Online Exclusive: Western Wildfires – Past Present & Future

This is the second in a series of posts by Field Reporter Joe Nick Patoski that looks at the wildfires currently raging out West.

With the Waldo Canyon and the House Park fires raging for weeks, the month of June goes down as the most destructive for wildfires since Colorado became a state.

It wasn’t always this way.

Early accounts of wildfires in the American West by European settlers were spotty, at best, mainly because the West is so big and there were so few settlers, at least at first.

When forests burned, there was very little anyone could to do in response to protect property but let the fire burn, which is precisely what Native American tribes did when a big burn ignited.

Fire-fighting techniques have improved considerably over time, especially in the past 25 years. But even with the development of fire-retardants, employment of aircraft, smarter strategies, and constantly better technology, wildfires persist. If anything, man appears to be losing ground to nature on flame front.

Fire is part of a forest’s life cycle, taking down dead and sickly timber, clearing out brush and understory, and scarifying seedlings that require intense heat in order to germinate. It works the same way on prairie grasslands and the plains. Without fire, the vegetation wouldn’t thrive.

Even severe fires caused by heavy fuel loads are normal cyclical occurrences; the big differences are how the cycles have become more frequent, and how more than a century of fire suppression as sound land management, a philosophy spurred largely by the establishment of cattle and other livestock operations, has created an unprecedented heavy fuel load.

It’s important to note that different types forests burn differently, depending on the dominant forest tree and elevation.  A century can pass between severe wildfires in high elevation forests dominated by lodgepole pine, aspen, spruce, and Douglas fir. Lower elevation forests with piñon pine, and junipers tend to be drier which leads to more frequent fire events – every decade or two. This keeps forests open and less dense.

The West used to be emptier too. Construction of homes in and around forests has skyrocketed since the 1970s, creating a precarious wildlands-urban interface (WUI) as Colorado State researchers David M. Theobald and William Romme label it. As civilization encroaches, management of forests becomes considerably more difficult. And what provides bucolic scenery most of the time to those arboreal interlopers also provides all the necessary tinder to leave nothing but ashes if flames reach a domicile.

Nationwide, the WUI encompasses an area about 14% larger than the state of California, with an estimated 89% of that wildlands-urban interface privately-owned. That means it is private landowners who will most likely shoulder the burden of wildfire management and prevention strategies such as managed thinning of forest and prescribed burns.  Federal and state government planning is limited to federally- and state-owned lands.

Still, sound management practices can only do so much.  Increased human population, construction in the wildlife-urban interface, a build-up of tinder in the understory due to more than a century of fire suppression are mere enablers compared to a warming climate. Increased temperatures leading to earlier spring thaws and less snow melt appears to be the biggest driver behind the increase of severe wildfires.

The West was considerably wetter when wildfires in the American West first began to be studied. The climate has turned drier over the past century and a half. Add to that a perfect storm of more immediate weather conditions: the interior West is in extreme drought and in late June, a record-breaking heat wave settled over the southern and central Rocky Mountains accompanied by dry humidity and winds.

Katharine Hayhoe is an atmospheric scientist at Texas Tech University. She is also the co-author of a study that appeared in the journal Ecosphere concluding the risk of wildfires in the American west will increase as a result of climate change.

“Climate change is shifting rainfall patterns around the world,” Hayhoe told the Living on Earth radio program. “We’re also seeing that climate change is increasing our average temperatures, which raises the risk of having those hot, dry conditions that we need for a wildfire to spread.”

Colorado is fortunate to have numerous experts at Colorado State University who are studying the past, present, and future of western wildfires.

“A great understanding has developed about historical fire stories in Colorado,” says Dan Binkley, Professor of Forest Ecology at Colorado State. “The first thing to emphasize is we have a grand variety of forests across the West, and the fire stories that go with the landscapes are very different for different types of forests.”

Depending on one’s location, property owners have tools to prepare and protect themselves and their property, says Binkley.

“For homeowners, the most effective options are to learn about ‘firewise’ treatments to reduce the flammability of the local area around a house; join with a community to develop a Community Wildlife Protection Plan; and work with the community and adjacent land managers, such as public land people, to reduce the most severe risks at landscape scales. “

Binkley recommends tapping into the Colorado State Forest Service for information on all the above options.  The statewide forestry staff visits and works with Colorado landowners.

All well, and good, but reality has yet to catch up to the knowledge. Since 2002, the contracted fleet of airborne fire-fighting tankers that the US Forest Service depends on has declined from 44 to nine while there have been six deadly crashes, all of them involving aircraft more than 50 years old.

Similarly, the US Fire Protection Program Analysis system, which was launched in 2002 in response to a history of all-out fire suppression, has yet to be implemented, although the computerized program that would coordinate fire-fighting agencies and responders to assess and reduce risk and control costs, was supposed to be online in 2007.

The failure to efficiently coordinate agencies and responders mattered not a whit to Dr. Bonnie Warnock, chair of Natural Resource Management at Sul Ross State University in Alpine, who got a call at the school last year that her ranch was burning.

“My heart said no but my head said it was OK,” she said.

Dr. Warnock rushed to her place.

“It was very stressful. The whole back pasture was burned, the boundary fence was on the ground. What do I do? I had not planned at all. How do I deal with this financially and emotionally? We have to sell one-third of our cows. We don’t have enough feed. That’s a capital investment for us that we are having to sell off and we’ll have to buy more back,” Warnock said.

She knew too well the fire was part of the process.

“Historically, our landscape did evolve with fire. If you’re looking at it from a plant perspective, this is not a catastrophe. This is a natural occurrence for the semiarid ecosystem we live in. Typically, we have two or three wet years followed by a dry year during which lightning strikes cause wildfires. This process has maintained the grasslands and kept brush from encroaching.”

That is, until the pioneers arrived and established permanent communities. “When early European settlement of this region began in the late 1800s, there was a lack of understanding of this process and land was overstocked and overgrazed,” Dr. Warnock said. “Drought was something the settlers weren’t experienced with. The overstocking and overgrazing removed the grass and fires disappeared from the Trans-Pecos.”

Range science changed that practice. “Since the science of range management developed in the 1950s, our ranchers have done a good job,” Dr. Warnock pointed out, while adding the caveat that even sound practices can do only so much.

“Through this most recent wet period, they haven’t been overgrazing and overstocking, which has benefitted the ecosystem. But over the past three years, we’ve grown a huge amount of fuel in the Trans-Pecos, so the first fire in 100-150 years since the region had been settled was extremely large. It was so big we weren’t prepared to deal with it. This is unprecedented.”

As critical as the drought and wildfires have been, the next few months afterwards were even more critical. “If we get rain in the next month or so, the country will come back and look better.  If it doesn’t rain we will lose perennial grasses and see an increase of desertification,” Warnock said.

This awareness has led to the formation of a non-profit association in Far West Texas that uses prescribed fire as a management tool to reduce fuel loads. “Going forward, this is something we need if we are going to have green grass,” Dr. Warnock says, acknowledging a perception issue with prescribed burning from city and town dwellers and the new breed residing in the wildland-urban interface.”

“These people are at the highest risk if a prescribed burn gets away and at the greatest risk from wildfire. Most of these people come from cities and are not supportive of prescribed fire. That makes it difficult to employ this tool,” Dr. Warnock says. “There is a lot of support for prescribed fires by ranchers. We need to educate small landowners living on the edge of towns.”

“We need to work on finding mechanisms to reduce accidents. How do you keep people from welding or throwing out a cigarette when there’s 45 mile per hour winds and 2 percent humidity? “

Like the rest of us, even though she knows what she knows, Dr. Warnock has no interest in seeing it all happen again.

Read part one of this series here.

Photo Credit: Don Savage Photography

Land Report July 2012 Newsletter

WATER. Thanks to the ongoing drought and a spate of wildfires, it’s a top priority for landowners from coast to coast this summer.

Be sure to check out ways to improve your waters courtesy of the Summer issue of The Magazine of the American Landowner. Mike Sprague at Trout Headwaters shares a variety of different ways to use water to add beauty – and value – to your property, and many of the improvements he suggests are low cost or no cost. Read more HERE.

For up to the minute reports on listings, auctions, sales, and breaking news pertaining to land and landowners, be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

The Land Report Summer 2012

Did you know that the Supreme Court just issued a landmark ruling? I’m not talking about health care. I’m talking about land. That’s right, the high court came down 9-0 for landowners in a suit that was brought against the EPA by Idaho’s Sackett family.

We’ve been following Sackett v. EPA for over a year. It’s one of the many eye-opening stories you’ll enjoy in the Summer 2012 issue of The Land Report, now on newsstands from coast to coast.

You can access the digital edition free of charge HERE.

Our summer issue also features the story of an innovative gift to the University of Wyoming, one that kicks in when Wyoming’s River Bend Ranch sells. It’s a great example of stewardship, one that Greg Fay brought to us and that we are proud to share. Learn five great ways to add value and beauty to your land by improving your waters. And be sure to have a look at our third annual roundup of the nation’s leading auction houses. No surprise here … farmland prices continue to best record highs.

So be our guest and enjoy our latest issue HERE.

For more up to the minute reports on listings, auctions, sales, and breaking news pertaining to land and landowners, be sure to follow The Magazine of the American Landowner on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

P.S. Our award-winning quarterly magazine is available in a print version via subscription.

Land Report May 2012 Newsletter

Many items to consider from our May newsletter, but let’s stick to page one material. The Land Report Top Ten has a brand-new look with Montana’s Broken O Ranch now crowning the list. The 124,000-acre Bates Sanders Swan listing features more than 20 miles of the Sun River, carries 3,500 mother cows, and produces about 25,000 tons of alfalfa hay and 700,000 bushels of small grain crops annually. At $132.5 million, it’s not a ranch. It’s a hedge fund, one built on a rock-solid agricultural asset.

Two properties have joined the Top Ten: Hawaii’s Dillingham Ranch, our new No. 5 at $65 million, which is listed by Zackary Wright with Christie’s; and Swain’s Neck on Nantucket Island, the new No. 7 at $59 million, courtesy of Gary Winn at Maury People Sotheby’s International Realty. There has been a $5 million reduction on No. 4 California’s Rancho Dos Pueblos, which Kerry Mormann & Associates now has listed for $79 million.

For more up to the minute reports on listings, auctions, sales, and breaking news pertaining to land and landowners, be sure to follow The Magazine of the American Landowner on Facebook and Twitter. The Land Report is now on Pinterest.

P.S. Our award-winning quarterly magazine is available in a print version via subscription.

Land Report April 2012 Newsletter

Our April newsletter features more reports from the Federal Reserve on rising ag land values. The Seventh District, which is based out of Chicago and is home to a wide swath of the Midwest, saw a 22%  increase in land values last year. This spike corroborates activity seen in other ag-related markets, such as Hall & Hall’s successful auction of Oklahoma’s Waurika Farms for $11 million on April 12.

For more up to the minute reports on listings, auctions, sales, and breaking news pertaining to land and landowners, be sure to follow The Magazine of the American Landowner on Facebook and Twitter. The Land Report is also on Pinterest.

P.S. Our award-winning quarterly magazine is available in a print version via subscription.

Sold! Fortress Cliffs Ranch

MARCH 29, 2012 POST:
Texas Parks & Wildlife voted to sell 2,014 acres of the Fortress Cliffs Ranch adjoining Palo Duro Canyon State Park to Sooter Ranch of Perryton for $2.4 million. The acreage is under a conservation easement held by the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department.

Read more HERE.

SEPTEMBER 17, 2008 POST:

Almost 3,000 pristine acres valued at more than $5 million along the rim of Palo Duro Canyon has been sold to The Trust for Public Land (TPL), a nonprofit land conservation organization. After purchasing the Texas Panhandle property, TPL immediately transferred it to Texas Parks & Wildlife, thus increasing the size of Palo Duro Canyon State Park by nearly 10 percent.

“The sale of this property represents the core of our company’s mission,” says John Watson, President & CEO of Orvis/Cushman & Wakefield in Colorado Springs, which brokered the sale.

Watson spent more than a year spearheading the deal: securing the listing, seeking out TPL and introducing them to Texas Parks & Wildlife, and then patiently shepherding the transaction through numerous appraisals and reviews. “There is a finite supply of investment-grade recreational properties, and Orvis/Cushman & Wakefield’s goal is to find the best stewards for the protection and appreciation of the land,” Watson added.

A spectacular sporting and recreational property, the 2,864-acre Fortress Cliffs Ranch was recently appraised at $5.22 million ($1,800+ per acre). By deeding it to the State of Texas, TPL increased the size of the adjacent 29,187-acre Palo Duro Canyon State Park by almost 10 percent. “The rare chance to protect six miles of cliffs overlooking the Grand Canyon of Texas, to keep that bluff looking the way the first Texans saw it — this is unparalleled,” said Carter Smith, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department executive director. “I know all Texans can appreciate the significance of this acquisition for our park system. It’s for everyone alive today, and for generations to come.”

The deal closed on August 28.

The Land Report Spring 2012

Enjoy the Spring issue of The Land Report!

Learn the stories of America’s Best Brokerages in our second annual survey. More than 70 are profiled from coast to coast. Read how Bernie Uechtritz pulled off 2011′s Deal of the Year by selling Camp Cooley Ranch in just 45 days. Find out why George Clooney has such strong ties to the land in the Academy Award-winning movie The Descendants.

For more up to the minute reports on listings, auctions, sales, and breaking news pertaining to land and landowners, be sure to follow The Magazine of the American Landowner on Facebook and Twitter. Better yet, Land Report is now on Pinterest.

P.S. Our award-winning quarterly magazine is available in a print version via subscription.

Land Report March 2012 Newsletter

The Spring issue of The Land Report has arrived!

Right now it’s en route to bookstores such as Barnes & Noble and subscribers’ offices around the world, but thanks to the miracles of modern technology you can read right now right HERE.

Learn the stories of America’s Best Brokerages in our second annual survey. More than 70 are profiled from coast to coast. Read how Bernie Uechtritz pulled off 2011′s Deal of the Year by selling Camp Cooley Ranch in just 45 days. Find out why George Clooney has such strong ties to the land in the Academy Award-winning movie The Descendants.

For more up to the minute reports on listings, auctions, sales, and breaking news pertaining to land and landowners, be sure to follow The Magazine of the American Landowner on Facebook and Twitter. Better yet, Land Report is now on Pinterest.

P.S. Our award-winning quarterly magazine is available in a print version via subscription.

Land Report February 2012 Newsletter

More and more investors are turning to land. Not only is it a safe haven for their capital, but in many instances it can throw off steady revenue streams. The February edition of the Land Report newsletter showcases numerous properties with substantial income-generating potential.

Let’s start with Hudye Farm: almost 18,000 acres of dryland and irrigated farming along the Colorado-Kansas state line.

Add to this Montana’s Broken O Ranch, which features The Treasure State’s largest block of irrigated land as well as an impressive cow-calf operation and significant recreational income.

We also provide hyperlinks to eight other properties in The Land Report Top Ten, including several significant cattle operations with proven returns, including Hawaii’s Hana Ranch, Texas’s Rockpile Ranch, and Montana’s Dana Ranch.

For more up to the minute reports on listings, auctions, sales, and breaking news pertaining to land and landowners, be sure to follow The Magazine of the American Landowner on Facebook and Twitter.

P.S. Our award-winning quarterly magazine is available in a print version via subscription.

For Sale: Northern California Recreational Ranches

World Class Hunting and Ranching in Mendocino County, California

Located at the southern end of the scenic Round Valley, the historical Hop and Barley Ranch (pictured above) features fertile farm land on the valley floor, beautiful lush forests and meadows in a mountain-like setting, with rolling grasslands and a mile-and-a-half river frontage.

At 6,420± acres, this legacy ranch is teaming with an array of wildlife, from trophy blacktail deer, Tule elk, and cougars to pigs, bears, quail, turkey and dove.

Well-rounded improvements complement the ranch built of redwood siding with corrugated metal roofing for the classic rustic ranch look, reminiscent of a John Wayne movie. A ranch of this size and diversity is a rare find and only a four-hour drive from the greater San Francisco Bay Area.

Available for $14 million, this property is listed with The Chickering Company. For more information, contact Terry Hundemer at (503) 265-5774 or at ranches@chickeringco.com.

Spring Creek Ranch in Fall River Mills, California

Located near the Fall River Valley in California, Spring Creek Ranch is one of America’s finest trophy trout ranches.

At 1,346± acres, this ranch is one of the best fly-fishing ranches with private fishing water on the headwaters of the most prolific spring creek wild rainbow trout fishery in the country, with the average catch in the 3-6 pound range. This ranch also fronts a second spring creek, Lava Creek, as well as frontage on the world renowned Fall River and is home to abundant migratory waterfowl including ducks, geese, pelicans, egrets, herons and swans.

Spring Creek Ranch is a true wildlife refuge in a beautiful mountain area featuring stunning views of Mount Shasta to the north.

This property is listed for $12 million. For more information, contact Terry Hundemer at (503) 265-5774 or at ranches@chickeringco.com.

South Battle Creek Ranches in Mt. Lassen Foothills, California

The Oasis Springs Lodge and the Rocky Springs Ranch, collectively known as the South Battle Creek Ranches, are a quintessential sportsman’s paradise.

Oasis Springs Lodge
Situated near the small foothill community of Payne Creek, the Oasis Springs Lodge overlooks a private crystal clear trophy-trout stream on the lower flanks of Mount Lassen.

Encompassing over 1,100 acres of range-land and meadows interspersed with blue oak woodlands, this ranch is punctuated by fresh water springs, ferns, alders and willows along the South Fork of Battle Creek. A true fly-fisherman’s oasis, the Oasis Springs Lodge boasts some of the most productive fly-fishing streams in California.

Surrounded by some of the richest wildlife habitat in the Western states, it’s common to observe one of the state’s largest migratory deer herds traveling through the area. Other wildlife includes bears, mountain lions, eagles, hawks, quail, dove and wild turkey.

Rocky Springs Ranch
Located in the Mount Lassen foothills of northern California, Rocky Springs Ranch features world-class deer, dove and quail hunting, plus amazing trout fishing.

With nearly 3,000 acres of rolling meadows and blue oak woodlands, this ranch is home to one of the largest migratory deer herds in the state and also provides prime habitat for dove, quail, and wild turkey.

Panoramic views of Mount Lassen to the east and the adjoining ranches and the Sacramento River Valley below can be enjoyed from most areas of the ranch.

Totaling 4,137± acres, these two ranches can be purchased together for $9.39 million (The ranches are each owned by separate entities and are also available separately for $4.895 million and $4.495 million, respectively). Contact Terry Hundemer with The Chickering Company at (503) 265-5774 or at ranches@chickeringco.com for more information.

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