like myself, who had no knowledge of the field of forestry, to see how wildfires can affect the environment. We saw plots with no litter, duff, and or living trees the fire had heavily hurt, and we saw plots with 3 inches or more of litter and plenty of vegetation to support various types of wildlife.
We sat down and spoke to the Segars and the Frosts, and we were able to hear what the fire was like from their perspective. It was very eye-opening and showed me the importance of this research. Agriculture is a primary sector that makes up Montana’s economy, and farm and ranch operations make up 63% of the state’s land area (Discovering Montana, 2022). A wildfire could easily destroy many of these operations, affecting the lives of many people in the area, as it did for the Frosts. The research we are conducting can help us learn how the fires affect the land over a long period of time, which could allow us or other groups to create a management plan for the land that could be highly beneficial to the people in the area. Learning these management techniques for wildfires could make a massive difference in the livelihoods of some cattle ranchers or farmers, which is very rewarding to know the data we are working hard to collect will benefit others one day.
We also were able to tour the Signal Peak Energy Mine, which was impacted by the Bobcat fire as well. Our tour was led by the safety coordinator, Tony Mcdonald, who was able to talk us through what the day of the Bobcat fire on the mine site was like. He said smelling smoke for a miner is one of the scariest smells, so as soon as they started smelling the smoke from the Bobcat fire they had to rush to get out to avoid having the smoke trapped underground. It was his longest day of work since being at Signal Peak because he stayed to help try and put out the fire. Tony clocked in at 5am that morning and was not able to leave until 8am the next morning. The mine was closed for two days and it was mentioned in our tour that for everytime mine closes unpredictably, it loses $10,000 a minute. Meeting with the mine gave another perspective of the fire I had not really thought about and it showed the impact this fire truly had on the community.
I have also learned that as devastating the wildfires can be, they can end up being beneficial in the long run. Prior to the Bobcat fire, the Ponderosa Pine fully covered the hills of the ranch. The fire removed many of these trees from the land and now that two years have passed since the fire, some of the once burned forest plots have begun to produce lush vegetation. The thinning of the trees done by the fire was also beneficial because if a pregnant cattle eats the pines of the Pondersoa Pine, it will cause an abortion in the third trimester. Goz Segar mentioned it is like he has all this new land because his land is much more open now that many of the trees have been taken out and it has offered new grazing land for the cattle. I am excited to see how all the data comes together and we can see how all parts of the environment were affected by the fire.
Agriculture contains a broad spectrum of sectors from wildlife to agribusiness. There are many topics I have never had the opportunity to work with in the agriculture field but I think it is important to see how all these components come together so I am eager to learn more about them.
