No blaze, no balance: why fire is key to Bend’s healthy forests

If you’ve spent any time near Bend in spring, you may have noticed smoke drifting through the trees or settling lightly over the horizon. These aren’t wildfires. They’re prescribed burns: carefully planned, closely monitored, and intentionally set.

For visitors, residents, and the people who study and manage the millions of acres of forest that surround Bend, that distinction matters.

“Fire for the forests like what we have here is a natural process,” says Jacob Fritz, a program coordinator with the Deschutes Collaborative Forest Project, a group that works with numerous partners to restore forest health and make our landscapes more resilient.

“These forests evolved with fire.” 

That’s very different from many of the Pacific Northwest’s wetter, coastal forests, but for more than a century humans treated fire like an enemy and forests as timber to be cut. Logging removed many of the largest trees, which have thicker, fire-resistant bark and canopies too high for a low-intensity fire to ignite them into roaring infernos. As a result, crews routinely stamped out the low, frequent burns that once cleared out the underbrush, a practice that inadvertently allowed highly flammable grasses, smaller trees, and bushes to grow unchecked. Taken together, forests grew to be “overstocked,” as Fritz says, with destructive, built-up fuels that can turn a harmless, natural spark into something far more dangerous. 

A prescribed fire resets that balance.

A little planned smoke now means reducing the chance of weeks of uncontrollable smoke later, but you can’t just set the forest on fire and hope for the best. 

First, managers strategically decide which areas to burn. Where did fire once occur naturally but hasn’t in decades? Where could an overstocked forest lead to a highly destructive wildfire that might threaten homes, roads, and property? How would a fire affect wildlife? Is the terrain too rugged for firefighters to control the flames? All of these questions get answered with facts and data. 

To carry out the work, crews must first thin the area, both by hand and machines, before grinding the wood and shrubs up into something like mulch, a process called masticating. Only then do they bring in the flames. “If you don’t use fire and just rely on thinning, you’re missing a key piece,” Fritz says.

A single prescribed fire is a complex dance of science, timing, and coordination. Crews watch weather patterns to help reduce the chance of smoke drifting into a community. They must monitor the humidity to make sure the wood isn’t too dry. They’ll even ignite a small, controllable, test area to see how the flames react. If something’s off, they’ll abort. Often there’s only a narrow window when everything lines up, and spring is typically best.

“We’re always looking for that sweet spot,” says Jaimie Olle, public affairs officer with the Deschutes National Forest. 

When all systems are go, the effects of a controlled burn can appear devastating. Flames wipe out the grasses and shrubs, leaving behind a desolate, Mordor-like scar of blackened earth. But look again and you’ll see bigger, healthy trees that are still very much alive. They have far less competition for nutrients, sunlight, and water, too. That’s exactly what “fire-adapted” means. 

“It can feel dramatic but what you’re really seeing is a forest moving back toward a healthier condition,” Fritz says.

Bret Michalski, a professor of forest technology at Central Oregon Community College, agrees. He says that shift is easier to understand when you see fire as part of a larger system. 

On a gorgeous Central Oregon day, he led a small Visit Bend film crew through the forest near Dillon Falls to show the work that the Forest Service has been doing. He pointed out places where heat had caused the trees to expand and split naturally. He explained how Native Americans for centuries used fire to create healthier ecosystems that provided them with edible plants, game, and shelter. Here, grasses and wildflowers were sprouting once again. In no time at all, this area would be less Sauron and all Shire.

“Fire isn’t the end of the story,” Michalski says. “You’re watching a system start over.”