STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

Kent Laverty watched intently as professors and graduate students from the University of Idaho demonstrated scientific modeling tools that can predict the impact of wildfire in the years following.

“If we’d had a model like these a year or two ago, we could’ve treated watersheds to lessen the impact of the flooding we’re seeing now,” said the grants manager for the Sun Valley Institute.

Laverty was one of 80 researchers, planning officials, firefighters and others who took part in a two-day “Creating a Fire-Resilient Community” conference last week at the Limelight Hotel.

The conference was organized by the Sun Valley Institute as part of its mission to create a resilient community in the face of threats from wildfires like the 2007 Castle Rock Fire and 2013 Beaver Creek Fire. And it was headlined by researchers and graduate students from University of Idaho’s 15-year-old fire science program--the only such program in the United States.

The program will go beyond the conference. UI is offering its assistance to the Sun Valley area to collect and analyze data for years to come, with the help of a grant from the National Science Foundation, said Aimee Christensen, executive director of the Sun Valley Institute.

“One of the reasons we’re here is because of all the resources,” said Crystal Kolden, assistant professor in UI’s College of Natural Resources. “If we can’ figure out how to solve fire problems here, I’m not sure we can figure it out anywhere.”

Kurt Pregitzer, dean of the college, agreed: “This is a super important topic and this is a great community to work in because it’s so progressive and it’s been impacted by wildfire. There are a number of academic wildfire programs worldwide. But you’re not going to solve the questions from the top down. This is a community thing--we need the help of your community to come up with best solutions.”

UI will partner with the Wood River Valley to better understand the science affecting wildfire vulnerability and wildfire consequences, said Kolden. “We’re trying to answer such questions as how long after fire is there an elevated risk of flooding  so we can develop strategies andsolutions to be used before, during and after fire.”

That was music to the ears of Chris Corwin, Blaine County’s new disaster services coordinator.

“If we had been running these tools, we would have had a better idea ahead of time of the damage this year’s flood could have caused,” he said. “People think water causes floods. But it was erosion—erosion from the fires--that caused things to move in Warm Springs. There’s a lot of stuff out there that we want to collect and analyze that can help us be more proactive. But we just don’t have the resources.”

The Big Wood River Basin is one of three pilot sites for a FireEarth project where high-resolution analysis and modeling will be conducted to determine how drought, insect outbreak and forest management interacts to affect fire risk. The study will also determine the consequences of fire and how climate change exacerbates those consequences.

Conference presenters also demonstrated models like RHESSys, (Regional Hydro-Ecologic Simulation System)  and WEPP (Water Erosion Prediction Project) Interface, an online tool designed to help communities assess how various landscape actions could affect soil erosion and runoff from snowmelt as they work towards short-and long-term recovery.

Using that tool, someone could predict how much soil erosion might occur under various rain or snow events, based on how much mulching or seeding they do. It can also predict the severity of a wildfire in areas that have been thinned or treated with prescribed fire.

The model is based on more than 20 years of research and development, validated with data collected by scientists at the Rocky Mountain Research Station in Moscow.

Such a model can show the impact of a low-probability-high impact event like the 100-year rain that eroded hillsides in Greenhorn Gulch so planners can determine whether they want to put money into preventing such an event. It doesn’t give you the ultimate answer but it narrows your guesswork, noted former Blaine County Commission Len Harlig.

 “A lot of what we do is letting nature restore itself,” said Bobbi Filbert, wildlife biologist with the Sawtooth National Forest. “This could allow us to be more strategic in terms of what we should be doing now, what we should do a little later.”

“Science needs to be interwoven,” added Will Miller, a local land use consultant. “Sometimes you open up a canopy too much when you’re thinning an area and the vegetation underneath dries out.”

Additionally, shading can be an important way to keep snow from coming off all at once, as it did this year in areas that were burned in the Castle Rock and Beaver Creek fires, noted Tyre Hofeltz, community fire program manager for the Idaho Department of Lands.

Modeling scenarios could show community planners how to get the most return for their money when it comes to treatment options, noted Blaine County Commissioner Angenie McCleary.

“There’s a lot of talk about East Fork south of Ketchum because it’s an area that hasn’t burned,” she said. “Perhaps we can use these tools to determine if this is a place that we should treat. Maybe we could use this to be proactive ahead of a potential fire.”

Computer-generated virtual landscapes, meanwhile, can show homeowners and communities what an area might look like after a proposed thinning, prescribed burn or other treatments.

Such tools could be helpful in showing what different levels of vegetation look like, said Miller. Miller described one client in Greenhorn Gulch who didn’t spring for rehabilitation following the Beaver Creek fire and the 100-year thunder burst that created mudslide following the fire.

“He didn’t know what he was going to get for his money so he did nothing,” he said. “Another client went ahead and the work that was done looks spectacular today. Now I have clients dealing with the impacts of the flood. They don’t have a clue what the physical and biological outcomes will be at this point. It would be nice to see what the model shows.”

Tools like RHESSys have been around for as many as 20 years. But they’re growing increasingly more useful as they evolve, and UI hopes that feedback from the Sun Valley community will enable them to build even more useful features into the models.

“There will be more fires. It’s not a question of yes or no. it’s a question of when and where,” said Kolden. “And this is a long-term project to try to see if we can’t lessen the severity of fires and increase the resilience when they do happen.”