Greg Funderburk doesn’t always see eye to eye with Smokey Bear.
“For years, you’ve had Smokey saying ‘put all fires out,’ so we’re kind of victims of our own success,” Funderburk, 43, says. “Over the years, we’ve also learned that fire is an important part of good forest management.”
Funderburk — a 1995 NC State graduate who double-majored in natural resource management and geology and minored in environmental science — is a fire management officer for the National Park Service.
Since 2009, he’s been based at Crater Lake National Park in southern Oregon, where a volcanic eruption more than 7,700 years ago left behind the deepest (1,943 feet) and indisputably bluest lake in the United States. Funderburk also oversees fire management at the Oregon Caves National Monument & Preserve, about 150 miles to the southwest. The two parks encompass more than 187,000 acres.
Fire is a key part of that landscape, Funderburk says. Crater Lake averages about 30 fires a year — most sparked by lightning. It’s Funderburk’s job not only to protect lives and property but also to restore the natural role of fire in the ecosystem.
That means letting some fires burn even during summer tourist season or using controlled burns to stop wildfires from spreading.
“Nationally, forest managers are changing the tune that we must put all fires out at the smallest possible size,” he says. “If a fire in the park has the potential to burn outside the park, we may take a different action than one that is higher in the mountain and is pretty well contained in the park. In all but the most drought-stricken years, it is managed as a natural process.”
Greg Funderburk
The natural cycle at Crater Lake was disrupted more than 70 years ago with the introduction of forest fire prevention and control policies. But those policies got another look in the aftermath of a 1988 firestorm that ravaged 1.2 million acres in and around Yellowstone National Park.
As scientists would discover, that fire gave an essential boost to Yellowstone’s ecosystem. Native lodgepole pines need heat to reproduce, because some of their cones open only when temperatures top 113 degrees. The fire provided that heat, and seedlings began popping up in 1989. Healthy trees now cover the park.
At Crater Lake, fire is also a key to the future of disappearing stands of native ponderosa pine.
“Historically, before fire suppression, you would have had high-frequency, low-intensity fires. Those would have cleared the underbrush and allowed the light to come in and allow Ponderosa to thrive,” Funderburk explains. Instead, Ponderosas are losing ground to White Fir, a tree more tolerant of shade but also more susceptible to fire.
That’s one reason that Funderburk has a busy winter ahead.
Among other things, he’s working on plans for a major forest restoration project in the West Panhandle, a 2.5-mile-long area along the park’s south boundary. The project calls for crews to thin out vegetation to help the Ponderosa thrive and reduce the wildfire risk. Work is expected to begin in the fall of 2016 or 2017.
“We’re basically … mimicking the natural effects of fire,” Funderburk says. “We’re creating a landscape where if you have a natural fire, it won’t have devastating effects.”
That’s only prudent in the wake of last summer (2015), when severe drought led to the largest fire in Crater Lake’s history. Close to 25 square miles of forest were scorched and a major access road closed temporarily during the height of summer tourist season.
Thanks to El Niño, the drought is over now. In December alone, more than 160 inches of snow fell at Crater Lake, boosting the odds for a quieter fire season this year. But when it arrives, Funderburk is ready.
“When the beginning of fire season starts, I welcome that,” he says. “It means I’m going from a planning position to an implementation position. Rather than typing at a computer, I’m out coordinating resources and working with my crew. It’s a welcome change.”
—Carole Tanzer Miller