How much forest burns in a historic fire season, or two?

How much forest burns in a historic fire season, or two?

Conservation Northwest / Mar 23, 2016 / Wildfire

Burnt grasslands in the Okanogan Valley after the 2015 fires. Photo: George Wooten. George lives and works from Twisp, Washington in Okanogan County. He was briefly evacuated from his home during both the 2014 and 2015 fire seasons.
By George Wooten, Conservation Associate

For two years in a row, Washington has experienced the largest fires in our state’s history. In especially dry conditions, fires burned across heavily logged industrial timber lands as well as pristine and managed national forests. But that’s only part of the story.

These fires crossed a significant amount of grasslands, shrub-steppe, and other non-forested areas. Last summer’s fires across north-central Washington burned over a million acres; almost half (45 percent) was grasslands, shrub-steppe, or agricultural lands (Figure 1). The year before, in the 2014 Carlton Complex Fire, the vast majority of lands burned (75 percent) were grass, shrub-steppe, and agricultural lands (Figure 2).

Plenty of people assume wildfires burn only in forests. As the smoke clears, a different picture emerges.

Figure 1. Percentage of forest and non-forest burned in 2015 in north-central Washington using the Washington Wildlife Habitat Connectivity Working Group land cover layer.

 

Figure 2. Percentage of forest and non-forest burned in the 2014 Carlton Complex Fire using the Washington Wildlife Habitat Connectivity Working Group land cover layer. Data from Pacific Biodiversity Institute.