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Burning Policies of the
Natural Resources Conservation Service
Dan Robinett
12
'
ABSTRACT
I am going to talk about the agency I work for and our workload
here in Southern Arizona. We are working with private ranchers on
non federal land, to get fire back on those ecosystems, and mesh it
with grazing management. One of the biggest problems confronting
us is to use fire on a large scale off federal lands. The agency I work
for (Soil Conservation Service) is now called the Natural Resources
Conservation Service and is in the Department of Agriculture. It was
established in the 1930's as a federal agency (that did not own land)
to work with private lands owners (people on non federal lands) to
help them better manage their natural resources. In southeastern
Arizona, we work on about 10.5 million acres of non federal land.
That includes state land, private land, and Native American land, in
Cochise, Gila, Graham, Greenlee, Pima, Pinal and Santa Cruz
counties. In this area we have, including myself, seven range
management specialists working at the various offices. Each one of
these range specialists works with from 40 to 70 private ranchers. In
each of those workload areas, during my career which spans 25
years, only about two or three ranchers, have done or and are doing
any prescribed burning. So, that's a pretty low number and I would
like to talk about the reasons for that. And, maybe just throw this
information out to see what kind of ideas it will generate from people
as to how we might improve.
PAST AND CURRENT PRACTICES
The extent of burning in the past 15 years within this 10.5 million acre area ranges from 1,000
to 10,000 acres per year. That's a pretty small percentage. In drought years we don't do any. The
ranchers who are practicing prescribed burning, tend to have some characteristics in common. They
tend to have very large land areas, which means they have a lot of flexibility. They tend to
conservatively stock their land, which means they have a lot of grass left over in June when its time
to burn. They are people who have been there a long time, they have had a long tenure on the
land, and are from some of the older families. And, they tend to be strong in range management.
They are a little more progressive, and are looking to go beyond simple grazing management
practices.
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Summarized by Carolyn Painterr Cente( for Environmental Studies, Arizona State University,
Tempe, AZ.
Natural Resources Conservation Service, Tucson, AZ.
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These ranchers have to integrate fire management and grazing management. They have to defer
areas that they are going to burn to accumulate fine fuel. Typically on our desert grasslands that
means you have to defer a piece of ground out a year or two. After the fire, they have to defer from
grazing for at least two growing seasons to allow the plants that we are trying to encourage to
replace the plants we have removed. This has a cost. For some comparative figures, here in
southern Arizona we value an Animal Unit Month of grazing to a rancher that owns his ranch at
between $2 and $3. An Animal Unit Month of grazing is enough forage to sustain one cow for one
month. On a 2,000 acre area, with a carrying capacity of ten animals to the section, the pasture is
providing the rancher about 375 Animal Unit Months (a year) of grazing. At $2.50 an AUM, that's
worth about $940. To defer that pasture for the three years needed to accumulate fuel and get the
benefits from the prescribed burn, the grazing value equals about $2,800 dollars.
Other costs associated with the burn include construction of fire lines, and the actual cost of
burning. Usually they do the burning by themselves. We may have help from various federal
agencies that might be near by. State Land Department has helped us, as well as the BLM, Forest
Service, and Fish and Wildlife Service. But, the actual cost to the rancher on these burns usually
comes out to anywhere between $2 and $3 an acre. That doesn't sound like a lot of money, but
when a ranch is making $50 a cow a year out there, that is a lot of money. What are the returns to
the rancher from prescribed burning? What kind of benefits do they need to make this a decent
investment? If an Animal Unit Month is worth $2.50, with even a low rate of return on that 2,000
acre burn, the rancher would have to generate an additional 1700 or 1800 Animal Unit Months of
grazing over the life of the practice (seven or eight years) to make a 2% or 3% return on the
investment. In my experience, that happens very seldom. We have a few plant communities where
we have enough shrubs that are easily killed by fire and it is easy enough to get grasses back in
their place to generate that much additional carrying capacity. The prescribed burns are not very
cost effective practices, and that is one reason why we are not seeing a lot of ranchers doing it.
There are a few other benefits to prescribed burning that can figure in. They have not been
quantified very well. One of them includes making it a little easier to find livestock and handle them.
With a lower density of brush and cactus out there, sometimes it's a little bit easier to round them
up, and move them from pasture to pasture. Livestock do a little better on burned areas for a few
years. Increased performance and increased calf crops can result. That has not been quantified
that very well. Even those returns are pretty minimal compared to the cost of investment.
There are some real risks associated with prescribed burning. Ranchers assume most of the risk
themselves. There is a risk involved in damaging the basic resources. We work closely with ranchers
to try to minimize those risks. But, there have been some prescribed burns that have been done at
the wrong time, on the wrong sites, in the wrong years. Mistakes are going to happen. We are
learning and as time goes by, we can improve our skills to minimize the risks. A good example was
the drought last year. I think that in these lower elevation grasslands, when there is a real wet
winter, the next summer season is going to be real dry. It has certainly been that way for the last
fifty years in southern Arizona. That is just one simple thing to remember- don't burn after a real
wet winter, because it will probably be a dry summer and the fire effects will be bad. There is a
liability that there is going to be some resoL:rce damage. There is a real liability in loss of property
and loss of life. Ranchers on private lands can buy insurance that can help spread that risk, but
that is another cost associated with the fire.
In the last ten years, I've had two ranchers work with me to try to do prescribed burning, who
had all the right qualifications. They had the right plant communities, the right soils, the right kind of
conditions to make it a good tool, they had the right management philosophy, the right kind of
stocking. Everything was good. But, their ranches happened, unfortunately, have some private land
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sold off years ago before they bought them, and now there are some rural subdivisions out there.
The potential risk to light a fire out there when there is a 200 acre subdivision with homes and
property is just way too great. That is something we need to think about here in southeastern
Arizona. This has really affected the use of this tool in many areas in southern Arizona.
We can have unfavorable climatic events after a fire. Drought is certainly a factor. In some plant
communities, if the fire is followed by dry summers and warm winters, chances are we are not
going to replace the cool season shrubs we've burned with warm season perennial grasses.
Chances are the shrubs will come back in five or ten years. We are making some inroads at
predicting what climate will be after fire, but we do not yet have the skill to do that reliably. Another
risk is smoke pollution from fires. Burning around big population centers like Tucson is a risk, and
you must know what your smoke is going to do at different times of the day and the night. When
burning a large area, you may produce smoke for a few days. It is not a good thing to pump a lot of
smoke into a big metropolitan area and have a lot of complaints. Also, it is a serious health hazard
for some people. A lot of those people who are moving out here are elderly people who may have
respiratory problems.
OPTIONS FOR THE FUTURE
What are some options that we might consider to increase reintroduction of fire on non federal
rangelands? I think any option should attempt to reduce the costs to the land owner. I think an
option should transfer the liability to groups, instead of the individual. I think these options should
attempt to reduce the risks. Maybe a way to do that is through groups where there are a lot of
people with a lot of skills who can work together. Maybe some of these options should
compensate ranchers on non-federal land for the added public values and benefits that happen
with prescribed burning. Some options might include things like grass banking, cost sharing, and
maybe even some monetary reimbursement for improved wildlife habitat conditions.
I think the agencies and landowners need to work together in Southern Arizona, including non
federal areas, on plans for large landscapes to manage wildfires. In some of the mountain ranges,
grazing is limited to the winter season. If there is fuel enough to burn the next June and a wildfire
occurs, it is automatically rested from grazing the following summer. Grazing in the dormant period
is usually not a negative thing. This reduces considerably the cost to the rancher.
Wildfire management plans shift the liability from individuals to groups like land management
agencies. I think that's something we should pursue and try to put together for not only our federal
land areas, but our non federal land areas. Also by planning for fire management in larger
landscapes we can go through the process of consultation for special status species, cultural
resources, etc. on a large area one time, instead of going through the process every time a small
prescribed burn is done.
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