Columnist Paula DelGiudice: Fires harm wildlife resources

Paula DelGiudice

Thursday, Sept. 2, 1999 | 10:15 a.m.

Paula DelGiudice's outdoors column appears weekly. E-mail her at PDelGiudice@compuserve.com

As Southern Nevada becomes engulfed in the smoke of fires burning in Southern California, the reality of how destructive the fire season of 1999 has been to our own state begins to set in.

This fire season has been the worst in the history of the Silver State with total acres consumed hovering near 1.5 million. To put it in perspective, there have been 400,000 more acres burned in Nevada this season than in Alaska, where more than a million acres have burned.

The extent of this year's fires is going to have a significant long-term impact on wildlife resources. According to Gregg Tanner, chief of game bureau for the Nevada Division of Wildlife, about half of the acreage burned has been sagebrush habitats that have not burned in recent history. The other half is acreage that has burned once and has already been converted to cheatgrass-covered lands.

My family traveled through Elko at the beginning of August when several large fires, especially one near South Fork Reservoir, were burning out of control. We arrived late one night and in the morning when we awoke, the smoke was so thick we could barely see across the street.

It reminded me of a time 35 years ago -- almost to the day -- when I was a young girl growing up in Elko. Range conditions that year consisted of severely overgrazed sagebrush/grasslands with a large component of accidently-introduced cheatgrass. (The seed of this noxious nonnative species came in attached to the woolly coats of domestic sheep).

Cheatgrass is an annual grass that has a way of dominating sites where the seed becomes introduced because it "greens up" earlier than other grasses or forbs and sucks moisture from other seeds of native grasses.

By late summer of 1964, the cheatgrass and other noxious weeds had reached a peak as a result of dramatic spring rains. Cheatgrass dries in the early summer providing a fuel source that spreads like a flash through stands of sagebrush.

Understanding they were sitting on a powder keg, land managers placed their fire crews on standby as huge thunderstorms emerged south of Lake Tahoe over the Sierra Nevadas the second week in August and began to move westward.

They had no idea how bad it would be.

The cheatgrass fueled fires sparked by that lightning storm that rolled across the range at an estimated 60 mph. It was during this time that the term "firestorm" was coined.

When the last fire was out, those in the Elko complex of fires had consumed more than 300,000 acres of rangeland. At our house in Elko, we quietly packed our valuables, hosed water onto our shake shingle roofs and watched the ring of fire around town come closer. We were grateful when crews finally put the fires out.

Authors James Young and B. Abbott Sparks wrote about the results of the 1964 fires in their book, "Cattle in the Cold Desert."

"If the burned sagebrush ranges are not restored, the alien weeds will inherit the sagebrush/grasslands. The way is thus paved for repeated burnings and a continuing downward spiral of degradation."

As authors Young and Sparks predicted, this season's fires added to the continued downward spiral.

Of greatest concern to wildlife managers is the loss of habitat for species such as sage grouse, mule deer and antelope. Sage grouse are already suffering from loss of habitat throughout their historic range, including Nevada. Without restoration, mule deer and antelope populations will undoubtedly decline. Optimum populations that were once enjoyed by sportsmen and others will become smaller.

Range restoration of the magnitude needed to reseed all of the burned areas is nearly impossible due to its extent.

"We had 40 mph winds here yesterday, and you couldn't believe the amount of material that's being picked up in these huge windstorms causing visibility problems along Interstate 80," said Tanner.

Gov. Guinn has appealed to declare Elko, Humboldt, Eureka and Lander counties disaster areas to receive federal funds for assistance in these efforts.

There are some short-term impacts that hunters can expect. For instance, a proposal will be considered by the Board of Wildlife Commissioners at their meeting on Sept. 10 and 11 in Winnemucca to close unit 065 to the hunting of deer and sage grouse.

There have been direct mortalities to wildlife from the fires. Maps of the burned areas are available from the Nevada Division of Wildlife.