BY GAIL BINKLY

More and more, fire is being viewed as a potential friend rather than a foe on public lands.

Properly managed, low-intensity flames can sweep landscapes clean of dead brush, encourage the growth of tender new plants to nourish wildlife, and lessen the danger of disastrous, uncontrolled fires.

So when officials with the San Juan National Forest proposed burning 20,000 or so acres of BLM and national-forest land in the Disappointment Valley, there were enthusiastic responses from many in Southwest Colorado.

"To my knowledge, there hasn’t been a planned-ignition landscape-level fire on the West Side (the area from Durango to the Utah border) to date, so that was pretty exciting that they were looking at doing a fire plan to that scale," said Chris Kloster, area habitat biologist with the Colorado Division of Wildlife.

The committee that manages the Montelores Habitat Partnership Program, which was to provide funding for the burn (along with the Forest Service, BLM, and Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation), likewise responded favorably. The HPP, which receives its revenues from the DOW, helps create wildlife-friendly habitat.

"We strongly believe that this type of landscape-level project is critical to significantly improving conditions which have become unnatural and highly susceptible to wildfire due to years of fire suppression," wrote Jef Schrage, chairman of the Montelores HPP, in a letter June 1.

The burn area near the Dolores-San Miguel county line would have been broken into three units for separate burns at different times, with the whole project probably taking several years. It would have been by far the largest prescribed fire ever ignited on the San Juan National Forest or BLM’s San Juan Natural Resource Area.

But the proposal was halted in its tracks when officials came up against a problem endemic to landscape management in the Southwest: archaeological resources.

PIECES OF THE PAST

Federal law requires that, before taking any actions that could affect significant ruins or other resources, public-lands managers must have the area in question surveyed to find out what sort of resources are there.

Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act states that, before launching any project, federal agencies must "take into account the effect of the undertaking on any district, site, building, structure, or object that is included in or eligible for inclusion in the National Register."

If important resources are found, measures must be taken to prevent or mitigate damage to them.

The problem is, in the Southwest, pieces of the past are everywhere. And protecting them can cost a lot of money.

An initial archaeological survey can cost $9 to $14 an acre when done in-house, according to Bruce Ellis, district archaeologist with the Pagosa Ranger District of the San Juan National Forest.

If anything is found, the costs mount, as further analyses have to be done to see whether the resources merit listing in the National Register of Historic Places. The cost of protecting the resources, which can amount to hundreds of dollars per site, must then be added to the price of conducting the burn.

Surveying (for cultural sites or endangered species) and planning for a controlled burn can cost $15 an acre, according to Tom Kelly, fire-management officer for the Mancos-Dolores Ranger District. Implementing the fire can cost another $30 an acre or more.

INVADING PLANTS

It was in the winter of 1997-98, Kelly said, that he began formally planning for a landscape-size burn in a remote area of the Disappointment Valley, but officials had known for some time that the area was showing the effects of longtime fire suppression.

"It was years before, really, that the area had been identified as needing some treatment to help critical winter range for deer and elk," Kelly said.

The area consists of ponderosa-pine forest at the highest elevations, blending into a "mountain-shrub" community and finally piñon-juniper at the lowest levels. Mountain shrub includes serviceberry and Gambel oak, which simply resprout after fires.

"Fire, in the case of piñon and juniper, kills them, so you’ll take out all the PJ and allow the mountain shrub to survive," Kloster said.

But the area hasn’t been burned in some time — how long has not been determined — and the piñon-juniper is creeping up the hillsides, crowding out mountain shrub and grasses that nourish wildlife, Kloster said.

Also, the oak brush is becoming old and less palatable to deer and elk, Kloster said.

"As it gets real large, and because the deer nip off the buds, it tends to grow out of where they can reach it," he explained. "When you burn it down, it resprouts prolifically."

A managed burn would provide new forage for deer and elk in what is critical winter range for the animals, Kloster said, in addition to benefiting turkeys and songbirds.

But primarily the project would help deer, whose numbers have dropped steadily across the West.

"This is an ecosystem-health issue," said Kloster. "I try to look at the landscape in terms of making sure the natural processes are working. Fire is a natural process, and if it’s excluded, you see those landscapes change into things that may not be as beneficial."

SITES ALL OVER

But, while fire may be a boon to plants and animals, its effects on cultural and historic relics are uncertain and potentially destructive.

In Southwest Colorado, ruins can crop up anywhere. The number of sites listed on the Historic Register in Montezuma County is more than 13,000, according to Bruce Ellis, archaeologist for the Pagosa Ranger District.

And that’s just a portion of the cultural resources that actually exist. Only about 10 percent of the state has been surveyed for archaeological and historic relics, according to Jim Green, compliance coordinator for archaeology with the State Historic Preservation Office in Denver, and that is mainly federal land.

"And it’s even worse down there (in Southwest Colorado)," he said, "because your site density is so much greater."

A site can be anything from a standing structure to potsherds on the ground.

It can be as old as artifacts left by hunter-gatherers from the Archaic Period, 6000 B.C. to about 500 B.C., or as recent as historic mines and railroads from the early half of the 20th century. Anything 50 years old or older is eligible for listing in the Historic Register, as well as more recent sites if they are exceptional.

The problem is that sites are especially prevalent in warmer, lower-elevation areas — the type of terrain most likely to need prescribed burns.

"In general we have sites all over," said Laura Kochanski, archaeologist for the Mancos-Dolores district. "When you’re in the lower-elevation, piñon-juniper vegetation, you start getting the Ancestral Puebloan habitation sites.

"As you go up in elevation, you don’t really find habitation sites any more, but special-use areas — prehistoric hunting camps, areas where gathering and grinding of plants took place.

"Once you get into the spruce zone, your site density drops, but there’s a fairly high density within PJ and ponderosa communities."

DEFEATING THE PURPOSE

An initial survey in 1998 of roughly 1,500 acres in the Disappointment Valley found approximately 20 cultural sites, according to Tom Kelly, fire-management officer for the Mancos-Dolores Ranger District.

"It was an area we didn’t think had many features in it," he said. "The area had never been formally surveyed for any real cultural significance."

Kelly said he was a little "disheartened" by the findings, but because there was already money allocated for planning the burn, further surveying was done last summer where the need for prescribed fire was considered greatest.

"The report hasn’t been finished, but they have found again as many sites in a variety of areas," Kelly said.

The project was put on hold while forest officials sought some way to proceed without having to survey, catalogue, and "go around" every one of the sites, the usual method of dealing with cultural resources during a ground-disturbing project.

"Generally, on a project you just avoid the site," said Kochanski, "because it’s too costly to mitigate (protect) it or excavate it. But in the case of burning, that’s too costly too. You have to do a black line (fire break) or a wet line around each one, and it’s a monumental task."

In addition, it undermines the purpose of a large-acreage fire, according to Kloster.

"Avoidance of large numbers of sites, if necessary, pretty much defeats the idea of a landscape-level burn," he said. "The idea is, you start a fire and let it burn to get that mosaic on the ground.

"If you’re cutting fire lines around vast numbers of archaeological resources, not only does the cost go up, you don’t get this natural fire pattern you’re looking for."

And many worry that cutting a wide fire break around a site merely advertises it to pot-hunters.

In the past, when a proposed burn site was found to have numerous ruins, fire officials just abandoned the project, Kelly said.

"Where we have run into problems with cultural sites on the ground to any real degree, we’ve opted not to conduct the burn," he said. "It raises the cost of conducting a prescribed burn to the point that it’s not economically feasible."

And that was for much smaller proposals. The largest prescribed fire ever conducted on the San Juan National Forest was about 3,000 acres, and most are less than 1,000 acres, said Carla Harper, assistant director of Montezuma County’s federal-lands program.

But officials didn’t want give up on the Disappointment Valley project, which they felt was very important.

NOT OPPOSED TO BURNING

The agency that oversees cultural resources in Colorado is the State Historic Preservation Office in Denver, which employs about 16 people. The head SHPO officer is appointed by the governor, but the agency is funded and overseen by the National Park Service, according to Green.

When a project might affect cultural resources, SHPO (commonly called "Shippo") reviews the proposal and makes comments or recommendations. Although SHPO has no enforcement powers, according to Green, agencies that don’t comply with its recommendations can be sued.

Southwest Colorado officials pleaded their cause to SHPO, seeking a way to streamline the process, perhaps by surveying only areas with a high potential for important sites.

The Montezuma County commissioners, who have traditionally supported the use of fire in ecosystem management, joined the chorus, urging SHPO officers to come to Southwest Colorado to see the area.

"As these projects are delayed, the risk of wildfire, habitat loss, shrinking biodiversity, and greater damage to cultural resources increases," Commission Chairman Gene Story wrote SHPO.

But SHPO officials have refused to tour the area or to approve the project without a formal agreement spelling out a different approach for landscape-size burns.

SHPO is not being uncooperative, just doing its job, said Ellis, who is working to develop just such an agreement.

"SHPO is not at all opposed to burning, and they do care about wildlife," Ellis said. "They are very willing to work with us in developing the means for us to meet our responsibilities under the law and protect the resources, as well as meet our other needs, such as fuel reduction."

The Disappointment Valley burn is simply going to cost more, Ellis said, because so many sites are involved.

When a site is found, it is examined for its potential significance, a process that involves "a few shovel probes" to see whether there are underground artifacts or ruins, he explained.

"If we find nothing, we might recommend that it’s not eligible for the Historic Register," he said. "The trick is getting to that stage, getting those sites evaluated.

"In the area they were planning on last year, there were probably hundreds of sites, few of which have been evaluated for their significance.

"No one really is willing to say on a blanket authority that all of those sites are not significant, therefore go ahead and burn over them."

Federal land agencies must protect "what in this part of Colorado is one of our signature resources," Ellis emphasized.

Kochanski agreed. "In my perspective, the law works really well," she said. "For any smaller project, say 500 acres, it’s not an issue at all. It works fine on the big projects, too, but it means spending more money."

A CATASTROPHIC FIRE?

However, Ellis said it should be possible to develop a "programmatic agreement" with SHPO that would allow some sites to be categorized as probably insignificant or not likely to be damaged by fire without individually examining each one.

Part of the problem is that, while many different studies have been done on the effects of fire on archaeological sites, there is no synthesis of the research. Ellis said part of his task now is to come up with such a synthesis and convince SHPO that some sites can safely be burned over.

The alternative, many say, is to let dead brush and other fuels build up until a wildfire occurs naturally, which usually means a hotter, more destructive blaze.

"You don’t have to go far from here to see the results of catastrophic fire," said Kelly, referring to the 1996 fire that raged through nearly 5,000 acres at Mesa Verde National Park, threatening invaluable sites and blistering a rock containing ancient petroglyphs.

"We certainly don’t want to damage cultural features or sites," Kelly said, "but at the same time we would almost be helping to prevent more serious damage down the road.

"And even before we came on board 150 or 200 years ago, how many times had fire burned over these sites? Apparently we’re not seeing too much damage if the sites are intact."

Ellis agreed that Mesa Verde is "a great example of what happens when you let it go too long (without fire)."

He added that frequently the worst damage to ruins during wildfires comes from fire control — aerial retardant drops, bulldozers, firefighters digging breaks. Firefighters work with archaeologists to avoid ruins damage, but can’t always do so in the chaos of a raging blaze.

Ellis said he hopes by the end of September to have a "programmatic agreement" with SHPO that would facilitate landscape-size burns.

"We’re hoping this might be a pilot project that leads to a statewide agreement some day," he said.

TWO GOALS BUTTING HEADS

For now, however, the Disappointment Valley prescribed fire is in limbo.

The area planned for the first stage of the burn — 6,000 acres — was cut in half, according to Kelly.

"We had to take the lower portion out, in the valley, because we just knew there would be a high density of sites there," he said. "So we opted for the upper slopes."

But even that scaled-down plan is on hold, Kelly said.

"We’re not even planning for the 3,000 acres this summer," he said. "No burning activity will be conducted in that area until we have a clear directive provided through the agreement and we see what common ground we’re able to reach with SHPO and Section 106."

But Ellis insisted the project "is not dead," adding that enough was surveyed to allow a small burn this summer.

But in the meantime the question remains of whether large-scale prescribed fires will ever prove feasible in Southwest Colorado.

"We certainly have a high regard for the cultural resources on the national forest," Kelly said.

"But I feel we have the science and the knowledge to reasonably be able to implement a low- to moderate-intensity fire in these areas. This is just one of many places where we need to do some mechanical treatment or prescribed fire to reduce the fuel-load buildup."

Kloster agreed.