Fighting fire with fire

COEUR d’ALENE — Before the heat of summer and the swell of tourists come to Coeur d’Alene, fire and government officials plan to use the first inklings of spring to conduct a mild burn of Tubbs Hill.

“This is going to be an interagency cooperation,” city Parks and Recreation Director Bill Greenwood told the Parks and Rec committee Tuesday. “… Everybody’s going to get involved.”

“Everybody” includes the local fire districts, the Coeur d’Alene Fire Department, the Parks and Recreation Department, the Idaho Department of Lands and fire management officials from across the Inland Northwest, including smoke monitors from Missoula — all to restore the health of the natural icon.

“The health of Tubbs Hill is a priority,” Coeur d’Alene Fire Chief Kenny Gabriel said. “All hands are going to be coming from four departments — plus IDL. It’s going to be a great opportunity for us to train.”

The move stemmed from 2019, when members of the Tubbs Hill board and veteran foresters performed a forest health assessment of the local landmark. Their conclusion was that while the forested areas were in relatively good condition, several areas were either too heavily treed or too consumed with dead and downed trees.

“One of the recommendations was to do some controlled burns on the hill to eliminate the threat of a major fire that could seriously damage the hill or present a threat to nearby homes,” said George Sayler of the Tubbs Hill Foundation.

The two-to-three-day plan will likely happen in late March or early April, starting with a daylong burn of the south-by-southwest half of Tubbs Hill. Firefighters will secure the surrounding landscape beforehand, making sure the slow burn will not endanger nearby property.

“Forty-eight hours before the burn we’re going to flood the north part of the hill,” Gabriel said. “We’re going to make our own weather system up there.”

In addition, hoses will wet down the edge of the burn zone and a 6,500-foot perimeter will be established along the coast to protect Lake Coeur d’Alene from run-off. Two fireboats will wait off the shoreline to both serve as back-up and warn boaters of the hill’s inaccessibility.

Firefighters will walk throughout the hillside during the burn to make sure the fire doesn’t get out of control, while thousands of gallons of water will be cached throughout Tubbs Hill. Some trees will be pre-selected and removed in more densely populated pockets of forest. As an extra precaution to neighboring homes, the northern section will be excluded from the burn.

The public will be prohibited from Tubbs Hill during the event, assuming the burn even happens. All of this depends on the decision of a tempestuous bureaucrat: Mother Nature.

“The last time we were able to do this was 2002,” Greenwood said. “… We had written a prescription to do this in 2006, and the prescription was pulled. The conditions were not favorable.”

If conditions are too dry, too windy or otherwise threaten the hill, firefighters or the neighboring community, the burn will be postponed, Greenwood told The Press. But clouds and rain are not the ideal forecast.

“We’re looking for sunshine and 5 mile-per-hour winds,” he said. “We need that 5 mile-an-hour winds to push [the fire] a little bit because we don’t want it to crown. We just want to creep, where it gets up and runs. We just want it to creep.”

Ideally steered winds, Gabriel added, would also drive the smoke out of town, smoke that he assumes will stoke the public to yell “fire!”

“They’re going to see the smoke,” he said. “There’s going to be smoke monitoring units from Missoula coming over … We’re already working with dispatchers to let them know about the huge calls they’re going to get. They’re going to handle it well.”

Greenwood added that this won’t look like a forest fire, as firefighters’ goals are to prevent the fire from crowning and climbing into the trees and their canopies. For those afraid the fire will leave a charred cover over a popular outdoor destination, Greenwood said to fear not.

“The fire is such a low intensity that root system isn’t damaged at all,” he said. “In fact, the shrubs really act like they’re being pruned. They just pop right back, like in our yards where we cut those things down and they come right back. So it’s a very similar process; it’s just more organic and more natural.”

“Fire is a natural activity in forested areas,” Sayler added, “but has been prevented on the hill. Burning on the hill will release the nutrients stored in dead material and return into the earth …

“Spring flowers will still bloom in profusion, the birds will still sing in the trees, new growth will soon flourish, and Tubbs Hill will still be a wonderful place to explore and experience.”