Forest Fires: Why the Chicago Area Doesn’t Have Them

“Stop the car! Just stop, now! Look!” Despite that he was driving in bumper to bumper traffic, I insisted that my husband, Chris, see what I was seeing – the most awesome sight of my life. This is what I saw:

Yosemite Valley

See that thin road way down in the valley between these peaks? That’s where we were driving that day: The Yosemite Valley. We had spent well over an hour maneuvering up and down winding roads through dense woods and all we had seen were trees until we encountered stop and go traffic. The view is obscured until you get to the valley, but we didn’t know that. We focused on the road, trying to avoid collisions and follow signs. Until I looked up and my heart stood still in awe.

As I’m writing this, the entrances to Yosemite are closed. The forests that once blocked our view of Half Dome are involved in an uncontrolled forest fire. It will recover some day—fires are not unusual there. But there will be scars. Visitors will see blackened areas when they stop at scenic overlooks, shake their heads and go, “How sad. Someone should do something about this.”

My books all take place to some extent in the forest preserves southwest of Chicago, so I wondered why such fires don’t seem to happen here. Or do they? We don’t hear about them, so they can’t be a big deal. But if forest fires happen in California, and our summers seem to be getting hotter and dryer, why not here too?

So I arranged a telephone interview with John McCabe, Director of Resource Management for the Forest Preserves of Cook County (FPCC) to find out. The simple answer is twofold: nature, and proactive management by the FPCC.

Plant materials in our area differ from those out west. The chemical make-up of the plants in our area, coupled with our high humidity, makes them more difficult to burn even in extreme drought. Out west, with a different chemical make-up and extreme low relative humidity, plants will burn even when fully green.

Wildfires (also termed intentional fires) happen rarely in the Chicago area, with approximately seven to ten reported per season. There are two seasons: spring, after the snow has melted and the material on the ground is brown and dry, before the green leaves come out (early March through mid-April); and fall, after the foliage has dried and fallen to the ground (mid-October through November/December).

Fire is a natural process, necessary for the establishment of new forest growth. Nationally, in some cases a decision is made to let fires burn out naturally because of the ecological benefits. But in populated areas like Cook County containment is paramount, and wildfires in this area almost never happen for natural reasons.

The benefits of prescribed (controlled) burns to our habitats (woods, prairies, wetlands, etc.) are many. Such forestry management not only reduces the risk of wildfires, it reduces the fuel load (burnable material), improves the habitat, controls weeds, improves drainage, and promotes the growth of new and fire-dependent vegetation.

Proactively, the FPCC conducts a program of prescribed burns. I was surprised by the extent of the program, which schedules five or more crews (a total of 40 staff) on a daily basis. In addition to the firefighters, trail monitors and smoke monitors (often volunteers) keep visitors away from the burn and monitor smoke and wind conditions. Signs are posted and a fire truck is placed on the road to alert the public.

People start almost all wildfires in our local preserves. It could be from such practices as dumping hot barbecue coals in the wrong place, dropping cigarettes or matches, or by the truly sick just for the thrill of it. If lightning were to ignite a fire, lightning in this area is almost always accompanied or followed by heavy rain, preventing a fire from getting established.

Wildfires are usually reported by FPCC police who regularly patrol the preserves. In the event that a fire is called in by the public to 911 or in some other way, the call would be transferred to both local firefighters and FPCC firefighters. They would first check the location of scheduled prescribed burns, and then send out two people to assess the intensity of the fire and call in responders.

Local firefighters would be first on the scene, as they are equipped for rapid response and have sirens and lights. They do not, however, have the equipment or generally have the needed training to get into and control a blaze in rugged terrain, nor are they able to move trucks and equipment into remote areas. They want to hand over the responsibility to firefighters whose specialty is getting into the preserve as soon as it makes sense to do so.

Instead of bulldozers and other heavy equipment that used to be so destructive to the natural areas of the preserves, today’s forest firefighters use pick-up trucks and UTVs with 200-gallon water tanks, pumps, and 50-100 foot hoses. The crew also carries backpacks with 4-5 gallon tanks equipped with “trombone” water guns and hand-pump sprays. They have other specialized tools, such as “flappers” rakes, and Pulaskis, a tool that combines an axe and an adze and can both chop wood and dig soil.   

The firefighters will assess the weather, fuel load (amount of combustible material), natural fire breaks, or where breaks can be created to confine the fire, and special hazards (like occupied places) in the area of the fire. They will position themselves where they can “attack from the black,” with the wind at their back. A head-fire is where the fire moves fastest and at the highest intensity, so they will attack from that direction and try to herd the fire toward a natural boundary such as a road. They also attempt to reduce the amount of consumable material by removing, wetting, or back-burning.

Prescribed Burn

I have long valued our local forest preserves as a unique and beautiful resource, but I didn’t fully realize how much is done to keep the preserves beautiful and safe for the public. It takes not only dedicated staff like those I’ve been fortunate enough to meet, but volunteers who love the preserves as much as I do. I don’t have to drive near my home woods and say, “How sad. Someone should do something about this.” Because someone already has: the devoted staff of our FPCC.

“Our” forest preserves can never have too many volunteers, and opportunities with commitments as little as a couple of hours a month or a few times a year are available for people of all interests and abilities. If this story has inspired you as much as I hope it has, please consider volunteering. I hope to meet some of you next time I’m out lending a hand.

Here’s a link that will get you started: http://fpdcc.com/volunteer