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Aftermath of Fires
Mon Oct 06, 2003
Listen in RealAudio 
Hi, I'm Bryan Yeaton and this is the Weather Notebook.
The cooler, damper weather of the fall season signals the end of the fire season in the
western United States. But what happens after the fires have been mopped up and the smoke has
cleared? Correspondent Jeff Rice from Boise, Idaho tells us in this report.
It's not a pretty picture. After a fire a forest suddenly finds itself stripped of vegetation
and exposed to the elements and if you live nearby you might notice a few changes. Mark
Strubel is a spokesman for the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. He says a
common post-fire phenomenon is increased wind.
"In particular, if you have a fire that's come up close to a residential area, let's say, and
if it's a significantly large burn area, especially where you previously had tall vegetation,
pine trees, fir trees, things like that, you're gonna see down canyon winds of much greater
velocity than you would have seen before the fire".
And as the weather turns hot you can expect other changes. Instead of lush green foliage the
forest is now covered with black ash that absorbs more solar energy. This, combined with the
burning away of shade trees can be a serious problem for fish populations.
Then suddenly solar radiation and things like that are going to cause water temperatures to
dramatically rise and that of course changes the types of fish populations that can live
there, like trout here in the west".
Fish are also threatened by rain. The forest fires often burn off much of the vegetation that
holds the soil in place. Where rain used to wash the forest canopy, it now washes the soil
away sending it into the streams, burying spawning areas for trout and salmon. In many cases,
say scientists, putting the fire out is just the beginning. What's left is a long term battle
with the weather.
That's correspondent Jeff Rice who lives in Boise, Idaho. The Weather Notebook is a production
of the Mount Washington Observatory. It is supported by Subaru.
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