Fire in the Boundary Waters:
Should we manage wilderness?
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On July 31, 2005, lightning struck trees near Alpine Lake on the Gunflint Trail in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. A Sierra Club member camping nearby saw the storm in the distance. "We wondered if all that lightning would spell trouble," she said. The strikes started a fire that has burned slowly through hundreds of acres of wild forest. The US Forest Service has brought hundreds of firefighters to control the fire. They are supposed to allow it to burn naturally where no cabins or communities are threatened. The policy in the wilderness area is to control fires started by humans, and allow lightning-stared fires to rejuvenate the forest as has happened for millenia, except where it threatens homes or businesses. Fire is a natural part of most forest ecosystems. Indeed, without it we would not have a place to see what natural Minnesota looks like. |
Where
is Alpine Lake, and what are firefighters doing?
Read our national report, Beyond the Heat and Hype Read about how fire is part of natural forest succession (pdf from the 2004 forest plan sumary of research by Dr. Lee Frelich) |
Photo by Bryan Pasko
Complaints about wilderness fire management
One wilderness visitor wrote, "The desire to put this fire out apparently superseded the laws governing Wilderness areas - the fire crew used motorboats inside the portion of Seagull Lake that is designated as 'paddle only' and ran loud gasoline-powered water pumps in the wilderness area. The character of the wilderness was totally destroyed during our trip due to the constant sound of motors and air traffic from dawn to dusk."
Another visitor noted that fires are fought within the wilderness area to keep them from burning outside of the wilderness, where it would damage timber that is open for logging. "The Forest Service won't manage the land around the wilderness to protect the Boundary Waters, so why can they create a buffer within it to protect timber for paper companies outside?"
Thank you to firefighters
| Sierra Club thanks the firefighters who put their lives on the line to protect communities from wildfire. To protect them, we encourage all communities to work together to clear brush and thin forests within a quarter mile of communities and 100 yards of homes. Don't let forest managers waste scarce fire-prevention funds on logging projects in the back woods. | Read about fire as a management
tool (pdf from the 2004 forest plan)
Protect your home and community. www.firewise.org Read about how federal community protection funds are being spent in
Minnesota: |
Photo by Bryan Pasko