Wildfire is recognized to have a cleansing and renewing role in nature, but allowing it take its natural course is considered too risky in Wyoming.
Most state and federal agencies in charge of public lands have a standing policy to go after every blaze with everything they’ve got, as soon as possible.
“The State of Wyoming, we do not have a let burn policy, we have a put-out policy, immediately,” Wyoming State Forester Kelly Norris said during a recent interview with Cowboy State Daily Show with Jake Nichols.
“The Bureau of Land Management has that same policy, obviously private lands have that same policy,” she added.
In remote areas of vast National Forest land in Wyoming, the U.S. Forest Service has a more leeway to allow natural fires to burn.
However, that can have dire consequences if a fire escapes a wilderness area, as did the massive Pack Trail Fire in northwest Wyoming in October 2024, Norris noted.
Fire Cuts Land’s Value
The Wyoming State Forestry Division oversees state school trust lands, which are intended to generate revenue for Wyoming’s schools.
That’s partly why the division has a zero-tolerance toward fires that start on land under its jurisdiction, said Jerod DeLay, assistant state forester and fire management officer.
Even in a remote area, “we would want to put it (a wildfire) out pretty aggressively, because that could detract from the land’s value for the school trust fund,” he told Cowboy State Daily.
Most state lands are also in areas with “intermixed land ownership” between state, private and federal property, he said.
So the division is obligated to do what it can to keep fires that start on its land from spreading to others’ lands, he said.
Everybody Pitches In
However, no agency or landowner is expected to stand alone, he added.
When a fire breaks out, it typically doesn’t matter whose land it’s on, he said. Firefighters from the local, county, state and federal levels all pitch in to put it out, he said.
A fire that started Tuesday in Johnson County was quickly brought under control by such multi-jurisdictional cooperation, DeLay said.
The forestry division has pitched in to battle large Wyoming wildfires this year, such as the Dollar Lake Fire north of Pinedale.
Sharing resources and equipment is also important, DeLay added.
The forestry division is relatively small. There are two single-engine airplanes and two helicopters under contract with the division to help fight wildfires.
The division has eight seasonal firefighters and two permanent firefighters on crews attached to the helicopters.
“We have three fire engines that are unstaffed, we can staff them on an as-needed basis,” DeLay said.
The division can also call on about 20 “smoke buster” firefighters from its Wyoming Honor Conservation Camp for low-risk state inmates.
Should Wilderness Fires Be Untouched?
Retired forester Karl Brauneis of Lander had a long career with the Forest Service, much of it spent in firefighting or fire risk mitigation.
He questions the wisdom of the Wilderness Act – which established a nearly total hands-off approach to designated wilderness areas – in terms of fire risk.
Outside of wilderness areas, the Forest Service and other agencies can use logging or controlled burns to cut down on the amount of fuel for wildfires.
Controlled burns are best conducted in the fall, when the soil is moist and, ideally, there’s some snow on the ground in the high country, he told Cowboy State Daily.
“Under the Wilderness Act, we can’t go in after Labor Day and perform controlled burns. We have to wait for natural ignitions in June, July and August,” he said.
And summer wilderness fires can prove too fierce to contain, Brauneis said.
“Your risk to manage a fire in wilderness in June and July is off the charts. And we see that. They blow out (of the wilderness and into the surrounding forest),” he said.
Log, Slash And Burn
The forestry division doesn’t use controlled burns but rather relies on cutting and hauling out potential wildfire fuel, particularly around high-value areas, DeLay said.
“With active mechanical fuel management, you can mimic the role of fire (in clearing the landscape) in a lot of places,” he said.
If you can thin those fuels out around values, then you protect the values at risk,” he said.
“Values” include such things as homes, energy industry infrastructure, and livestock grazing allotments, DeLay said.
Brauneis said that when he worked for the Forest Service, they relied on cattle and wildlife grazing to mitigate fire risk on rangelands.
Springtime controlled burns, usually in April, could also help rangelands, he said.
Lands subjected to controlled burns before natural “green-up” in May would grow back with lush forage, he said.
However, wildfires that tore across rangelands after green-up would ruin it for the rest of the year, he said.
In forested areas, Brauneis said he favored thinning trees out, sometimes through targeted clear-cutting to lower explosive wildfire risk.
The slash, or leftover materials from logging, could be piled up and burned later. The best time for burning slash piles is in the fall, and sometimes even the winter.
Controlled burns require knowledge and experience, Brauneis said.
“Fire is a complex tool. And the skill level required to manage it is off the charts,” he said.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
