< PreviousOffield Mt. Lookout 1925The fire which burned most of Sawyers Bar in 1964 Fire is a huge force of change on the landscape, it has played a formative role for millennia. Its affects can be seen on plant species composi-tion, forest structure, wildlife, soils, hydrology, and it contributes to the extraordinary diversity of the Klamath Mountains. Fire is partially re-sponsible for this diversity and has also responded to it, resulting in equally diverse fire regimes. For this reason, it is hard to pin down the historic fire regimes for the Salmon River. It is clear however, that fires were frequent, and affected large areas of the landscape regularly. Studies show that these fires predominately burned at low to moderate intensity with patches of high intensity fire, result-ing in a patch work effect across the landscape. Fire scars indicate that south facing, mixed conifer hardwood forests burned ~ every 10 -15 years, but with significant variability. Fires tended to burn at higher intensity and frequency on south/south-west facing slopes and commonly burned from late summer into fall when rains put them out. Native people of the Klamath and Salmon Rivers used fire to manage the landscape to their benefit. Cultural burning was widely used to improve forest and grassland resources, including the enhancement of food, fiber, ease of move-ment, and village sites. Historic accounts indicate that grasslands and oak woodlands were burned every few years to increase acorn harvests, reduce disease and insect damage, improve basket mak-ing materials, and promote forage for game. It is difficult to differentiate traditional cultural fire from historic fire regimes, since they were closely entwined. It is likely that cultural burning was intensive around village sites and food collection zones, and thus more focused in low to mid eleva-tions. These long-term cultural burning practices were largely interrupted at the time of European settlement in the area (starting around 1820 and increasing in the 1850’s) due to the extermination and displacement of native peoples. European settlers also used fire extensively to clear land for grazing, mineral exploration, and to ease travel. These fires were often very different from traditional burning. They tended to burn at higher intensity, consume larger areas, and were more frequent during the hot dry months. A 1900 account by early forest inspector, J.B.Lieberg notes that fires were, “more numerous and devastated much larger areas in the early days of settlement than they did before.” Historic images show large swaths of land adjacent to mines burned or logged to supply wood for stamp mills, buildings, and simply to reveal the underlying geology. It is sug-gested that many of the regions 80 – 170 year even aged stands are due to settler ignited fires during this period (Atzet et al.). Settler burning continued to have a significant impact until the early 1930’s when fire suppression policies took hold. Government organized fire suppression was initiated in 1911 with the passage of the Weeks Act, but didn’t come into its own as a major force in the Klamath until the 1930’s and 40’s. A cen-tury of fire suppression has had a huge impact on Salmon River ecosystems, greatly reducing forest diversity and leading to homogenization of forest stands, both in species composition and stand age. Without fire, many forests have become crowded, with more trees and brush competing for the same resources and increasing fuel loading. The Fire in the Watershed Tribal Use of Fire The following are accounts of tribal fire manage-ment taken from interviews by Kari Norgaard with Leaf Hillman and Frank Lake in 2004 and 2005.Leaf Hillman: And the use of fire wasn’t just willy-nilly....Right here in the valley, my grandfather, he burned that whole slope every three years. He’d burn it in early October and the rains always put it out. Some years the rain came sooner, some years it came later. So some years it went a little further. But it al-ways got this ridge because the fire started on the ridge and you burn down, you don’t burn up the slope....And so specific timing and use and special applications....Torching off a bunch of underbrush to produce the smoke to get rid of the bugs out of the trees. Maybe a couple of trees in your place weren’t produc-ing well, so actually bringing in larger flam-mables and doing hot fire applications right to those specific trees creating flame lengths that are actually going to scorch the bark on the tree itself in order to stimulate a response, and that response is production because they think they are on their way out....Most of the tools involved fire, but its not just fire, it is the specific use and applications of fire.Frank Lake: If you do spring burning...that darkened soil and partially burnt stuff is go-ing to have radiant synergy. It’s going to heat up faster. It’s going to cause germination of the forbs. Those are going to be potential grains available for you as either a food or that the wildlife are going to browse upon...whether it’s the squirrels, the rabbits, the deer. But then also when you burn in the, say, late summer, early fall, when you get the relative humidity come up with a dew and the mois-ture and such...then you’re going to have that kind of fall green-up going into winter....That second flush of green would also support a lot of wildlife, especially the deer and the elk that were going into rut that needed to have energy reserves.resulting fires are skewed towards higher severity. By attempting to suppress all fires, only those that are so large and severe they cannot be stopped end up burning the landscape, often with disastrous results. In recent years federal policy and grass roots efforts have worked to bring fire back into the landscape as a management tool. The Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy of 1995 allowed agencies to manage wildfire, using “wildland fire use,” rather than suppression. Forest management practices of the past 80+ years have also had an enormous impact on our native forests and fire regimes. Early logging practices fur-ther reduced forest composition and stand diversity. Through time, timber has been valued above all else in forest management. Commercial timber harvest in the area started in the 1950’s but picked up in the 1960’s and 70’s, continuing into the early 1990’s when concern for impacts on the land slowed harvest. Large tracks of land were clear cut, leaving even-aged, single species plantations in their stead, and non-timber producing hardwood forests were consciously removed. Many studies indicate that these homogenous even aged stands are much more susceptible to severe fire and also increase the likeli-hood of intense fire in surrounding older stands. In a study of the greater Salmon River area, Odion et al. concluded that, “tree plantations experienced twice as much severe fire as multi-aged forests.” All of these effects combined have led to forests that are out of balance on the Salmon River and surrounding region. This is an issue that we can’t put on the back burner. Effects of climate change are bound to exacerbate the situation whether we address it or not; in the next 100 years fires are predicted to quadruple in the Western Klamath Mountains! It’s imperative that we find ways to better create fire adapted and safe communities and renew resilient fire regimes on a landscape level. At the Restoration Council we hope that together we can make a compelling case for how to bring fire back to this landscape in a positive way. -Karuna GreenbergForest Service on horseback in Sawyers Bar Frost et al, “Fire Regimes, Fire History and Forest Conditions in the Klamath-Siskiyou Region” 2000Atzet et al, “Fire and forestry in southwest Oregon.” FIR report, 1988Odion et al, “Patterns of Fire Severity and Forest Conditions in the West-ern Klamath Mountains, California.” 2004Wook McBroomHank McBroom, known as Wook, is an old timer on the Salmon River. He was born in 1929 in Cecilville and has lived in the area ever since. Wook and his wife, Earlene, were interviewed in their home next to the mouth of the Little North Fork in August of 2013 by SRRC and Klamath -Salmon Media Collaborative. Here are some select-ed anecdotes from that interview.Earlene- The ranchers did, when they brought the cattle in.Wook- In the early, early days before my time, the packers late in the fall, after a good rain and whatnot, and the cattle-men too, would set some fires. They would set ‘em on top of the hill so they would burn down. The last one I remem-ber was set by Fred Brown up above Trail Creek. It would be probably in 1936, somewhere in there. That was the last one.life on the Salmon RiverSRRC ArchiveDo you remember any stories about people using fire to clear areas or manage fire?George Ranch Tickner Collection SRRC ArchivesWook- There wasn’t any logging on the Salmon River until about 1951. The first logging was in Counts Gulch and Whites Gulch. The next log-ging they did was on the Blue Ridge side. I built all those roads out there- Blue Ridge Ranch and the one above that. The meth-od then was a group mark, my brother-in-law marked the whole thing. The group can be 1 tree or a dozen trees, whatever it would be. What they did was take the sick trees and they took the ripe trees and when we were done with it you couldn’t even tell they’d logged it. See what I mean? And then … Al Gronki came in and he’s the one started to clear-cutting. The first big clear-cutting was right here, Little North Fork. And they clear-cut it when the big yarders came in from Forks. RC Miller Logging Company, I cut for them. That was probably about 1965. Charlie Maplesden and I were partners and he and I went in and cut for him. These areas were replanted and many have been burned with the Let it Burn Policy. Wook pulling logs with a Cat on steep slope 1952 near EtnaMcBroom Collection SRRC ArchivesWook- I’ll tell you, fires are different now. The local people were the firefighters. They were the ones that were gotten. Then if the fire got a little bit bigger then they usually shut down the mill in Etna or the woods or whatnot and you’d go. But the policy then - Stop the Fire/Put it Out. It wasn’t the Manage the Fire/Let it Burn policy. You see the first thing that happened was they took the lookouts off. Only got one now – Eddy Gulch. There were lookouts all over the country. Boom! They sighted in they knew where the fire was immediately, you was on foot and heading for it. You got on it when it was small. You stopped it, put it out. 1 man, 2 men, 20 men, whatever. That’s the way that they did it.What’s your first memory of fire out here?Scott Harding1994 Specimen Fire burns 7,500 acres.A team of 600 specialists draft the Northwest Forest Plan to address concerns for the economy and threatened wildlife dependent on old growth forests. 19951994Severe windstorm rips through the Klamath mountains causing extensive blowdowns.1997 Regional flood event on New Years eve.1997 Coho salmon listed as a threatened species.Megram & Onion fires, started by lightening in the Trinity Alps, burn across 14,000 acres.2001 MidKlamath Watershed Council is established. Klamath River fish kill of 80,000 mature salmon and thousands of juvenile salmon.Uncles Complex fires burn 48,085 acres.Bald Eagle officially removed from list of endangered species. 199920021992A group of Salmon River community members received support from the Klamath River Fisheries Task Force to host a series of cooperative work-shops focusing on spring Chinook and summer steelhead, to raise awareness of their dwindling numbers.1993Salmon River Community Restoration Program is created to protect and restore Salmon River’s anadromous fisheries, eventually becomes SRRC.Cooperative fisheries surveys of Fall Chinook Salmon begin.Watershed Education program begins in Salmon river schools to give students hands on experience and science education.1994Salmon River Restoration Council given nonprofit status.SRRC initiates its non toxic weed eradication program of spotted knapweed.SRRC begins maintaining temperature probes to track river water temps in the summer.19972002 SRRC co-authors the Salmon River Subbasin Restoration Strategy.Salmon River Fire Safe Council established to help with wildfire preparedness and facilitate communication between the community and USFS. 20002006330 junk vehicles, 625 tons of scrap metal, & 37 tons of tires are removed from the Salmon River.19921997199520062007Ukonom Complex Fires burn 80,000 acres.20082002 Drought years through 2006.SRRC initiates removal of 2 dams at White’s Gulch opening 1.5 miles of anadromous fish habitat.2008Thomas B. DunklinSRRC Archive SRRC Archive In June of 1850 prospectors coming over the ridge from the Trinity discovered rich deposits of placer gold near the Forks of the Salmon River. By the next summer, thousands of miners had arrived to stake their claims and a flurry of intense mining activity began, lasting through 1880. In a short time the miners substantially altered the watershed, having dramatic effects on the land-scape, vegetation, soil, and river structure. The Salmon River became the richest gold producing river in Siskiyou County. The North Fork alone produced over 1 million ounces of placer gold. Placer mining deposits were first worked at their surface. Once the surface deposits were depleted, the material just below the surface was mined via “ground sluicing”, which involved constructing wing dams, ditches and channels to divert the river or tributaries onto selected areas of riverbank where it could be used to wash away dirt while men with picks and shovels worked the heavier materials left behind. By the 1860’s the rich surface and river placers were largely exhausted and hydraulic mines were the chief sources of gold for the next 20 years. Early Mining of the Salmon RiverVast systems of reservoirs, ditches, flumes and pipelines supplied water to these operations. With the use of the high pressure water can-non, many tons of rock and soil were able to be removed, along with all of the vegetation within a disturbed area. Many layers of ancient gravel beds laid down millions of years ago were washed away, often removing soil down to bare bedrock. These mines left vertical banks of raw earth up to 60 feet in height and large tailing piles of cobbles and boulders along stream channels. Mined-over floodplains and terraces remain poorly vegetated many decades after large-scale mining ended. Hydraulic mining activity caused a tremen-dous amount of change and disturbance to the Salmon River watershed. The effects are evident almost everywhere in the watershed. The struc-ture of the stream channels and flood plain were greatly modified by mining activity, which re-sulted in wider, shallower channels, reduced pool depth, and large cobble/boulder sedimentation, all of which are major contributors to reduced shade and increased water temperatures.The Restoration Council is beginning to work on remedying these historic impacts with some exciting new floodplain and riparian restoration projects. -Lyra CresseyPeterson Mine in Sawyers Bar Pick and shovel miner on the Salmon RiverUpper Klamath communities, tribal leaders, government officials, and environmental organizations sign an agreement calling for the restoration of wild salmon habitat in the Klamath Basin.20102011An ongoing statutory moratorium is established by Fish & Game prohibiting suction dredge mining in and near Cali-fornia rivers, streams, and lakes.The Forks Complex burned 38,000 acres in the Salmon Watershed. Both fires are arson caused.2012 2013California experiences driest year on record, possibly the driest since 1580 based on tree rings.SRRC achieves a 99% reduction of Spotted Knapweed across 270 sites without the use of herbicide. 20122009 Backbone & Red Spot Fires burn 6,324 acres.The first wild wolf since 1924 is documented in California.2013Salmon River Restoration Councilwww.srrc.orgP.O. Box 1089 Sawyers Bar, CA 96027530-462-4665 info@srrc.orgThis institution is an equal opportunity provider.Funding comes from: Bureau of Reclamation, CA Department of Conservation, CA Department of Fish & Wildlife, CA Department of Food & Agriculture, Grants Clearinghouse, Firedoll Foundation, Ford Family Foundation, Karuk Tribe, MidKlamath Watershed Council, Patagonia Environmental Programs, Regional Water Quality Control Board, Sidney Stern Memorial Trust, Trees Foundation, US Fish & Wildlife Service, US Forest ServiceSRRC Staff, Project Leaders, Project Assistants Josh Saxon, Executive Director Karuna Greenberg, Restoration Director Lyra Cressey, Associate Director & Monitoring Coordinator Petey Brucker, Klamath & Noxious Weed Coordinator Kathy McBroom, Office Manager Brenda Hurlimann, Bookkeeper Sarah Hugdahl, Technical, Outreach & Field Assistant Tom Hotaling, Fisheries CoordinatorRobert Will, Fuels Coordinator, retired in 2013Shannon Monroe, Program Assistant Steve Gunther, Fuels Field CoordinatorMichael Kein & Mitzi Wickman, Spring 2013 Watershed Education Co-CoordinatorsSteve Adams, Power & Watershed Center Maintenance Maria Mullins & Sam Berry, Program Staff2013 Fuels Crew, Noxious Weed Crew, Screwtrap & Fish Survey employees - Steve Adams, Bonnie Bennett, Sam Berry, Sheri Campbell, Gary Collins, Eric Cousineau, Robert Cousineau Jr., Robert W. Cousineau, Kyle Cousineau, Timothy Darling, Kevin Dunbar, Jon Feutz, Rudy Galindo, Steve Gunther, Jessica Hanscom, Daniel Hendrickson, Mike Kerrick, Scott Kingery, Tamara Lightle, Charles Lindsay, Ryan Lindsay, Ken McDonald, Maria Mullins, Riley O’Brien, Nat Pennington, Brian Pierce, Katie Reinhart, Miles Richardson, Adam Robinson, Beulah Simas, Joe Stoltz, Jacob Sutter, Irie Swift, Emily Tornroos, Todd WhitmoreNew for 2014 Fuels Crew, Aileen Bammer, Brian Feeney, Rick MetroSRRC Board Toz Soto, President, Ben Beaver,Vice President Kathy McBroom, Secretary/Treasurer Petey Brucker Will Harling Creek Hanauer Jennifer Silveira Scott Harding Ron Reed SRRC Archive Newsletter Design by Sam Berry Printed on 100% recycled paper USFS KNF , Salmon River fires 2013A more in depth Klamath Basin Timeline will be avail-able soon on our website, watch for it!Nonprofit OrgPostage PaidForks of Salmon, CAPermit # 1Address Correction Requested“Picture is Salmon side of Salmon Mountain. The house was used by the mail carrier to stay in or rest. Notice how open it is.” - Wook McBroomSiskiyou County Historical Society Salmon River Restoration CouncilP.O. Box 1089Sawyers Bar, CA 96027www.srrc.orgNext >