The Age Of Megafires

(CBS)  This story was first published on Oct. 21, 2007. It was updated on Sept. 3, 2009.

The wild fire that threatened Los Angeles this past week is not a typical fire: it's what is being called a "megafire," and scientists now say we should brace ourselves for more and more of these fires in the coming years.

In truth, we have never seen anything like them before - forest infernos ten times bigger than the fires we're used to seeing. Two years ago, during one of the worst fire seasons in recorded history, Scott Pelley went out on the fire line to see why so much of the American West is burning.

The men and women facing the flames are elite federal firefighters called "Hotshots."

Nationwide there are 92 hotshot crews of 20 members each. 60 Minutes found a group of New Mexico hotshots in the Salmon River Mountains of Idaho. They had set up camp in a burned-out patch of forest with fire raging all around. They were hitting the day, exhausted, halfway through a 14-day shift.

Leaving camp to scout out the situation, the firefighters anticipated a mess and they found it: the valley was engulfed in smoke. The flames blew through the firebreak lines they dug the day before.

"We were trying to turn the corner yesterday, and that's when it kind of blew out. I think we got more ground over here that's been taken. Any questions?" a firefighter said.

No question, this day the fire won. It surged across the mountain, forcing the hotshots to evacuate. All across the West, crews are playing defense, often pulling back to let acres burn, but standing firm to save communities. One stand this season (2007) came in August at Ketchum, Idaho. Forecasters said it was 99 percent certain Ketchum would be lost if nothing was done. Some 1,700 local, state, and federal firefighters came from across the nation, working around the clock from a mountainside camp.

Residents were evacuated, as 300-foot flames headed for homes.

60 Minutes joined up with Tom Boatner, who after 30 years on the fire line, became chief of fire operations for the federal government.

"A fire of this size and this intensity in this country would have been extremely rare 15, 20 years they're commonplace these days," Boatner says.

"Ten years ago, if you had a 100,000 acre fire, you were talking about a huge fire. And if we had one or two of those a year, that was probably unusual. Now we talk about 200,000 acre fires like it's just another day at the office. It's been a huge change," he adds.

Asked what the biggest fires now are, Boatner says, "We've had, I believe, two fires this summer that have been over 500,000 acres, half a million acres, and one of those was over 600,000 acres."

"You wouldn't have expected to see this how recently?" Pelley asks.

"We got records going back to 1960 of the acres burned in America. So, that's 47 fire seasons. Seven of the 10 busiest fire seasons have been since 1999," Boatner says.

"You know what? It's hotter than hell right here," Pelley remarks.

"It's been pretty damn hot," Boatner says. "You can imagine the challenge for young men and women with hand tools like this to come up here and put out a fire like this, but there's thousands of people down there with multimillion dollar homes that are counting on them to do that."

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page »

[rich_fairbanks]

Climate change, urban sprawl, 'cutting from below' in the federal agencies, past misguided fire policies all play a role in this problem. We need science based approaches to these very complex problems. We need to fund the agencies and the universities to get the infornation we need to address these issues.
Rich Fairbanks
Fire program
The Wilderness Society

[bradfregger]

"I would judge your report incomplete. Your scientist implied that poor soil conditions exist nearly everywhere and I can't believe that. Has he checked everywhere?"

Your comment about the scientist's comment on soil conditions is well placed. Mount St. Helens is coming back much faster than science anticipated.

This also reminds me of our experience in visiting Wales in the 70s. We wanted to see the valleys that the coal mining had ruined in the first part of the 20th Century and asked our hosts to show us a couple. There response, "Oh ... those valleys are back to full health again, I think we've kept one slag pit as a reminder of those times."

But, of course, this doesn't matter. What does matter is the one-sided approach that the scientist took, again because of a research agenda, and 60 minutes focus on his "findings" because it fit there world view.

[bradfregger]

The program started out right when the firefighter talked about the real cause of the megafires ... our playing with nature by putting out every fire for the past 100 years, thereby allowing the dead branches, etc. to build up. Then, of course, the story had to change to global warming, and the professor, with an agenda, focusing on that as the primary reason.

It's obvious that if the underbrush had been allowed to burn according to nature, that even climate change wouldn't have caused the megafires.

So, what are we going to do? It's obvious, try and fix things once again. Will we ever learn? 50 years from now scientist will be telling us that the money and resources we spent to try and stop global warming, was wasted, and we will wonder, once again, why those scientists and leaders 50 years ago were so stupid.

The only thing that will be worse is if some of the true fanatics convince the government to do something in outer space to stop some of the rays of the sun and bring about global cooling. If this happens, and with the stupidity that I see at the top levels of government it just might, we may all be moving south as the glaciers move through Canada and halfway through the United States. Ice ages have a much greater chance of happening and the problems caused by them make global warming look like a Sunday picnic.

Lord help us.

[dwliudahl]

I just watched the 60 Minutes story on wild fires. Why has there been no mention from the scientific community on the limiting factors on climate change or global warming? The warming trend on this planet will not continue indefinitely, there are ALWAYS a limiting factors somewhere. This universe always limits nearly everything.

Another hot question I have: why have scientists not looked into the increased growth rate of plant life due to the increased partial pressure of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?

I have heard of a study done in the 60's or 70's where they put a tent around some orange trees and doubled the partial pressure of carbon dioxide, keeping the water and fertilizer the same with the other trees in the orchard. The results were that the trees in the tent produced four times the number of oranges as the trees outside the tent.

This implies that the old forests that are burning now will grow back more rapidly. This was observed after the Yellowstone fires in 1988. It was also stated at the time that this is the natural cycle of the forests. The 'tree huggers' would rather see the forests burn than that they should be harvested for lumber. These fires are releasing huge quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The fires are not going to fix anything, they are making things worse.

I would judge your report incomplete. Your scientist implied that poor soil conditions exist nearly everywhere and I can't believe that. Has he checked everywhere? Scientists nowadays love to report bad news because it gets people's attention, it gets people to listen to their slant on what is going on. Media saturates the airwaves with bad news and actively suppresses good news.

The good news, and the truth is, there are limiting factors on global warming conditions. What are they? If you don't know, find out. This would be balanced reporting, but I can see no balance at all. All the news is clearly bad news.

Hint: water vapor is a limiting factor! Water vapor is a greenhouse gas. Logically water vapor would increase as the global mean temperature increases. Cloud cover reduces sunlight levels at the surface. What is the percentage of the planetary cloud cover? Has it been changing? How much has it changed over the past forty years or so? Is there a measurable trend? What kind of trend? This looks like a good story, though it may not be a bit politically correct.

Science and politics don't get along very well together. Politics is the philosophy of expediency, 'ends justify the means' thinking. Science is the philosophy of truth by direct observation, getting the facts. Facts are neither right or wrong, they just are, they are as close to an absolute as you can get in this universe. Politicians don't want to be confused by the facts, and they will bury the facts in rhetoric if you let them.

Douglas Liudahl

Billings, MT

[wdfleck1]

I also want to agree with Vonnieglen on Global Warming who wrote: "Weather stations ...NOAA''''s Western Regional Climate Center have mostly shown no discernable warming trend since these recording stations were installed in the 1930s."

The Mega Fires article blamed Global Warming as the real culprit of the CA fires. Even the Fire Warden interviewed said that he believed that it has been "hotter" now than any other timen in his lifetime. Yet it has also been colder in his lifetime, as the same scientists who embrace global warming today, thought we were entering a new ice age in the 70''s when temperatures were below "average".

The claims of global warming or a new ice age are based on extrapolations of temperature changes over small lengths of time into trends of temperature to justify a political policy objective. This policy objective is to reduce the sovereignty of the United States and ensnare us in a world government primarily run by the United Nations. This is obvious by the fact that the chief document of global warming was authored by the UN and to acheive the implied policy goals of the document, the US would have to subjugate its economy and sovereignty to the UN to bring about the desired reductions in CO2. This is a dangerous and unsound idea that is not in the interest of this country.

[wdfleck1]

I agree with many of the points of Craigtown61. Environmentalists, such as the Sierra Club, did get a free ride in the article. These groups have insisted on "pristine" and "natural" forests and rejected intervention by man in activities such as logging, pruning and replanting. The fact that these groups claim to preserve our forests and reduce CO2 emissions looks ridiculous when the forests burn to the ground, cause billions of dollars of damage and on TV we watch huge plumes of smoke rise into the atmosphere blotting out the sun.

The attorney general of California finds nothing absurd about prosecuting the parents of a child for alledgedly playing with matches and causing the intial blaze. The same attorney general, however, finds no basis to bring suits against environmentalists that blocked the Forest Service and private logging firms using hearings and law suits and prevented prudent forestry management which allowed the fuel to accumulate in the first place.

Proper, prudent forestry management is the answer to the mega fires. Had these forests been logged properly, the self interest of the maintenace of the value of timber would have removed the brush to protect its value (inventory management), cut roads to remove the timber to market (fire breaks) and created a necessary resources and jobs for people to use (finished wood products, etc.) Private forests aren''t burning because of this. We should learn from this and turn away from the unsound ideas of environmentalists.

[ajwages]

How tiring must it be for everyone blogging. To find someone to blame for everything we do. Well it is not my fault it is so and so''s responsibility. Or it is this companies responsibility.

Mega fires are a huge concern, so is increasing sea levels, droughts, major winter storms, hurricanes, flooding, melting ice caps, extinction of species, pollution, soil degradation, decreased plant vigor, etc!

Maybe it is not global warming as the only culprit, but a variety of activities that has created the current state we live in. Although many things get blamed on globe warming, but it seems to me we have taken the blame off of ourselves by labeling it with a non-human name. So suddenly this frightening name of global warming doesnt sound so scarey if we are not upfront with the initial causes. We have caused the mega fires, the flooding, the drought, the storms, and all our current problems. Let us stop blaming on activity or another.

Global warming is ALL of our responsibilities, we all OWN a part in curbing the efforts. Maybe if we all start to feel a bit responsible for some of our actions, maybe we can get a handle of the spiraling global climate.

We are to blame, we are the ones that can fix it, not this unhuman Global warming concept! Let''s quite finding the "right" one to blame, and take it on ourselves!

[craigtown61]

Amazing. 60 minutes is incapable of doing an in depth report. NO where was the fact mentioned that for the last 30 years the radical environmental movement has sued to keep the forest service from thinning trees, removing dead ones and cleaning out the debris and undergrowth.

The reason why we are seeing all these mega wild fires in national forests and not in privately owned forests is the above mentioned issue. 30 years of enforced neglect is now coming home to roost and the media can be counted on to turn a blind eye to the real cause of millions of acres burning down.

Also missed by anyone watching was the commentators statement that it would take centuries for the forests to return to normal. Did you catch it? Why would it take centuries when the forest service used to replant after a forest fire and the forest would be normal again within 25 years, Why? because the radical enviros wont allow the forest service to replant anymore! It must return on its own with no help from man!

No where in the story was any of this mentioned at all. The large mega fires were blamed on the common politically correct boogeyman, Global warming, while the real culprit radical environmentalism got a free ride.

60 minutes is a worthless politically correct government media complex propaganda show.

[delacom]

The Wildfire problem is Worldwide in Scope. One tool that can help is early detection of the fire. Some academics state that a wildfire doubles in size evry 5 minutes. If it is detected and extinguished early, 1700 firefighters and the risk to structures is moot. In one country, they are installing early detection systems. Where installed, there have been no major fires. ie 250 fires detected 34 acres lost

[aaabee-2009]

Posted by robaldrich4 at 11:52 AM : Oct 23, 2007

You so right. Global warming isn''t real. Everybody knows these mega-fires are fueled by an angry god getting revenge on America for loosening gay rights on our fine country.

You set um straight, robaldrich!