We've reached the point in the western fires controversy where the media are saying that there's been too much finger-pointing, that there are several more reasons than one for this year's blowup, and that it's time for tempers to cool. Closer to home, people are getting more focussed on getting through this fire season, and are weary from the debates. There's virtue in this view, and a couple problems.

It's been especially rewarding to see the varied media conclude that this year's fires didn't just happen for any single cause. The list of causes varies from one media report to another, but the fact that they're thinking in terms of lists is perhaps the most encouraging side of the currently fiery debates.

What's in the lists? First, the media have grasped that forest fire is normal -- where we have forest, we'll have fire of one kind or another. Some years, of course, it's more normal than in others.

The media have gone on to add that some fires can't be prevented no matter what -- just try and stop lightning, for instance. Other fires are started (in any of several possible ways) as a result of (perfectly normal) human error, and we are still a long way from being perfect. Sometimes, we even make more than our normal amount of mistakes, as we've done with decades of stomping out just about every fire in sight. It's been as important for the media to get hip to that as it's been for them to let a broader public know that fires are often beneficial to the forests themselves. As the media move toward this more-nuanced view, it gets more likely that the public will be able to sort out the basics.

But I think something's still missing from the story, and it needs to be added to the whole picture before we'll get things really sorted out. What's missing is the story of water's migration from the forests of the Pacific Coast to the dry inland forests of the Rockies.

I once penned a note to Tom Coston, when Coston was transferred from his Regional Forester job with Region One, based in Montana, to Regional Forester for Region Six, on the coast. I asked him to remember to send lots of rain to Montana from healthy, vibrant forests of the coast.

In fact, some years ago, the Great Bear Foundation (GBF) brought that issue to Washington. In a letter to Max Peterson, then Chief of the Forest Service, GBF directly stated the case that logging on the coast would risk a reduction of overall precipitation at downwind points including the already dry forests of the Rockies. GBF cited reports including one by Worldwatch Institute head Lester Brown.**

The basics are simple. When rain falls on bare ground, it runs away, here today but gone tomorrow. When it falls on forest, it gets caught.

Water, always on the run, then migrates up the roots and stems of trees, into the branches, and out of their needles and leaves. Having escaped the trees, this recycled water is now back in the atmosphere where it provides the moisture for local forest dew, and also for a replenishment of passing rainclouds that carry the water downwind. The Rockies are a major downwind feature of the coastal forests.

Trees in this scenaro are pumps, and the forest is a mighty and far-flung aerial irrigation system that throws water skyward in fundamentally the same way as those aluminum crawlers on the plains and prairies. Logging removes the pumps, and brings serious diversion to the whole irrigation system.

Brown cited some before-and-after research that illustrates the situation.

In a forested area before logging, about a quarter of the rain ran off right away, fleeing back toward the sea. But the other three-quarters was caught by the forest. Of the captured rain, about half was held back for long-term flow back to the sea, stabilizing stream flow. The rest went back to the atmosphere, for downwind precipitation.

After logging, things got turned up side down. Three-quarters of the water hastened back toward the sea, or about yhree times the volume that forest itself let get away. Instead of having three-quarters of the water to stablize local streamflows and to recharge rainclouds, the logged forest now had on-third as much water for those two important needs. The net effect is a redistribution of watery wealth, including shortage for downwind areas.

I'll stress again that a hammered irrigation system isn't the whole story of this year's forest fires. Almost everyone now sees that multiple causes combined to bring the forest explosions of 2000. I just think that the puzzle can't be complete until the hammering of the inland West's irrigation system is included.

This is one piece of the puzzle that didn't just sneak up on the Forest Service. It got as far as the Washington Office, and to a newly assigned Regional Forester, several years ago. In a letter to then-Chief Max Peterson, the Great Bear Foundation directly stated a case linking west coast logging to risk of lost precipitation for the Rockies. And the Chief acknowledged, by asking Region One staff to reply. Bear News reprinted the GBF letter, the reply, and send copies of that issue back to Washington.

But the Forest Service didn't really need a small conservation group in Montana for a heads-up on this issue. It had people of its own who were pointing out the risks. One paper by two Forest Service hydrologists summarized the situation succinctly: "deforestation desiccates the atmosphere." I think those four little words are well worth keeping in all our now-cooler heads as we ponder a long hot summer of drought, and review our plans for the future of dry forests in the Rocky Mountain West.

**Brown's analysis is on pp.11-13 of the Worldwatch Institute's State of the World:1985.

copyright © 2000, Lance Olsen

Lance Olsen is Acting Director, Ambience. He was the president of the Great Bear Foundation from 1982-1992 and the editor of Bear News. He can be reached at LanceOlsen@aol.com

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