Cadwell discusses Hanford fire and ecological aftermath
2000 Hanford Fire
One of the largest recorded fires in Hanford history is expected to have a major impact on the biodiversity of the Pacific Northwest region, according to scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
A fiery, fatal automobile accident about 20 miles southwest of Rattlesnake Mountain in June 2000 touched off the fire, which eventually became a massive blaze. The flames consumed more than 160,000 acres of shrub-steppe wilderness.
On April 18 at the Community Science and Technology Seminar Series, Larry Cadwell, a scientist at PNNL, discussed the relevance of last summer's range fire to Hanford and the regional ecology. His talk was entitled, "Fire, Ecology, and the Hanford Site."
The Columbia Basin Eco region dominated by steppe (grassland) and shrub-steppe vegetation encompasses two-thirds of eastern Washington and is a major habitat for diverse populations of plants and animals. However, an estimated 60 percent of the state's shrub-steppe has been converted to agriculture and other human uses. "The Hanford Site has one of the largest remaining areas of relatively undisturbed shrub-steppe in central and southeastern Washington State," Cadwell told the audience. "As a result, the site serves as a protected area for populations of rare and endangered plants and animals that are absent or scarce in other areas," he added.
Larry Cadwell
The range fire destroyed much of the sagebrush--a dominant plant of the shrub-steppe--and with that, the habitat for many animals, including the sage grouse, sage sparrows, loggerhead shrikes, and even the once ubiquitous black-tailed hare or "jackrabbit" that inhabits the area. "The sagebrush doesn't re-grow from roots," Cadwell noted. "Instead, the woody shrubs must germinate from seed, which can be a long process given competition from many weedy annual plants such as cheatgrass and Russian thistle, which are now common. It will take a very long time, perhaps many decades, to get sagebrush back to the way it was, if indeed that is still possible."
Hanford fire photo by Nancy Wildung.
