Here's the latest news report on burning in the Arid Land Ecology Reserve
published by the Richland Tri-City Herald today. For more on the breaking
story see http://www.tri-cityherald.com/


Franny Drobny
Seattle, Washington.

Fire wreaks havoc on ALE habitat
This story was published 6/29/2000
By Annette Cary
Herald staff writer
The new designation of national monument wasn't any help in protecting the
Arid Lands Ecology Reserve on Wednesday as a large chunk of the Hanford
Reach National Monument went up in flames.
Sage and grass lands were consumed by fire at the reserve -- land on the
west side of Hanford that makes up more than a third of the new national
monument. But it was sage and grass lands that were beautiful enough and
rare enough to warrant federal protection.
"The single most important thing out there that would be lost is sagebrush,"
said Larry Cadwell, a staff scientist at Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory. "There isn't that much good quality sagebrush steppe out there."
Land at the reserve has remained largely untouched by the 20th century. The
federal government fenced off the land as part of a buffer zone around the
Hanford atomic works in the 1940s, making some of it the last remnant of
sagebrush and bunchgrass in the state that hasn't had 150 years of livestock
grazing or crops grown on it.
The grass should come back next year despite the fire. The fire only burns
off the top, and the underground parts of the plant survive.
But sagebrush is a different story.
Some acres that were farmed before the land was taken over by the federal
government during World War II still have not had sagebrush return.
While grass will come back from its root system, sage depends on a delicate
seeding system.
"Most years those seeds do not germinate," Cadwell said. "They need plenty
of moisture and little competition from other plants."
Tiny, dense seeds fall from the parent plant to nearby ground, but they
don't travel more than a few feet. Unlike some other plants, the seeds
aren't carried off by animals, a method that spreads them far from the
parent plant.
Without sagebrush, wildlife species that depend on it also disappear.
Biologists had been excited about the first confirmed sightings in more than
10 years in 1999 of several sage grouse on the reserve. The grouse are
listed as an endangered species, disappearing as sagebrush has disappeared
in the West. They depend on sage leaves for more than 99 percent of their
diet in the winter.
Late Wednesday afternoon, the fire had spread to near the area where the
birds have been spotted.
The black-tailed jackrabbit also has a difficult time surviving without
sage, Cadwell said. The brush provides a canopy to conceal the animals. With
just grass for hiding, they're easily spotted by raptors and are more
vulnerable to coyotes.
Several species of birds also nest in sagebrush, including the loggerhead
shrike, the sage sparrow and the sage thrasher.
"A whole host of animals depend on sage," Cadwell said. "If the sage is not
there, they're not there."
Biologists also are concerned that a fire can clear ground and give
non-native plants and noxious weeds a chance to invade.
"They can only come in and take over after major disturbances," Cadwell
said. Heavy equipment used to fight a fire also can disturb the ground,
making it susceptible to invasion by tumbleweeds and cheatgrass.
Some of the land that burned Wednesday had burned in previous years,
increasing the probability that noxious weeds could gain a foothold.
In 1984, some 20,000 acres burned near Hanford. A smaller fire in 1998
burned 6,000 acres in about the same area of the reserve as Wednesday's
fire.
Of course, there also were likely fires there hundreds of years ago. But 300
years ago, the results of the fire were much different, Cadwell said. Much
of the region's sagebrush has since been destroyed by development and
agriculture, and noxious weeds have been introduced.
"Yes, fire is natural, but everything else is not natural," Cadwell said.
"It is a problem."




















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