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Fire Management in the
Taos-Blue Lake Wilderness
Area 1
Thomas V. Skinner2
Introduction
The Bureau of Indian Affairs
(BIA), in conjunction with Taos
Tribal officials, has developed a
wildfire management plan to permit
wildfires of natural origin to run
their course within portions of the
Taos-Blue Lake Wilderness Area.
Congress established the Taos-Blue
Lake wilderness (fig. 1) in 1970 to
safeguard the interests and welfare
of the Taos Indians because the Taos
Indians have depended upon this
area " .. .for water supply, forage for
domestic livestock, and as the scene
of certain religious ceremonials
(84 Stat. 1437)." This paper describes the process undertaken to
develop this wildfire management
plan and the objectives for wildfire
management in the Taos-Blue Lake
Wilderness.
sources. Blue Lake, located at the
headwaters of the Rio Pueblo de
Taos, is sacred to the Taos Indians
and is the site of certain religious
ceremonials (Collier 1949). The land
surrounding Blue Lake had remained
in the Public Domain until President
Theodore Roosevelt withdrew land
to establish the Taos Forest Reserve
(34 Stat. 3262). Because the Taos Indians protested this withdrawal of
their sacred land, Congress established a special use area that included Blue Lake to protect the Taos
Indians' religious interests (48 Stat.
108). Howe:ver, the Taos Indians de-
cided that this special arrangement
insufficiently protected their sacred
land and they initiated a process to
regain ownership of their sacred
land. In 1970, Congress enacted legislation transferring 48,000 acres of
land to the BIA specifying that the
land be managed according to the
Wilderness Act of 1964 (84 Stat.
1437). The wildfire management plan
described in this paper is the first
complete attempt to actively manage
the Taos-Blue Lake Wilderness Area
in compliance with the Wilderness
Act and in conjunction with Taos
Tribal officials.
Background
The Taos Indians have occupied
the same region of northern New
Mexico for centuries, building a series of pueblos and using the adjacent forest land for its various re-
II Rio Lucero FMZ
D Blue Lake FMZ
'Poster paper presented at the conference. Effects of Rre in Management of
Southwestern Natural Resources (Tucson.
AZ. November 14-17. 1988).
2femporary Forester. USDA Forest Service. Southern Forest Experiment Station.
Starkville. MS.
m§ Southern
FMZ
Figure 1.-Forested portion of the Taos Indian Reservation showing the Taos-Blue Lake Fire
Management Unit and the three fire management zones: Rio Lucero, Blue Lake, and South-
190
Management Plan Development
Process
The Taos-Blue Lake Fire Management Plan (Skinner 1988) was developed in conjunction with tribal officials over a span of two years. Personnel from the BIA along with
Tribal officials resolved to develop a
plan to manage wildfires in the forested portions of the Taos Reservation. The Taos Reservation consists
of six tracts of land; about half of the
land is forested. Both BIA and Tribal
officials decided that the Wilderness
Area (land transferred back to the
tribe in 1970) and the land designated as Tract C should be considered together as the Taos-Blue Lake
Fire Management Unit (fig. 1). The
Unit was subdivided into three fire
management zones: Rio Lucero, Blue
Lake, and Southern (fig. 1).
I collected and analyzed a variety
of data on: fire history, fuel loading,
current forest structure, and others.
The following conclusions were
made: fires had been occurring frequently (average fire return intervals
range from 5 to 20 years) during the
past several centuries but have become infrequent during the 1900's;
fuel conditions fit the standard fuel
models; modeled fire behavior will
permit fires to bum under prescriptions that keep fire behavior below a
four foot flame length threshold
(Deeming et al. 1977).
The BIA and Taos Tribal officials
used these conclusions to develop
two management strategies for the
three fire management zones. The
Blue Lake Zone (fig. 1) would retain
a total suppression posture to protect
the sensitive religious sites within
this zone. The remaining zones
would be subjected to a modified
suppression policy for natural wildfires. This modified suppression
would be determined by an annual
process of ratifying the wildfire man- agement plan with Tribal officials
and by a case-by-case, daily analysis
of wildfires that have ignited within
the modified suppression zones.
Results
I prepared a two-part wildfire
management plan: part one, an operational plan, and part two, background data. The operational plan
will be subjected to annual review
while the background data, which
consists of seven documents (covering fire management objectives, general history, fire history, fire ecologyfire effects, geographic information,
burning prescriptions, and a fire situation analysis) will likely remain unchanged.
The operational plan not only addresses the issues in wildfire management but also refers to agency
policy statements instead of reproducing them. Simply put, the operational plan states the policies that
permit natural wildfire management,
designates where natural wildfires
w_ill be permitted, indicates how
wildfires will be responded to, and
how wildfires will be managed. I intended the operational plan to be
evaluated annually and submitted
for approval to the Taos Pueblo War
Chief (the Tribal entity who governs
land use in the Wilderness Area)
prior to the beginning of the fire season; it terminates annually at the end
of the calendar year.
The background data sections are
independent documents that will
permit interested readers to concentrate on whatever subject area they
are interested in while ignoring other
sections. I anticipated that background data would remain static,
needing only periodic amendments.
The BIA and Tribal officials developed the following fire management
goals and objectives.
Goals: Prevent fires from impacting
ceremonial sites and paths used to
reach these sites, and minimize
participation of non-tribal members in fire suppression in the wilderness area during ceremonial
periods.
Objective: Protect religious and ceremonial sites, identified by the Taos
Pueblo War Chief, and coordinate
191
with the Taos Pueblo War Chief
during ceremonial periods to manage fire solely with Tribal members.
Goal: Manage wilderness for natural
values by allowing fire to play a
natural role in the wilderness.
Objective: Permit fires to bum
within the modified suppression
zones under pre-specified conditions and under close monitoring
to perpetuate natural vegetation
patterns and mosaics.
Goal: Use fire to accomplish desired
management objectives.
Objective: Establish management objectives for the wilderness area
(e.g. create and maintain habitat
for desired wildlife species, reduce
hazardous fuel accumulations) on
an annual basis.
Goal: Protect human life from unwanted fire.
Objective: Coordinate with the Taos
Pueblo War Chief any agreed
upon closure within the wilderness area to protect wilderness users.
Goal: Protect property from unwanted fire.
Objective: Prevent the spread of fires
from Taos Pueblo reservation
Land onto private or USFS land
unless a prior agreement has been
made to permit such a crossing.
Goal: Avoid unacceptable fire effects.
Objectives: Suppress fires within the
modified suppression zone that
cause unacceptable resource impact. Maintain acceptable air quality. Minimize fire caused sedimentation by aggressively suppressing
fires within 100 yards of Rio
Pueblo de Taos and La Junta
Creek.
Goal: Minimize impacts of suppression activities.
Objectives: Use only those tactics required to suppress fires. Use fire
retardants only when necessary.
Avoid using mechanized equipment to suppress wildfire. Prevent
erosion from constructed firelines.
The plan was submitted to the
Taos War Chief for approval and
went into effect on 4 April1988. The
plan will be subjected to an annual
approval process and remains operational until the end of each calendar
year.
Discussion
The Taos-Blue Lake Wilderness
Area is the only Congressionally
identified wilderness area within the
BIA (Tandy 1985). Because a natural
state is important for the religious
practices of the Taos Indians and because the transferring Act mandates
wilderness management within the
Wilderness Area and because competent wilderness management should
include consideration of naturallycaused fires, the BIA developed this
fire management plan.
I structured the plan in two parts
because I felt that although the background data are important, they
should not encumber the annual
evaluation and implementation of
the operational plan. However, the
background data can be appended as
data becomes available. For example,
fire management objectives should
be evaluated periodically as should
the fire situation analysis procedure.
However, fire history data, fire ecology information, and geographic information are unlikely to change.
War Chiefs and members of their
staff.
Literature Cited
Collier, J. 1949. On the gleaming way.
Swallow. Chicago. 163 p.
Deeming, J. E., R. E. Burgan, and J. E.
Cohen. 1977. The National FireDanger Rating System-1978.
USDA For. Serv., Gen. Tech. Rep.
INT-39, 63 p., Inter. For. and
Range Exp. Sta., Ogden, UT.
Skinner, T.V. 1988. Fire management
plan for the Taos-Blue Lake Wilderness Area. Northern Pueblos
Agency, Santa Fe, NM.
Tandy, C. W. 1985. Fire management
policy and programs for BIA-administered wilderness. pp. 30-31.
IN: USDA For. Serv., Gen. Tech.
Rep. INT-182, Inter. For. and
~ange Exp. Sta., Ogden, UT.
Acknowledgments
The Taos-Blue Lake Fire Management Plan was prepared with special
project funding from the Boise Interagency Fire Center, Northern Pueblos Agency, and Albuquerque Area
Office, all for the Bureau of Indian
Affairs. The plan was prepared while
the author was a temporary Forester
at Northern Pueblos Agency. Preparation of this paper was done solely
at the author's expense. Presentation
of this paper was supported by both
the BIA and the USFS. This plan has
had the support of the Taos Pueblo
192