While the last of the fire smolders on Pilot Mountain, the time for investigating what happened, why, and what could have been done differently is at hand.
North Carolina Parks and Recreation officials said Monday night there will be an in-depth investigation into what happened, how the controlled burn managed to get out of control, and what could have been done differently once the fire escaped its planned boundaries.
Those officials are correct in that it’s hard to give definitive answers now, while the last of the fire-fighting is still under way. And no matter what the findings, someone will find fault with the process because, as the old saying goes, hindsight is always 20-20.
Even now, though, it’s clear some things were mishandled, and we’d like to suggest that the state parks and recreation service make a few changes, not just locally but statewide.
• Let the public know when a prescribed burn is going to take place. Several local residents suggested this during a public meeting with parks officials Monday night, and the response was that the planned burn was on the park service website.
Sorry, that’s not good enough. We would hazard a guess that 90 percent of the people in this community don’t know what that agency’s website address is. Tree-quarters of the local population probably doesn’t even know the park service has a website. Posting on an obscure website is not informing the public.
There was a time not so long ago when the park service informed local media of these sorts of burns, in advance, and then the media would let readers and listeners know the burn was going to take place. Perhaps this is a practice the park service could resume.
• Don’t try to minimize what’s going on, particularly when the public can plainly see the situation is worse than being reported. What we’re talking about here is the insistence, in the first couple of days, that only a couple of hundred acres were being burned. At one point park officials said roughly 100 acres had burned. Two days into the fire official estimates were still at 150 or so, when anyone who could see the mountain understood far more had been burned.
• Use available resources early on in the fire-fighting effort. Conflicting reports about how local firefighters were used, or not used, have been floating around the community since the first night.
What we do know is that firefighters from eight different departments were on the scene Thursday, helping to fight the planned prescribed burn that had gotten out of control. By Friday, state park officials said, “The North Carolina Forestry Service is taking over the situation,” and went on to say “the fire is now moving hardly at all, just smoldering.”
Again, hindsight is always 20-20, but we hope one lesson to take away from this is that all available resources, including local fire departments, should be used to ensure a fire is out. Much better to trouble firefighters for a few hours, even a day, to stop a small fire than to back off and allow a blaze to get out of control.
Other lessons will hopefully come from the investigation, including finding things the park service did right. But in the end, we hope what can be learned from this fire will help minimize damage to other state park land, and keep the public better informed about what is going on.
After reading this I wonder did anyone from the Mt. Airy News attend the public meeting and were they listening or just hearing what they wanted to hear?
I'd like to respond to your suggestions for improvement in your editorial regarding the wildfire response at my park. I'd also like to take the opportunity to thank the NC Forest Service and local VFD's and Surry Emergency Management as well as local residents that supported us throughout this operation, as well as thank local residents who attended the community meeting that you reported on.
As to the first point,
1."Let the public know when a prescribed burn is going to take place. Several local residents suggested this during a public meeting with parks officials Monday night, and the response was that the planned burn was on the park service website."
My direct response was that we sent a PSA to the Mt. Airy News, The W-S- Journal, and contacted local agencies, (the town of Pilot, Surry Communications and Emergency Mgt., who notified local Fire Chiefs, and the NC DOT) in addition to posting it on our website and posting signs on Hwy 52. Obviously there are still other ways to reach more local residents and suggestions by citizens of a list-serve or utilizing reverse 911 were very good ones. But your newspaper was the first media group I sent a PSA to on November 5, and you did not run it in your paper.
Point 2."Don’t try to minimize what’s going on, particularly when the public can plainly see the situation is worse than being reported."
There were multiple people providing information to the media about acreage effected initially. Everyone was involved in suppression and there was not going to be someone walking around the edge of the flaming front counting acres burned. The fire also grew rapidly after the first day. Once containment lines were in place an accurate measurement of fire size was achieved. Other than the flame heights around the summit the fire was a backing fire with low, slow moving flames. Pilot Mountain has near vertical terrain in many places and had a lot of built up fuel so any fire is going to be visually impressive. If you actually visit the park today, the effects are less dramatic.
Point 3.
"Use available resources early on in the fire-fighting effort. Conflicting reports about how local firefighters were used, or not used, have been floating around"
Local resources were used initially and assisted throughout the incident. Your statement that conflicting reports have been floating around is reporting on rumor. We initially contained the fire after the prescribed fire Thursday evening on steep slopes with rolling debris and snags that continued to burn and drop but it was not safe to have people trying to put out a fire on those steep slopes, in the dark, with flaming trees falling around them. A wildfire falls under the jurisdiction of the NC Forest Service and it is their call when it is safe to have firefighters in the woods. When there are trees falling without notice and you are trying to stop a fire on a slope you can barely stand on, no firefighters life is worth underbrush burning up.
If our local VFD's had all been deployed on this fire initially the only safe place for them to fight the fire would have been the bottom of the mountain outside the fire where they would not have flaming debris rolling below them to start new fires and possibly trap them, or be hit by falling snags. And they would not have been available to protect your homes. The fact is the "devastation" to the mountain continually reported by the Mt. Airy News is an exaggeration at best and is confined to some fence rails.
The forest on Pilot Mtn. has seen fires for thousands of years, at minimum. All wildfires have had to have been suppressed for the almost 50 years Pilot Mountain has been a state park because all of our visitors are concentrated at the top of a fire prone mountain with only one exit road. 50 years build up of fuel was the biggest contributor to this wildfire. I regret that this fire frightened local residents, but the mountain itself will be better off for it ecologically and from a safety standpoint to the public.
One of my concerns since I have been superintendent is a wildfire starting in the park from a campsite or picnic area and running uphill and trapping visitors. In that sense I am thankful that this wildfire occurred when we did not have visitors in the park and had resources on the scene to manage it. We have had many small wildfires when the park was open that caused panic, a large one with a park full of visitors would be a much different story.
I appreciate the need in this day and time when print media is struggling for readership for a newspaper to promote their story but you could at least make an effort to be objective in your reporting and not pick and choose the details of what you want the public to know.
-Matt Windsor
Park Superintendent
The need to be done more often and better managed. Obviously there had been way to much time since the last ones were done or they were not being done properly. From the pictures I saw and talking to my parents in Pilot Mountain, there was just too much fuel. Fire is a part of nature and a very important part of the forest ecosystem. We need to now start working on the parts that did not burn and trim the fuel from these areas, or this will not be the last fire of this nature. A lightning strike could have just as easily caused this, and based on the fuel this "controlled" fire had, a natural fire would have been much worse.
Report on Public Meeting re: November 2012 Pilot Mountain Controlled Burn
By Susan Crotts
There are always two sides, pros and cons, and this case, environmentalists and country boys, to every story. Most of the recent media reporting I have seen has not portrayed the depth of this Pilot Mountain controlled burn gone wild issue, which may recur here again or in other communities in our state, where a prescribed burn landscape restoration program appears to be ramping up.
I attended the NC Forest Service sponsored community meeting in Pinnacle on November 12, 2012. There was a lot more said by residents and officials there than the few bullet points reported on TV by WXII or the Winston Salem Journal, who both bridged to the message of the NC Forest Service in thier reports.
The meeting was 2 hours long and filled with expressions of concern and emotion. I was able to record most of the meeting with a smart phone.
The meeting began with everyone giving heart felt applause to every fire fighter who supported this community through the ordeal and those still fighting. A request for prayers for the safety of all fighting the fire was warmly embraced. The NC Forest Service began to tell their message. This was facilitated by a public relations specialist.
The reason given by the NC Forest Service for the prescribed burn was that it is necessary to create an environment of fire for certain fire adaptive plants and to reduce fuel loads to reduce the possibility of wildfire!
The prescribed burn fire going out of control as a wild fire was attributed to steep terrain on Pilot Mountain and a hollow tree that caught fire, sending wildfire onto that steep terrain. Once there, the small group of assigned firefighters could not access the fire, so had to retreat and let it burn out of control. All judgment exercised by Forest Service staff was stated to have been in accordance with
their standard operating procedures, criteria, etc. for conducting prescribed burns.
Unfortunately, those standard operating procedures, criteria, etc. did not serve well in this event. Fortunately, the steep terrain was such that over the course of days, they were able to create a break with heavy equipment to contain the fire at under 700 acres, which far exceeded the original burn plan of 50 – 60 acres.
It was mentioned by the NC Forest Service that unanticipated wind and “duff”, a peat like layer that tops the steep ground where there is not topsoil, helped fuel the fire rapidly out of control. They reported that duff is very hard to put out and can burn for many days. Today, 11/14/12, media reports that the fire is not 100% extnguished and fire fighters remain on duty at Pilot Mountain.
Here is what media outlets like the Winston Salem Journal and Winston Salem WXII did not report:
Some residents and a local volunteer firefighter reported that while the burn was out of control, local fire fighters were ordered to stand down as Forest Service crews were reduced. The Volunteer Fire Department was rendered powerless by the State to protect their own community, which pays taxes to support their fire station and fire fighting vehicles and equipment. This was quite disturbing to the local fire department and residents as they perceived Pilot Mountain ablaze as a real crisis as it unfolded. The Forest Service on the other hand, conveyed that their project was managed according to protocol and benefits- no structures lost, no people killed, and the forest will be pretty again. Just wait till this spring.
Other residents, who own property that bordered the fire, reported having to physically defend their property from the fire by themselves through the night. This came out as a pain filled rebuttal to the County Emergency Management Coordinator’s account of how (he thought) the US Forest Service managed the fire day and night.
Someone from the community made the comment that people are the main concern (as opposed to burning pine trees or other plants for rejuvenation. There were other issues such as the killing of animals by fire and the Forest Service’s liability if private property is damaged. The Forest Service acknowledged that some animals were killed, but the answers were not clear as to what people can expect if there property gets burned up or damaged by smoke.
Community members also worried about the lack of management of advance notification and the explosion of spectators going into the community to watch the fire or look for looting opportunity. Several Surry County Commissioners were at the Pinnacle meeting. The expectation that they will be responsive to their community by taking this incident up with county emergency management officials and further up the political chain was conveyed by the resident who had to defend his property from the fire.
When the last speaker asked the Forest Service what this is costing the public they reported that $19,000 had come in costs so far, but that was from the report a few days ago. The Forest Service also reported that 90 people were on the ground daily. Lets see the total toll cost when it’s over. The Croatan Forest prescribed burn cost $1.2 million. Also, let’s see the full investigative report that has been promised by the NC Forest Service. A report will be posted on the NC Forest Service web site at some point.
This same woman, the last speaker, concluded the public remarks by telling the Forest Service that they should not burn Pilot Mountain again. This has been extremely disturbing to her.
The NC Forest Service assured everyone that in the spring, we will see some new growth in this forest. Will the media go there and document what that looks like? Will it really be an environment that people will want to hike and climb in? (Increasing recreational opportunity is one of the touted benefits of prescribed burning)Will tourist's, who may support the local economy near Pilot Mountain want to go to this area next spring?
This forest burning is a growing government business that is being managed by humans, who make errors, which can be devastating. The popular talk is that the fire is good for some plants. These are the opinions of science based individuals and organizations, many of whom may receive funding or jobs through Forest Service landscape restoration programs.
The goal of “replicating” what could happen in nature every 3-4 years is odd. Why not just let nature be itself? Why play God?
In this case, the Forest Service assures the public that they followed all the procedures correctly. Citizens at the Pinnacle meeting asked, what about common sense? One said that being just a country boy, he knows when not to burn and this was clearly not the time. This common sense comes from really knowing the forest, experiencing it and living in harmony with it. Performing prescribed burns is not based on this first hand experience in an ecosystem. It is based on criteria written by intellectuals with scientific education.
People who think they are stronger than nature and that they should interfere with nature are not wise. They may be book smart but wisdom comes from true experience and the willingness to craft your position in the face of facts. Country boys are wiser when it comes to burns.
I will not argue what fire does for some species as there can certainly be validity to these scientific assertions, as likewise, fire may create the perfect sunny environment for invasive species like the princess tree. However I will argue that just because environmentalists have the ability to stimulate plant growth with fire does not mean they should be given freedom and right to do as they wish on public lands. We need regulations to limit the current level of public employees’ freedom to burn forests, our public commodities, with our tax dollars.
One Pilot Mountain area resident from the meeting, who had to defend his property from falling trees and burning stumps rolling down the mountain, is the 7th generation living on property at the foot of the mountain.
Two other residents reported that they were experiencing symptoms of illness from smoke inhalation; one of them with a medical diagnosis.
Not a single apology was offered by the Forest Service. Only comments about how the required protocol was followed, etc…
As taxpayers and stakeholders who own property near forest land, people have the right to be included and actually considered in what approach is taken when prescribed burning is proposed and planned. Performance evaluations of the Forest Service’s record on controlled burns and the public’s right to be heard and included in the decisions to burn in our communities are basic. The government does not have the right to create and implement these programs without our input. The burning program has been touted under ecology and has excluded ordinary people from weighing in on the planning and decision making processes.
Communities that are strongly impacted by these programs must have a voice in these decisions. Collaborative Forest Land Restoration Programs need to include collaborating with potentially impacted communities to determine how to best protect the natural resources and develop a true “collaborative plan”.
The Croatan National Forest was a prescribed burn this spring that was planned for 1500 acres and ended up instead at 21,000 acres. This mistake cost taxpayers $1.2 million dollars. Addressing it in monetary terms is really not enough, the environment can be altered permanently, and not in a good way. One of the invasive species the USFS says they will remove with prescribed fire is the Princess tree, which in fact is opportunistic to burned land.
This handling of the prescribed burn totally left the control of the officials. As someone said "if I started a fire that burned 700 acres, I would be in jail".
Citizens in the Pinnacle town meeting Monday did not express satisfaction with officials responsible. Many were up throughout those many nights protecting their property, wondering where the help was. No one expressed advance knowledge of the burn. A number expressed that they were ill from the smoke.
This industry should not continue on tax payer dollars.
Citizen for transparency