Letter to the Editor - 'When' arrived this year

Editor,

With the drought and fire our part of the world has taken some natural resource “hits” this year. These have led to some personal losses. Though personal losses from the fire are substantial for a few folks, overall our region will suffer more from the drought than from the fire.

Our part of the world is subject to fires and droughts just like the Gulf and East coasts are subject to hurricanes. Regardless of the origin of the fire and drought and weather, the progression of each has its own momentum.

Droughts, fires, floods, are not a matter of “if,” they have always been a matter of “when.” Our “when” came to us at least twice so far this year and could get worse depending on what the fall/winter/spring has in store for us and how we respond to it. It is not uncommon to have floods after droughts and fires because of how the land and plants have been effected.

Though it can be hard to hear right now, droughts and fires and floods can be good for the land, after all this land evolved with them.

How well we facilitate recovery from this fire and drought will tell the “Mettle of our Stewardship” of natural resources. What we do to recover is important and could be even more important than what we do/did during the event.

Plants are key to recovery. Plants are under stress from either one or the combined impacts of lack of moisture, heat, drying wind, haying, grazing, having been burned, driven on, scraped up in suppression activities etc.. If we do not get some recovery for plants this fall there will be further stress on plants when the spring comes.

Recovery from fire will not occur right after the flames are gone or may not even recover in a few good years of good growing seasons. Some areas of the Bear Paws will recover nicely from the fire, however other areas will see a flush of invasive plant species (noxious weeds included) and will take a long time to recover and only recover if we give them a chance to recover.

Recovery of the land from mechanized suppression efforts is often problematic and can be long term. Recovery from drought does not occur with simple renewal of precipitation. How we manage following these events is important to successful recovery.

Now is the time to take measures to help the land recover from the fire and continuing drought.

It is not too late to plan for droughts, fires and floods that will come again.

Lou Hagener

Havre