Redwood Meadow Ranger Station wrapped for protection during the Redwood Fire. N. Chavira/NPS.
In August and September 2023, fire managers in Sequoia National Park fought the Redwood Fire with a confine-and-contain strategy: instead of attacking the fire directly, they held it within natural and existing barriers. That let the park limit how long the fire burned and manage its risks while still letting it do its essential work on the landscape.
A fire in the wrong place, at the right time
Lightning started the Redwood Fire in designated wilderness. Under the park's fire and fuels management plan, confine-and-contain may be used when it does not pose an unacceptable risk. This fire was found less than an eighth of a mile uphill from the giant sequoias of Redwood Meadow Grove, and near Little Redwood Meadow Grove and Granite Creek Grove.
After a century without fire, all three groves had been identified in 2022 as critically at risk. Their dense trees and heavy buildup of dead and fallen vegetation resembled conditions in places like the southern Redwood Mountain Grove and Board Camp Grove, which burned so severely in the droughts of 2020 and 2021 that vast stands of mature giant sequoias were killed outright, something unprecedented in the trees' long history. Park leaders knew that without proactive fuel reduction, these groves could suffer the same fate in a future drought. In October 2022, park crews began a multiyear project of thinning the understory, piling and burning excess fuel, and broadcast prescribed burning in a designated unit.
Turning a threat into an opportunity
The Redwood Fire offered a chance to go further. Existing barriers, including the scar of the KNP Complex Fire, flowing creeks, trails and rocky ground, formed a containment area that needed little reinforcement. Because no new hand lines had to be cut, the damage to wilderness that usually comes with fire suppression was much reduced. Live fuel and 1,000-hour fuel moistures were well above seasonal averages, so managers could keep the fire's intensity moderate with backfiring and make sure its effects in the sequoia groves would be beneficial.
The Redwood Fire stayed low in intensity as it spread. R. Garlapow/NPS.
The result
The strategy, and the field crews' hard work, brought low-intensity fire back to 1,957 acres of mixed conifer forest, including 152 acres within the three giant sequoia groves. The groves and the forest around them are now more resilient, better able to survive future high-intensity wildfires and to slow their spread.
Sources
- National Park Service, Wildland Fire, "Redwood Fire confine and contain suppression operation." https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/redwood-fire-suppression.htm
- NPS, "Wildland Firefighting Tactics": https://www.nps.gov/subjects/fire/wildland-firefighting-tactics.htm; "Understanding Fire Danger": https://www.nps.gov/articles/understanding-fire-danger.htm
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain) · Adapted from www.nps.gov
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