A wildfire's danger doesn't end when the flames go out. Burned slopes shed water and rock, trails collapse, and weeds move in. After the Sourdough Fire in North Cascades National Park, the Department of the Interior sent a Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) team to find those hazards quickly and draw up a long-term plan to stabilize soil, protect visitors, repair trails and infrastructure, and safeguard cultural and natural resources.
A representative of the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe discusses post-fire conditions in Stetattle Creek with archaeologists on the BAER team, September 13, 2023. Credit: National Park Service.
A head start from the fire lines
A standout of the Sourdough response was the coordination between the BAER team and the Resource Advisors (READs). READs deal with the effects of firefighting during a fire; the BAER team deals with the hazards after it. READs had already mapped the critical resources the fire had touched — archaeological sites, backcountry infrastructure and rare whitebark pine — and handed that to the incoming BAER team, which started targeted assessments on its first day.
Floods and boulders
Threats to life and safety come first, and many come from flooding. Fire strips out the roots that hold soil, so rain hits the ground faster than it can soak in. BAER hydrologists took field measurements and simulated storms of different sizes to predict runoff and flood damage.
The Stetattle Creek drainage, where the fire burned, is full of boulders more than two feet wide — big enough in a flood to strike people, trap vehicles and destroy buildings. The team found that Hollywood, a Seattle City Light (SCL) housing area in the Diablo townsite, was now vulnerable: several structures sit near the foot of burned slopes, exposed to tumbling rock and debris and to nuisance flooding. Park staff, the BAER team, SCL, the Natural Resources Conservation Service and the National Weather Service worked together to install protection and control measures around those structures before the rainy season.
A BAER fire ecologist collects data from a burned conifer, September 12, 2023. Credit: National Park Service.
Trails and weeds
| Hazard | What the team found | Recommended |
|---|---|---|
| Trail damage | On the Sourdough Mountain and Stetattle Creek trails, burned roots of old-growth trees left holes in the soil — more than 100 on the Sourdough Mountain Trail alone | Tread repair, stabilizing the trail's outer edge, clearing debris, removing hazard trees |
| Invasive plants | Non-native plants take hold in freshly disturbed ground and slow native recovery; most plants went dormant for winter after the fire | Treatments by restoration crews funded through Burned Area Rehabilitation, as plants emerge in spring |
A BAER fire ecologist hikes in the Stetattle Creek drainage, September 12, 2023. Credit: National Park Service.
When the team leaves
The BAER team's job is the plan; the long-term work starts when it departs. Park staff choose which treatments to adopt and carry them out — repairing trails and infrastructure, treating invasive plants, restoring wildlife habitat, and protecting or rehabilitating cultural resources. That work can take years, because a wildfire can change a landscape, and how it must be managed, for a long time.
A vegetation ecologist surveys the Sourdough Fire footprint, September 9, 2023. Credit: National Park Service.
Sources
Based on "Burned Area Emergency Response team protects visitors and resources from post-fire risk," North Cascades National Park, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain.
In these publicationsNorth Cascades National Park
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain) · Adapted from www.nps.gov
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