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The explosive Mustang Fire near Flaming Gorge has now -tamed down.
It's now a 20-thousand acre zone of smouldering -ash and debris.
The threat seems to have passed.
But forestry experts warn the same thing is likely to happen over and over again because of decades of misguided policy.
Environment Specialist John Hollenhorst has the story from the Ashley National Forest.
It doesn't take a forest scientist to see the difference between a densely overgrown forest, and park-like stand of Ponderosa Pine that was burned through a few years ago by a small, low-intensity fire.
BURT KULESZA/SUPERVISOR, ASHLEY NATIONAL FOREST: "IT WAS A PRESCRIBED BURN THAT WE LIT THAT MIMICS NATURE."
Whether the Forest Service lights them, or Mother Nature, small fires are good for forests. The result here is widely-spaced trees, only 25 or 50 per acre. And not much thick vegetation or downed debris on the ground.
BURT KULESZA/SUPERVISOR, ASHLEY NATIONAL FOREST: "SO WHAT WE'RE AFTER IS GRASS, WITH VERY LOW BRUSH."
Contrast that with a stand of Ponderosa which hasn't seen fire for decades. In places there are 500 to 1,000 trees per acre. The dense lower growth allows fire to climb the ladder to the treetops and turn catastrophic.
BURT KULESZA/SUPERVISOR, ASHLEY NATIONAL FOREST: "WHEN WE GET FIRES THIS IS A PERFECT EXAMPLE OF LADDER FUELS."
Experts say periodic low-level burning keeps the forest healthy and natural, but federal policy hasn't let that happen.
BURT KULESZA/SUPERVISOR, ASHLEY NATIONAL FOREST: "OUR POLICY IN THE PAST HAS BEEN TO IMMEDIATELY SUPPRESS THOSE NATURAL FIRES."
Even more dramatic, this lodgepole Pine forest: overgrown. Packed with trees. Choked with dead timber. Parts of the forest killed by beetles and disease.
Eventually Narure will catch up, in a brutal way, probably with a lightning strike during a drought.
BURT KULESZA/SUPERVISOR, ASHLEY NATIONAL FOREST: "THIS STAND WOULD LITERALLY EXPLODE AND ROLL ACROSS THE FOREST. WE ARE LOCKED AND LOADED HERE IN TERMS OF FIRE, AND READY TO GO."
A similarly overgrown Pinyon-Juniper forest is where the Mustang Fire erupted and burned 20,000 acres in a half a week.
JOHN HOLLENHORST REPORTING: "SEVENTY MILLION ACRES OF THE NATIONAL FOREST ARE IN A SIMILARLY COMBUSTIBLE SITUATION. THAT'S A NATIONAL POLICY DILEMMA OF MASSIVE PROPORTIONS."
BURT KULESZA/SUPERVISOR, ASHLEY NATIONAL FOREST: "WE'VE GOT THE POLICY. WHAT WE NEED IS PUBLIC SUPPORT."
To the Forest Service the answer is a balance...of natural fires, deliberate controlled burns... plus logging and firewood cutting.
But distrustful communities worry about fires getting out of control.
Environmentalists worry about too much human meddling.
Even with our Season of Fire, it won't be easy correcting a century of error.
Just to underline the dilemma AND the controversy: the Forest service started a controlled burn in Central Utah this year. It got out of control because of two windstorms...and burned for two months.
It consumed 64,000 acres.
