ISABELLA— The U.S. Forest Service declared a prescribed burn that went awry last week fully contained as of May 19, as light rain showers and higher humidity helped firefighters keep the Fry Fire—originally planned for 72 acres— limited to 186 acres. The fire was located less than a mile east of the Happy Wanderer tavern along Hwy. 1 in Isabella. No structures were immediately threatened by the blaze.
The fire was part of an ambitious program of prescribed burning set for 2024 as the forest service works to reduce fuel loading from dead and downed trees, particularly balsam fir that has been hit hard in recent years by a combination of drought and spruce budworm.
The forest service had begun its prescribed burn shortly before 11 a.m. on May 15 and declared it a wildfire just over two hours later after a spot fire took off in an area of dense vegetation. Fire officials called in water dropping aircraft to suppress the fire and they were effective in slowing the immediate fire spread. Cloud cover moved over the fire area later in the afternoon and humidity levels increased which helped ease fire activity. Additional crews and engines were brought in to assist working on the fire.
Forest service officials say that the weather conditions were well within the parameters, or prescription, that they had set for the fire. Yet questions are always asked whenever a prescribed burn goes outside its planned boundaries. The Timberjay did request the specific prescription for the Fry Fire, but the information was not immediately forthcoming from the forest service. “We don’t have the specific numbers for the conditions that were recorded that day, we’ll get those as we conduct a more in-depth review,” said Tim Engrav, public information officer.
According to Engrav, the forest service will be taking a more in-depth look at the weather recordings and fire behavior in the near future. “Right now, we don’t [know] if the weather conditions were significantly different a few hours later at the prescribed fire location,” said Engrav. “We do know that the spot fire got established in a stand of denser forest fuels with budworm-killed spruce and fir present. Immediate action was taken to suppress this spot fire using the holding and contingency resources that were on site.”
The forest service insists they had the resources in place and available to respond to the wildfire.
“We had holding and contingency resources specifically assigned to this prescribed fire that we were able to assign to the spot fire immediately,” said Engrav. “There were additional water dropping aircraft positioned in the state for wildfire response which were available to be ordered to assist. We had additional crews and engines on the [national forest] assigned in other locations that could be and were reassigned to support the wildfire suppression response.”
Had some of those resources been occupied on other wildfires, however, the circumstances could have proved more challenging for the forest service.