Western Great Lakes Media

by Jared Elm, RGS & AWS Forest Conservation Coordinator – Wisconsin

Fire in the upper Great Lakes region is certainly not a new concept. In fact, most of our plant and wildlife species in the region are fire-adapted and rely on the disturbance created through fire to flourish, the beloved ruffed grouse being one of those species.  Public land managers, private landowners, tribal managers and everyone in between have been burning since the inception of the modern concept of “prescribed fire,” also known as controlled burning. Prescribed fire is a planned fire used to meet specific management objectives that can range from wildlife habitat improvement, fuel load reduction and herbaceous species management.

In many regions of the U.S., prescribed fire is still engrained in rural life, such as the Flint Hills of Kansas or the pine forests of Florida. However, fire in the forested landscapes across the country is complicated. The subtle smell of Canadian wildfire smoke in our upper Great Lakes region in the summer is a reminder of calamity over the past few years. The smell of that smoke begs the question, “How did our forests get to this point and how do we fix this problem?” In some regions of the country, the answers are easier to see: too many people living in places they shouldn’t be, with too little fire mitigation and too many trees. The Great Lakes region, while not severely impacted by wildfires, is also suffering from a unique fire crisis: not enough prescribed fire on the landscape.

How Did We Get Here?

Indigenous people have long been fire practitioners, implementing fire across the landscape of the upper Great Lakes. While the exact date isn’t known when people first began inhabiting this region, prevailing modern knowledge indicates that people arrived nearly immediately after the glacial retreat, which was roughly 12,000 years ago. Many of the plants and animals moving into this area following glacial retreat were also met with fire –  most of which was intentionally started to maintain large grassland grazing animals like bison, elk and deer. Fire also encouraged pyrophytic, or fire-loving, edible plants such as blueberries, cherries, juneberries and other high value foods for both people and wildlife.

Yet, the traditional ecological fire knowledge of these communities has largely been lost. At the turn of the century, the upper Great Lakes was reeling from rampant and dangerous wildfires because of the deforestation of the cutover period. In response, the first major conservation legislation was passed to prohibit the implementation of fire on the landscape. Tribal communities and reservations were often the mostly strictly enforced. Thousands of years of learned knowledge was lost with this fire prevention. Also worth noting is many of these indigenous communities had been struggling for a couple hundred years with European colonization, greatly reducing implementation of fire and learned knowledge from cultural burning. Leading up to the cutover was likely a similar experience we are facing in a modern context: a hundred years of fire suppression with novel ecological changes happening very quickly with unexpected consequences.

Due to the loss of this depth of knowledge, using historical notes and early recollections from voyageurs and explorers provides insight into what things may have looked like; however, they’re very limited. Jacques Marquette was one of the first Europeans to extensively write and explore the upper Great Lakes, famously founding the first permanent European settlement in Sault St. Marie in the upper peninsula of Michigan. In his exploration of the upper Mississippi and upper Wisconsin Rivers, he noted a sparsely forested landscape except for riparian areas. “We saw there neither feathered game nor fish, but many deer, and a large number of cattle.” The cattle he mentions were likely bison, which obviously inhabited the great grasslands of the Midwest and beyond. Besides trappers and fur traders, little further expedition was made until John Carver arrived in 1766 into the same area. Carver also noted a very open landscape, but mentioned scattered trees and didn’t document bison. “For many miles nothing was to be seen but lesser mountains, which appeared at a distance like haycocks, they being free from trees. Only a few groves of hickory, and stunted oaks, covered some vallies,” noted Carver, who also made the first approximate map of the tribes of Wisconsin. On his trip, the Chippewa tribes largely inhabited the upper Great Lakes. In Jacques Marquette’s trip a hundred years prior, many of the interactions with native people were of Dakota and Sioux descent in the upper Mississippi River area. This also illustrates how different tribes utilized fire in much different ways, with varying levels of intensity.  

Combining General Land Office (GLO) notes expand upon the initial notes of Jacques Marquette and John Carver; many of the original surveyors primarily used last names. Warren wrote of an observation made in 1850 near an Ojibwa village east of modern-day Rice Lake, Wisconsin, stating that the area was, “sparsely covered with pine trees, through which fires appear to have occasionally run, burning the smaller trees and thickets, and giving the country a prairie-like appearance.” Gray described areas of northern Wisconsin as open country only having dense pine present around the banks of lakes.

Perhaps, some of the best written accounts of the region come from geologists Owen and Norwood who were hired by the federal government in the mid 1800s to explore the region and document the geology, rivers, vegetation, soils, timber and wildlife. In 1847, Norwood described forests near modern-day Lincoln County, Wisconsin as “a narrow strip of small pines line the banks of the river [Wisconsin River] at intervals; but as you recede into the country, there are few trees of any size to be seen. Clumps of very small birch and pine are scattered over it.” Only several miles southwest of that observation and farther from the river, Norwood described denser forested areas as being “the finest pine regions of Wisconsin” where “first-rate pine abounds.” Norwood also describes what more recent studies of GLO notes confirm: that sugar maple hardwood forest types were an abundant part of the forest composition. Norwood described “ridges, bearing maple and other hard woods, begin and extend back into the country for many miles” in Wisconsin. In Minnesota, Norwood described the uplands near Cass and Red Lake as “generally covered with a good growth of both hard and soft woods, sufficient for all the wants of man,” adding that “[t]he sugar-maple is abundant…the forests are stocked with game.” And that “[t]he land at the outlet of Lake Winibigoshish is sandy, with a tolerably good soil. There is a large proportion of hard woods in all this section…that when the Conifers are burnt off, a growth of oak, maple, ash, aspen, and birch, springs up.”

Red pine has a unique place in understanding this fire regime in addition to historical writings as the resin from red pine stumps makes them fire and rot resistant.  Dendrochronology, or the study of tree rings, can indicate events like high intensity fire, drought, insect damage and other environmental disturbances. Evaluating these stumps indicate that not only was fire implemented at relatively consistent intervals (roughly every 13 years) in much of the upper Great Lakes, but in times of severe drought, fire was generally not recorded in stumps. Frequency varies from region to region, but there is a strong correlation indicating intentional seasonality, which likely replicates a specific response within the plant communities. Much of this research on red pine as a keystone species in fire-dependent ecosystems is relatively novel and ongoing. Some of the most fascinating findings are on old red pine stumps on islands in places like the Boundary Waters Canoe Area and wetland islands in the Hiawatha National Forest. These wouldn’t have burned without significant human intervention, painting the picture that fire was very intentional, but also an intensively planned activity by indigenous people.

Where We’re at Today

Today, the Great Lakes regional forests are primarily composed of second and third generations of growth. This growth sprouted back after decades of intensive timber harvesting that began in the 1830s and progressed west to clear the land for agriculture, ending in the 1930s with widespread farm abandonment. The second growth forests included reforestation efforts undertaken by the Civilian Conservation Corp to plant red pine in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan; however, more importantly, included the widespread natural regeneration that sprouted up after decades of timber cutting, rampant wildfires and soil disturbance from farming. With the original cutover occurring in stages (westward harvesting beginning in Ohio, progressing to harvesting the pineries and hardwoods of the Upper Great Lakes) and without the principles of sustainable forest management being pioneered at the time, the forests that regenerated back were dramatically different. Specifically, aspen now represents 48% of forests in Minnesota, 18% percent of forests in Wisconsin and 12% of the forests of Michigan. Likewise, the virtual removal of fire from the landscape in the years since European colonization has had important effects on vegetation and forest composition. Fire suppression has caused forest canopies to stay closed, shading the forest floor and resulting in mesophication, or creating a cooler, wet environment conducive to shade-tolerant species like maple.

The northern forests today are characterized by broadleaf deciduous tree species with about 30 different native tree species. The mixed coniferous/deciduous forests occupy a smaller proportion of the northern forests than they once did, often being replaced by stands of aspen, paper birch and red maple. The elimination of fire that kept woody growth in check allowed unmanaged stands to become denser over time, choking out and eventually shading out grassy openings, barrens and parklands. Single large cohorts of several species (including oak and paper birch) that regenerated post-farm abandonment have matured all at once over time across the region. This has led to habitat, forestry staffing and forest product market problems as a lot of similar timber matures at once. These large swaths of homogenous forests provide habitat for fewer wildlife species, are more prone to disease and insect outbreaks and perform fewer climate and carbon benefits than a diverse landscape with multiple forest age classes and species.

Why Does This Matter to the Birds?

As mentioned earlier, ruffed grouse and other young forest wildlife developed alongside disturbance created through fire. These fires would have kept hardwood and aspen forests young, dense and stimulated regeneration when top killed trees resprout. Young forest birds relied on the disturbance, and likely followed this disturbance around the landscape. Like birds in our modern landscape, populations ebbed and flowed with applied fire that created the necessary habitat elements.

Fire is also inherently patchy, especially compared to a clean shear of modern feller bunchers or logging operations. For example, the precolonial fire regime managed a landscape at a scale that’s hard to conceptualize. While we think of management in “stands” of timber, maybe 20 to 100 acres in size, this historic management would have taken place over entire landscapes with tens of thousands of acres involved in one event. This patchiness would have created a huge diversity not just in tree species, but also structural diversity. After fire burned an area, oak, aspen, birch and associated species sprouted in the footprint of the flames in the forested environments. The patchiness is caused by the variance in types of trees, fuel loads and topography that exaggerates or suppresses fire. A fire might burn slowly along a wetland edge or swamp, then gain intensity with drops in topography. Likewise, forests with frequent fire likely had relatively low intensity due to low fuel loads. These fires probably smoldered for days and weeks on end, leaving mature overstory trees intact, but killed fire-intolerant saplings like northern hardwood species and associated brush. The result was a mosaic of relatively mature overstories and forested openings with clumps of trees and shrubs intermixed that the fire missed. Ideal habitat not just for ruffed grouse, but most forest wildlife species as it creates such diverse structure and composition.

Modern forest ecology attempts to replicate fire disturbance through timber harvesting and various mechanical treatments. In certain forest types, notably aspen, results happen quickly and with immediate positive results for young forest dependent species. The challenges with fire in forest wildlife habitat begins when entering more nuanced forest types like oak and pine, which are also fire and disturbance driven species; however, with more complicated variables as they rely primarily on seed to reproduce, versus the vigorous root sprouting of aspen. Introduce fire into an oak or pine stand too early, and there’s a risk of killing seedlings; introduce fire too late, and more competitive northern hardwood species will have already outcompeted. Yet, fire can play a role in aspen forests in the upper Great Lakes as it resets succession to an early successional stage, replicating an aspen harvest. The oak and pine forest relationship with fire is one that occupies thousands of pages of research and findings; however, there’s no recipe on how to perfectly replicate historical fire patterns that result in forest regeneration and is much the topic of conversation, research and debate.

The primary takeaway is that fire is a tool in a wide array of forest management tools, but is one that’s underutilized and, quite frankly, misunderstood. Like so many things, fire is polarizing in the natural resource community. Some feel as though fire has a minor place in our forested landscapes while others feel as though we should begin burning as much as possible immediately – much like the conversation around harvesting timber commercially. The truth is somewhere in the middle. Fire needs to be utilized in specific situations to achieve a desired outcome, and the capacity to implement prescribed fire needs to increase dramatically to meet our forest wildlife objectives. Fire is best used in conjunction with timber harvesting and non-commercial mechanical/chemical treatments to create an environment that’s conducive to forest regeneration. We can’t simply re-introduce fire into these systems and expect immediate positive outcomes. Fire dependent tree species like oak and pine will continue to decline in acreage base throughout much of the upper Great Lakes and the nation as they convert to fire-intolerant species like northern hardwoods and maple. Our disturbance driven species, like ruffed grouse, follow the progression of these tree species as well. The correlation is impossible miss and can’t be understated.

There’s so much to learn about fire. The loss of traditional ecological knowledge on maintaining these complex, fire-adapted forests isn’t something we will re-learn immediately. After all, it took thousands of years of sophisticated tinkering to learn it in the first place. Our forest base in the upper Great Lakes is the first forest crop following the cutover and farm abandonment, and there are many lessons to be learned. A hundred years sounds like a long time, but in the context of a forest, it’s a blip in time. The idea of doing nothing and losing not only the birds we love, but the forested conditions they rely on, isn’t acceptable. Fire plays a critical role to restoring forest wildlife habitat and should be at the forefront of conversation going forward.

Jared Elm is the Forest Conservation Coordinator for Ruffed Grouse Society & American Woodcock Society and has been with RGS & AWS for seven years. Jared resides in northwest Wisconsin and works with both private and public lands for the Society, primarily overseeing the private lands team in Wisconsin.