To Burn or Not to Burn That is the Question of the Pagami Creek Fire

     There are discussions and debates taking place all over the Midwest about how the USFS has handled the Pagami Creek Fire. The policy of the USFS is to let a fire burn if it was started by a natural cause and if it is not threatening private property or life. But should that policy be null and void when the USFS is allowed to purposefully ignite the forest surrounding the natural lightning caused 200 acre fire with the intention of burning more acres?

     The 200 acre Pagami Creek Fire could have been left to burn as the USFS policy states however the USFS made a decision to intervene. They didn't put the fire out but they did start a bigger fire in order to create a fire break around popular BWCA lakes Lake One and Lake Two. Also in their plan was to prevent the fire from reaching the populated Fernberg Road. This disruption of a natural forest fire caused the fire to grow from 200 acres to over 2000 acres.

     Was the fire forecast predicting strong winds from the south that would put private properties on the Fernberg Road in danger? Was it necessary to light the small Pagami Creek Fire in order to save a couple of popular canoe routes in the Boundary Waters? Someone in the USFS thought so and signed their name to a burn plan that resulted in one of the biggest forest fires of this century in Minnesota.

     If a canoe outfitter can see a forecast calling for 90 degree temperatures and strong winds from the North then surely an experienced fire expert has access to the same if not better information. It was unseasonably hot weather that helped spread the Pagami Creek Fire but that weather was in the forecast. There wasn't rain in any of the forecasts I saw and I questioned the act of a prescribed burn under such conditions.

     There is no doubt prescribed burns are useful and helpful in preventing the spread of wildfire. The Gunflint Ranger District has completed many of them since the 1999 Blowdown and these have been successful at protecting private properties. These have all been done after weeks of careful planning and monitoring of the weather. None of these prescribed burns have ever gotten out of control.

     If the Pagami Creek Fire is defended by the USFS on the basis of a hands-off, let it burn policy then they should not have ignited the surrounding forest when there were no properties or life in danger. The additional acreage they lit on fire could very well have been what caused the Pagami Creek Fire to explode. Had there only been the 200 acres around the lightning strike to worry about when conditions rapidly deteriorated then would the fire have grown to over 100,000 acres in size?

     There is no question forest fires are part of the history of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Fires have been suppressed in the BWCA in the past while fires are proven to be wonderful for the forest ecology and are a part of nature.  This all makes sense to me but what doesn't make sense is saying, "We're going to let nature take it's course because it was a lightning strike and we're going to add a couple of thousand acres by starting more fires oursevles.  Doesn't the saying "You can't have your cake and eat it to." apply to the USFS?

     I don't know whether or not the USFS should let things burn but I do believe they should make a decision and take responsibility for their actions no matter how the situation turns out.

Comments for To Burn or Not to Burn That is the Question of the Pagami Creek Fire

Saturday, September 17, 2011 by Jo Ann Krause:: Congratulations to whomever wrote this article. It says it all, in my opinion, and should be published everywhere to give folks a reality check.
Friday, September 30, 2011 by Ryan:: This is true to some extent and not others. First, thank you for saying that prescribed fires are useful and that fire is a natural part of the history of the forest. This is mush more than most will say before they talk about how bad it was before the USFS ignited a controlled burn to make sure to mitigate the threat to the Furnberg area. And that is what this was... a controlled burn that was used to make sure that there would not be a possibility of the threat to lives or private property in the Furnberg area. Im guessing that you are from the Grand Marais area if you area aware of the burns that have been done on the gunflint trail since the blowdown and if thats the case I wonder if you are aware of the burn that they did last year in the fall near Kek lake. That burn was approx 5000 acres! The kek burn lines were just to the NE of the origin of the Pagami Creek Fire. This is part of the reasoning for the Controlled Burn... they tied the pagami creek fire to the EXISTING lines of the Kek burn that had been completed 1 year prior! Yes it is possible that they Pagami Creek fire may have gained a couple of acres from the controlled burn that was used to save countless acres of private land and so many homes that may have been destroyed had the USFS no burned a line to stop the spread of the fire into a residential area! For once its nice to hear about a fire that made the news for something other than the number of peoples homes that have been destroyed!