ENVIRONMENT
Forest Service: 80% of soil across Frijoles Fire burned at low severity, lands reopen
Report suggests post-fire effects from 15,483-acre blaze could be short-lived and benefit forest health
Published
Though tense for nearby villages, disruptive to local water systems and taxing for fire teams, the Frijoles Fire wasn鈥檛 a catastrophe for Santa Fe National Forest, according to an initial post-fire analysis.
The 15,483-acre blaze will also likely benefit much of the forest鈥檚 ecosystem in the long term.
Using a combination of satellite imaging and on-the-ground observations this week, the U.S. Forest Service released a map on Thursday evaluating how severely soil burned in the wildfire's footprint.
It shows that approximately 80% of the forest鈥檚 foundation burned at low severity, very-low severity or not at all, confirming a preliminary report. Another 15% of the forest burned moderately and 5% burned severely, primarily around its northeastern boundary.
Fire personnel continue to monitor that section of the fire, south of the Rio Medio in the western heights of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, where flames remain active in mixed-conifer forest.
Forest health
Burn severity varies across a forest due to homogenous patterns in tree species, age and density, a pattern foresters describe as 鈥渕osaic.鈥�
鈥淚 think we are still in good fire territory,鈥� Andrei Toca, a research scientist at the John T. Harrington Forestry Research Center in Mora, said earlier this week. 鈥淲e want a future mosaic forest where we don鈥檛 have the same structure continuously that can cause fire to travel very fast.鈥�
Forest Service Project Manager Sandra Dingman said the preservation of soil health over much of the burn scar is good news for downstream water users, despite early runoff through the Rio Frijoles and Santa Cruz watersheds that carried sediment into acequias and Santa Cruz Lake.
Foresters also believe the low-intensity wildfire cleared a large swath of accumulated dead and downed debris. Controlled burns and prescribed burns have emerged as essential tools to mitigate the risk of catastrophic wildfires in the 21st century following a generation of natural fire suppression.
Natural, low-intensity wildfires can also by delivering essential nutrients to the earth through burnt organic matter, which creates a kind of natural fertilizer.
What鈥檚 next
Wildland crews will continue suppression and monitoring efforts even as the Forest Service lifts its temporary closure order for the Espa帽ola Ranger District on Saturday.
The temporary closure order was enacted Aug. 15, a week and a half after the Frijoles Fire originated from a lightning strike in the Pecos Wilderness on Aug. 4.
The Forest Service plans to release its full post-fire summary next week.
John Miller is the 近距离内射合集鈥檚 northern New Mexico correspondent. He can be reached at jmiller@abqjournal.com.
