Whatcom Creek Fire: Four Years Later

Al Hanners has long been interested in wildfires. He attended at least two local Native Plant Society programs on forest fires, and visited Yellowstone a year after the fire to see what had happened there. Al is a member of the Washington Native Plant Society, a past president of Koma Kulshan, the local chapter, and is a lifelong, honorary fellow of the state organization.

Before we started on the walk to see the ecology of the Whatcom Creek fire (June 10, 1999), speculation among the walkers on what we would see ranged from, “I hope they pulled the weeds,” to those who had been to the much hyped Yellowstone Park fire a year later (those walkers didn’t expect excessive damage).

We had entered off Valencia Street in Bellingham. As we followed the lead of Dr. Rich Fonda along the edge of a terrace above Whatcom Creek, we began to wonder. We were thrashing our way through a dense thicket of shrubs head high and higher. Where are we going? What is our destination? Isn’t there a better way? But only for a few moments.

That was the destination. We were on the side of the creek burned by the fire. Dr. Fonda was showing us the power of a forest to regenerate itself after a fire, and he was doing it in a way we would never forget.

Dr. Fonda, a biology professor and fire ecologist at Western Washington University, had made a detailed study of the fire one year after the fire. Now four years later, he was back for another look.

He was sharing his knowledge while leading what had been billed as an interactive walk with input from members and friends of the Koma Kulshan Chapter of the Washington Native Plant Society, including some of his own former students. This article was written to share with Whatcom Watch readers and the general public what Dr. Fonda had to say. However, it also includes comments from the walkers.

Dr. Fonda explained that the wind was from the north that day four years ago when thousands of gallons of gasoline from a ruptured pipeline flowed down Whatcom Creek and burst into flame. By convention, if you look at a creek or river toward the direction the water is flowing, the left side is the left bank and the other side is the right bank.

Whatcom Creek flows westward toward Bellingham Bay so the south side is the left bank, the side damaged by the fire driven by the northerly wind. The right bank was scarcely touched by fire.

In common with many hot Western forest fires, the Whatcom Creek fire was a “crown” fire that killed all vegetation above ground, and not just the understory. Also in common with some Western fires, and the Yellowstone fire in particular, was exaggeration by the press.

Dr. Fonda said that flames from burning gasoline probably lasted only about 15 minutes, and that the flames reached tens of feet high, not hundreds, although smoke went much higher.

Dr. Fonda emphasized that fire is a part of forest ecology, a way that a forest is regenerated or controlled. American Indians used fire to maintain grazing lands for wild game. Now that public policy suppresses forest fires, some forests in our region are taking over prairie grasslands. As examples, there are the Mima Mound prairie grasslands not far from Olympia, Fort Lewis prairies and grasslands in the San Juan Islands.

Nevertheless, Dr. Fonda stressed that before the Whatcom Creek fire, not much was known about the effect of a fire started by burning gasoline flowing down a creek. Here are some of the differences from typical western forest fires.

Originally, the Whatcom Creek left bank was a temperate conifer forest. The fire four years ago burned second growth forest of deciduous trees and shrubs. In contrast, most Western fires occur in drier areas where conifers commonly are dominant. The Whatcom Creek fire was in June when the forest was still moist. Most Western fires occur in late summer or autumn when forests are drier.

The fire on the left bank started from a more or less linear source of the burning gasoline in the creek. It moved up slope and died out as the heat from the gasoline fire lessened and was not enough to burn vegetation with considerable moisture in the tissues.

A typical Western fire starts at a point source, feeds on any vegetation in front of it and spreads with the wind. Creeks usually stop fires. In contrast, Whatcom Creek was the source of the fire.

During our brief interactive walk on the left bank, Dr. Fonda focused on what survived and what did not largely in terms of the kinds of trees and shrubs. Sometimes deciduous trees can lose their leaves from a top-kill and regrow them. Also, they can sprout from roots when the crown dies. A crown fire in conifers usually is fatal. Moreover, conifers do not sprout from roots.

We saw only one conifer, a Douglas fir that died from a crown fire, but it was on the edge of the right bank. Vikki Jackson, a consulting biologist, who did a study in the left bank area before the fire, said there were no Douglas firs in the area of fire damage on the left bank before the fire.

Dr. Fonda concentrated on fire damage of deciduous trees. For starters, there must be circulation of water, energy and nutrients between the roots and the leaves for the crown to survive. That takes place in two layers just under the dead outer bark.

The outer of the two layers, the phloem, carries nutrients down from the leaves to the roots; the inner layer, the xylem, carries nutrients up from the roots to the leaves. If those layers, and especially the phloem, are severely harmed by fire, the top dies. Trees like red alder and willows tend to have thin outer bark, and often they do not survive a fire.

Sprouting from roots depends on whether or not there is significant energy stored in the roots; and that, in turn, depends in part on when the fire occurred during the growing cycle. In the spring, nutrients move from roots to buds, they open and leaves appear. In autumn, energy moves to the roots and leaves fall.

The Whatcom Creek fire occurred in June when, apparently, there was still plenty of energy in the roots. Moreover, sugars are an important source of energy. “You can’t kill a maple,” Dr. Fonda exclaimed.

Was he talking to me? For years I‘ve been trying to kill a bigleaf maple in my yard because it would become too large for the fenceline where it volunteered. I haven’t succeeded yet. Easterners know the delight of real maple syrup from sugar maples. There is sugar in our Western maples too, but just not as much.

The reasons for such a lush growth of sprouts from roots on the left bank are twofold: the roots were already established. There was no need to grow new ones; all energy was devoted to growth above ground level. Second, the shrubs and trees were richly fertilized by minerals in the ashes left by the fire.

Top-killed Northern cottonwoods and bigleaf maples with sprouts from the roots to about 15 feet tall are common today on the left bank. There are numerous species of native shrubs sprouting from the roots, and only two alien species: Himalayan blackberry, and locally numerous filberts that probably are escaped alien cultivars planted before the fire by our native Stellar jays. Nuts are necessary to positively identify the species of filberts but nuts were not present.

Here are the native shrubs: black twinberry, Indian plumb, ninebark, salmonberry, snowberry, thimbleberry and a few willows. As for herbaceous weeds, the only ones we saw were on the right bank where there was no fire damage.

The fire damaged trees and shrubs belonging to the city of Bellingham. The pipeline company was held responsible, and it settled by paying damages. The city of Belling-ham, anxious to make a showing in restoring the area damaged by fire, planted 3200 trees. By April of the next year, some 2600 trees had been planted. They were Douglas fir, Sitka spruce, Western red cedar, hemlock, grand fir, cottonwood, alder, willow and maple.

However, by then much of the injured left bank was regenerating itself so vigorously that not only was it largely capable of outcompeting any vegetation that was planted, the growth was so dense that even herbaceous weeds could not prosper there.

More money was available than could be spent on restoration efforts so the Parks Department decided to improve the area instead. Except for transport of tons of soil contaminated by gasoline to a landfill and the use of a backhoe to stir up the bed of the creek to ensure the escape of any gasoline that might have remained, almost nothing was done that restores anything. The program was habitat management, not restoration.

That is not to say that habit management is a bad thing. Human beings have destroyed so much that we need to give nature some assistance. Salmon got a boost when two large logs were placed in Whatcom Creek to partly pond the water and improve salmon habitat. Salmon have already returned and now perhaps their offspring will benefit. Hikers, bikers and birders benefit from the new trail on the right bank.

Most of the easily visible efforts at improvement were on the right bank that was scarcely affected by the fire, and hundreds of Douglas fir trees were set out there. On the plus side, diversification of the tree species in a habitat dominated by deciduous trees certainly should favor the diversification of the birdlife.

On the other hand, while Douglas firs are beautiful trees and among my favorites, I wonder about the choice of Douglas firs. They are pioneer trees that need sunlight. Douglas firs planted on the left bank were already “behind the curve” when planted.

Moreover, the right bank tends to be flat with some wet areas. Douglas firs are shallow rooted trees, and when around seventy trees blew down in the Bellingham Country Club some years ago, I went there to see what species blew down. Most were Douglas firs, and most of them were growing in small shallow depressions.

Bird species usually are more numerous at the juncture of different habitats than in a single habitat. Birders on the walk were pleased by the new trail because it provides viewing of different habitats. Starting from the south side of the left bank, there is a normal second growth forest, then burned over forest now covered with shrub and tree sprouts from roots, and the creek itself. On the right bank there are trees with an incomplete canopy cover and understory shrubs.

While we were there in dusk, we saw two red-tailed hawks and many swallows, probably mostly tree swallows, and a few Vaux swifts. Robins were common. That’s not many species, but mornings would be better. Birders on the trip want to return and I do, too. §

I appreciate contributions to this article by Dr. Rich Fonda and Marie Hitchman.