ecoRI News reporters Colleen Cronin and Rob Smith cut through the haze and discuss why wildfires are becoming more frequent in Rhode Island and what’s being done to prevent them

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This transcript was edited for clarity and length.

Colleen Cronin 

Welcome to the Blab Lab, a twice-monthly podcast from the reporters of ecoRI News, where we unpack the critical environmental issues facing southern New England. I’m reporter Colleen Cronin and today I’m here with my colleague, reporter Rob Smith, to discuss a topic that’s literally been in the air recently — forest fires. Hi, Rob, thank you so much for coming.

Rob Smith

Thank you for having me on the pod.

Colleen Cronin 

So, Rob, it feels like forest fires have sort of been a hot topic lately. No pun intended. As we’re recording this episode, it’s not as bad as it was yesterday, but it’s pretty hazy out there.

Rob Smith

Rhode Island has gotten a small taste of that West Coast lifestyle. Our publisher, Jo Detz, sent us a picture from a train in New Jersey. She was going to a conference. It’s literally orange in some places. And it’s not typically something we feel over on the East Coast. The air quality, AQI score, it’s been well over 100. Some of the worst places are in New York City, and breathing the air is the equivalent to smoking a dozen cigarettes. It’s super scary. I mean, people have memories of smog of Los Angeles and other big cities before we really cleaned up the air. It’s probably not in our common memory. It’s definitely something that hasn’t happened in New England since before both of us were born.

Colleen Cronin 

But before catalytic converters were a thing.

Rob Smith

This is how it used to be pretty often.

Colleen Cronin 

Can you just describe a little bit what you’ve seen?

Rob Smith

So, this is the second time it’s happened. It happened a couple of days in May. It’s been pretty mild where I live; it’s just sort of really hazy. It’s definitely cooler in Rhode Island, because the haze is blocking out the sun significantly. But what I’m seeing is that on the worst days, and it’s subtle, but the clearest indicator outside of the haze is that sunlight now has a different color. During sunrise, it has a very saturated yellow color, the light coming through the sky to the ground. And that’s what it’s been like all day on some of the worst days. And that’s a real clear indication that the light is going through a thicker haze. The state issued air quality warnings most days this week. And it’s worse for people who already have asthma and other sensitive health conditions.

Colleen Cronin 

But why is this happening?

Rob Smith

There are wildfires in Canada.

The wildfires themselves are a natural part of any forest ecosystem. It’s a healthy part of how forests regenerate themselves. But there’s a lot of dead wood, or a lot of overpopulated plants.

And then there’s space and room and enough nutrients for the forest to grow quickly or much better than it has in the past. So, wildfires happen every year, even in Rhode Island. And they’re an important part of the forest ecosystem. I can’t speak to why they’re happening in Canada right now. I’m sure it’s the same reason we had that we had that wildfire in Exeter in April. The ground is dry.

Much of the Northeast has seen drought conditions from a lack of rain during the summer. We’ve seen droughts starting to happen in July and August and September. There’s just not enough rain and water during these hot summer months. And trees dry out. The reason they’re burning now is because what happens — and we’ll get into the local angle on this in a minute — but these things aren’t getting enough water. When spring starts to thaw everything, it dries off the ground. Now everything is a lot more flammable than it used to be. So even in March it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of rain or that or that there hasn’t been snow and it doesn’t seem like the ground is wet or the trees are holding water or stuff like that.

Colleen Cronin 

Can you talk a little bit about the forest fire that happened in Exeter this year? I know it was significant.

Rob Smith

So, in April, we had our worst wildfire in about 80 years in Rhode Island. The original reports state officials were estimating 700 acres had burned; it’s been significantly revised down to 237 acres. The state fire marshal and other officials are still investigating the exact cause of the fire. However, I spoke to some officials with DEM who said the suspected cause was an unattended campfire that burned 237 acres. It was mostly on the Queen’s River Preserve in Exeter.

It’s a piece of land that’s conserved and maintained by The Nature Conservancy. It burned significantly for about four or five hours before firefighters and state officials got it under control. They did have to briefly evacuate the homes nearby. There are reports of people being able to see the fire very clearly from their homes.

Even though Exeter is relatively rural, people could still see the wildfire flames. And luckily no one was hurt. No one was injured. There was a brief evacuation for a couple hours Friday evening. But people were allowed to return to their homes, and firefighters from across the state controlled the blaze. No one really remembers when the last wildfire in Rhode Island on this scale was. I do know the biggest one was in 1942. It burned 900 acres, not in the southern part of the state but in the northern part of the state. So, this was the worst one in 80 years, certainly the worst one in living memory.

Colleen Cronin 

I covered a forest fire that happened in Burrillville last summer. There was pretty bad drought that season. It doesn’t necessarily happen. When I spoke to DEM about it at the time, they were talking about how the spring was really the time when forest fires happen.

Rob Smith

So, there’s always a wildfire season. They’re just not very big or significant. We have a good handle on the response there. But there’s been a slow-burning problem about our forest fire management in the last couple of years. So traditionally in Rhode Island, the typical wildfire season is March to June. It’s the time when stuff is just growing in. You get a lot of sunlight on the forest floor and that dries everything out, which is sort of like the kindling. It’s something that can really start a fire easily. DEM director Terry Gray said this several times — the biggest factor is the drought. When plant life is dry, it burns easily. DEM always puts out these advisories not to start fires on their public lands. Not everyone listens. And that’s usually a pretty big risk when it comes to starting a fire. We’ve had some dry summers the last couple of years. Over the last 20 years our summers have gotten drier and drier. We had drought advisories in effect for many weeks last year in varying degrees.

Colleen Cronin 

Can you talk about how climate change might be impacting these droughts or these fires?

Rob Smith

We’re not getting a lot of rain. We just have not gotten nearly as much rain as we usually do in summers in the last maybe five or six years. It’s gotten really bad. Plant life, including the ground, doesn’t get the water it needs, and it’s more flammable.

Colleen Cronin 

So, climate change is a part of this. But you’re also getting at forest management being a part of this?

Rob Smith

So, forest management doesn’t really have anything to do with it. I’ve seen some misinformation since the Exeter fire. The Nature Conservancy has told me it’s not a forest management problem. DEM told me it’s not a forest management problem. The problem is these drought conditions. In the case of the Exeter fire, it was negligent campers, but it’s not really a forest management problem. A wildfire is a natural part of the forest’s life cycle. Right? But even if somehow forest management was perfect, you would still have these wildfires because everything’s dry. I was talking to DEM yesterday, and they’re going to be pulling from the 2022 green bond to take care of state-managed lands, not to fight forest fires, but take down the dead trees and take proactive actions to prevent forest fires from getting out of control.

I attended a wildfire firefighting training session on the George Washington Management Area. I was told it’s the first time DEM has hosted this sort of training in about 30 years. DEM is looking to build up its forest fire fighting capacity. They invited both DEM employees and municipal firefighters from nearby towns like Burrillville to take part in this. It’s basic forest fire training course. About 27 firefighters came for about five hours yesterday and took different lessons in how to start a fire line, how to make a fire break. “Mop up” is what they call it when they go in and put out the fire that’s deep in the ground because you get some of these embers that settle deep into the ground after a forest fire. This was a big problem in Exeter when that fire was raging.

A big problem when you have a forest fire in a rural area is there’s no fire hydrants So the firefighters must pump the water from whatever nearby water sources are available — a pond, a wetland — and there’s not really a lot of restrictions to where they can pull up from. But firefighters yesterday, and DEM employees got a taste of doing these mock runs for these skills.

Colleen Cronin 

Is there anything that individual landowners can do to prevent wildfires?

Rob Smith

When you have fire, you have a fire. You don’t leave the fire unattended; you should have basic fire management skills, which if you start a fire you should have. I grew up in the sticks. My father has a wood stove in his house. So, I’m very used to all of this.

Colleen Cronin 

So, the fires happened. They’ve put it out. But what happens next?

Rob Smith

The state policy is you just let the forest heal itself, right? You just let the forest come back naturally. There’s nothing you can really do to make it not. There’s only so much you can do.

Colleen Cronin 

Thank you so much, Rob, for coming on the show. We really appreciate it.

This has been the Blab Lab ecoRI’s environmental news podcast. We want to thank Roger Williams University and Professor Bernardo Motta for letting us use the podcast studio here. We also want to thank Vanessa Carlton, whose song, “Willow,” you hear at the beginning and end this podcast. If you guys have any questions, or if this episode sparked any ideas for future stories or future episodes, please feel free to email me at [email protected].

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