8 



Dr. Neuenschwander, these graphs were prepared by Boise Na- 

 tional Forest in cooperation with the University also as I under- 

 stand it. 



The average annual wildfires by the decade's average from 1940 

 to 1994 has in the Rocky Mountains expanded greatly. Between the 

 1980's and 1990's we are up at rates of natural wildfires that are 

 just very devastating, and then in the Pacific States we have less 

 wildfires in the 1980's and 1990's. Can you explain the difference 

 as to why the Pacific States have been more immune from the 

 wildfires than the Rocky Mountain States? 



Mr. Neuenschwander. Well I think I would prefer to have you 

 defer that question to the Forest Service. I would like to make a 

 point that I did not talk about the invasion of exotic species and 

 especially cheat grass onto our rangelands. The invasion of cheat 

 grass on our rangelands has really increased not only the size, but 

 the frequency of fires. We have areas that burn every single year 

 now in which the historic record is that it would not have burned. 

 Some of the large fires in Utah, this year, Mr. Chairman, cheat 

 grass contributed to many of those fires. 



But the second major point is that the fire exclusion has come 

 to a crescendo such that the fuel beds are continuous over the land- 

 scape and the fires are no longer on the ground and they are very 

 dangerous and very expensive to fight because these fires get to be 

 so large so fast. 



Mrs. Chenoweth. Could we see the next graph there. 



Wildfire fuel in the Boise National Forest, we saw that a hun- 

 dred years ago we had very little crown fires. Most of the fires were 

 litter fires or other. Why are we seeing so many more crown fires 

 now? 



Mr. Neuenschwander. Well in my Plate No. 2, which by the 

 way is Ponderosa State Park in Idaho, and going back to the Na- 

 tional Geographic one, it is the small diameter trees and their bio- 

 mass. They are very flammable and when the flames hit them, the 

 flames reach through the tops of the little trees into the big trees 

 and the crowns of the trees are consumed by the fire, and we also 

 have additional material, debris, organic debris that is dropped 

 from the number of trees on the ground. We call those the woody 

 fuels, and those woody fuel loads is the red there, and they call it 

 litter, but that's caused by the needles and the twigs that are on 

 the ground. So we have more stuff to burn and many of these for- 

 ests do not survive the fires of today. 



Mrs. Chenoweth. In the next one, Dr. Neuenschwander, they 

 have provided me with a graph showing the nature and severity of 

 fires and what occurs as fires get hotter. We see that water vapor- 

 izes at a hundred degrees, and that's awfully hot, but some of these 

 fires have reached above 750 degrees. What happens then in terms 

 of nature being able to restore itself when we see those high inten- 

 sity fires? 



Mr. Neuenschwander. These high intensity fires are putting a 

 lot of the nutrients that are needed to sustain these forests at risk 

 either going up into the smoke column or eventually washing off 

 the site, and sometimes they create soils that repel water and the 

 water carries the nutrients off of the slopes and puts them into the 

 rivers and affects the long-term productivity of our forests. 



