BOISE, Idaho--The fire season started early in 2000, on Jan. 1 to be exact, when a fire near Ft. Meyers, Florida, blackened about a quarter-acre. And the season lasted long into the fall--active fires were still burning in November. Nationally, more than 92,000 fires burned 7.3 million acres.

The duration of the season and the geographical breadth of the season set it apart. During one period, nine of the 11 geographic areas in the United States had major wildland fires burning simultaneously. Fire managers usually consider the season difficult when three or four of these geographic areas are experiencing active large fires at the same time.

Almost lost amid the national attention given to the widespread wildfires--and the hard hit forests of Idaho and Montana--was the fact that the BLM experienced a demanding season of its own. When it was all added up, almost 1.7 million acres of BLM land burned in 2000, with Nevada, Idaho, Utah, and Oregon taking the brunt of it. Those four states accounted for a little more than three-quarters of the burned acres in the agency.

"Overall, we had a tough season. We didn't always have the resources we needed, in terms of people and equipment," said Sheldon Wimmer, state fire management officer for BLM in Utah. "But we were lucky. It could have been a lot worse."

Bill Clark, BLM's fire management officer in Idaho, agreed. "It was windy, dry, with low relative humidity, and we have lots of flashy, fine fuels in Idaho, perfect conditions for fire."

The lightning-caused High Point fire in southern Idaho illustrates his point. "It burned 22,000 acres in less than 45 minutes. It burned so hard that we didn't even have time to get people on it early, which probably was a fortunate thing," Clark said.

As dicey as the season was at times, "It was not the worst fire season in Idaho from a BLM perspective," Clark noted. "It was above average. We didn't lose many houses, and (BLM) people didn't die on the fireline." His assessment of Idaho fits most of BLM. Preparation, initial attack, cooperation, and a little plain luck kept the season from being worse.

Early warnings played a key role, Wimmer explained. "We had advance notice that it was going to be a dry season by monitoring conditions. When we saw that we were in trouble early, the national office stepped in with severity money, which helped us prepare," he said. Clark credits initial attack efforts with curbing fire damage. Initial attack crews, the forces first on the scene, contained about 95 percent of blazes before they turned into large project fires.

"Conditions were as bad as I've seen in my 30 years of firefighting," Clark said. "But initial attack crews were phenomenal. Very few fires got away."

Clark and Wimmer both said that resources were thin, as crews and equipment were shuffled elsewhere to fight the largest and most stubborn fires. But it was that same attitude of cooperation that probably kept some communities standing.

Larry Hamilton is BLM's director of the Office of Fire and Aviation, located at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise. Looking back at the 2000 season, he said that the cooperation among agencies, local governments, the military, and others is one highlight of the recent season.

"When one area ran out of resources, another stepped in to fill the void. The cooperation we had with the other Interior agencies and the Forest Service, the U.S. military, plus state and local organizations, was excellent. It truly was a national effort," Hamilton said. Six battalions of troops from the Army and Marines served on firelines during the season.

The cooperation extended beyond the U.S. borders. Fire-fighting and management assistance was supplied from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Mexico. It was the first time fire managers from Australia and New Zealand came to the United States to help battle wildland fires.

Awareness of wildland fire may be at an all-time high, fire officials believe. The public interest and concern was one reason behind Congress allocating the $1.8 billion increase to the firefighting agencies to fully fund fire preparedness, fire operations, and rural fire assistance efforts.

"The American public and Congress have become very aware that the problems associated with wildland fire won't go away without sustained, increased capabilities," said Hamilton. "This is a long-term solution, not a short-term fix."

Fire managers welcome the added funding. It gives them the chance to move beyond the traditional fire prevention and fire suppression activities. "We need to move into an aggressive fuels mitigation program, one that goes beyond just the wildland-urban interface issues," Clark explained. "We need to look at fire management on a landscape basis."

Some old-fashioned luck also helped out this season. Though the ingredients were all in place to create a disastrous fire season, Nature tossed firefighters an occasional welcomed break. Predicted wind didn't materialize on several key days in areas hit hard by fire. Dry lightning sometimes forked down in limited geographic areas where the few available firefighting resources available could handle new ignitions. And a strong storm system blew across the northern tier of states over Labor Day weekend, marking the beginning of the end for large, stubborn fires in Idaho and Montana.

Will the country ever see another fire year like 2000, one that started on New Year's Day and ran deep into the fall, costing $1.6 billion to fight? Probably so, Wimmer said.

"My answer is, yes we will see seasons like this one, if we don't learn from our experiences. Weather conditions and long, hot summers are a way of life in the West, and we must manage our natural resources to mitigate and live with wildland fire."

Hamilton added his warning. "Sometime in the future, Nature will create all the wrong conditions for fire season, and we'll face a season at least similar to the one we just finished," he predicted. "But we'll be as ready as possible for it, and until then, we'll do everything we can to minimize the effects."

Partnership With Conservation Group
Helps to Protect Federal, Private Land

The National Association of Conservation Districts and the BLM have entered an agreement that signals the beginning of a new cooperative working relationship that can help the bureau more effectively carry out its wildfire reduction program and other land management missions on a landscape scale. Larry Finfer, BLM's assistant director for Communications, and Rudy Rice, president of the association, signed a Memorandum of Understanding at the group's annual meeting in Fort Worth, Texas.

"Many of the BLM's field offices have MOUs and cooperative agreements with local conservation districts," Finfer noted. "Having an MOU on a national level enables the BLM to broaden and strengthen these relationships and further our conservation efforts."

The agreement can help the BLM as it pursues, along with the USDA Forest Service, a cohesive strategy to reduce the threat of wildfires in the West. Most BLM land in the western states is situated within a checkerboard pattern of ownership, or in larger blocks of land with intermixed ownerships--private, state, and county. This presents a challenge in managing land on a landscape scale.

"Through the National Association of Conservation Districts and other partners, federal agencies can be far more effective in carrying out a landscape approach to fuel hazard reduction," Finfer added. "This will increase the effectiveness of the treatments, while addressing landscape-level soil, water, and sensitive species concerns. NACD can help to bridge this critical gap to local landowners and the community."

The association is the national model of locally led conservation efforts, providing guidance and advice on conservation practices on private lands and has common interests with adjacent federal land managers on joint resource conservation projects. Finfer noted the agreement also provides opportunities for cooperation in dealing with other land management issues, such as erosion, stream temperatures, threatened and endangered aquatic species, and related riparian species health and diversity.

Under the pact, BLM resource professionals will provide technical assistance to the association through their participation with its resource committees. Cynthia Moses-Nedd was named association liaison for BLM. She also is liaison with the National Association of Counties.

The MOU also outlines a plan for action at the local level: the BLM will provide technical support and, through separate pacts, fiscal and administrative support to local conservation districts, as appropriate, to further its mission of managing the public lands. MOUs will also be developed at other levels, such as BLM state offices with state-level soil and water conservation agencies, and/or local BLM field offices with local conservation districts.

"Those agreements will address specific issues of regional or local concern, but within the general parameters of this MOU," said Bill Horvath, policy director for the association. That effort will be under the direction of the group's Forest Resources Committee. "It's the next logical step in fulfilling the MOU," Horvath said.