Snow blankets the landscape in north central Washington. What you can’t see is the scorched earth left from last summer’s Carlton Complex fire.
Even through the snow, Susan Prichard, a fire ecologist for the University of Washington, can see the damage. She can also see signs of recovery in the bitterbrush and aspen trees. “Aspen, and cottonwood and willow species are all very fire adapted and disturbance adapted in that they’re sprouters,” Prichard said. “We’ve already seen, even in the fall following the Carlton Complex fire, just amazing sprouting by the aspen in particular.”
Although these aspen trees are resprouting, the fire last summer damaged other areas far more severely. The Carlton Complex fire burned more than a quarter million acres — most of it in less than two days, as 30 mile-per-hour winds pushed hot smoke and embers through Okanogan County. Fire swept across shrublands and blazed through forests.
Prichard was driving from Seattle to her home in Winthrop just as the fire picked up. “I saw the plume of smoke, and I felt the wind,” Prichard said. “At that moment, I hadn’t even possibly considered that the fire could possibly race all the way down to the Columbia River.”
All she could think about was the town of Pateros, right in the path of the firestorm. More than 300 homes were destroyed in the Carlton Complex. Prichard said it could take half a century or more for this area to recover. But there are ways to slow future wildfires.
From Jefferson Public Radio: https://ijpr.org/post/can-northwest-forests-be-protected-future-mega-fires?utm_source=WIT020615&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=WeekInTrees