Los Alamos Forest Stirs Back to Life

The blackened tree trunks stand silent on hillsides scorched by the Cerro Grande fire as the wind whistles through pines in the distance.

“When you see that all the trees are gone . . . I think there’s a sense of loss,” said Terry Foxx, a local ecologist.

The burned area overlooking this city 25 miles from Santa Fe is a constant reminder of last May’s devastating fire.

Still, new life is sprouting. Gambel oak and aspen saplings are several feet tall; grasses planted by volunteers brighten the desolate landscape with brilliant green. Elk and birds have returned.

Near the top of Cerro Grande Peak, the damage is minimal. That’s where the National Park Service started its prescribed burn to rid the forests of undergrowth, sparking the fire on May 4, 2000.

But high winds and very dry conditions swept the fire out of control. In a 12-square-mile swath overlooking Los Alamos, the fire killed nearly every tree. Another 13 square miles were heavily damaged.

Many of the lost trees had survived dozens of natural fires over hundreds of years, said Craig Allen, a U.S. Geological Survey field ecologist based at Bandelier National Monument.

Last May’s wildfire burned so hot in places that it baked the soil, just as a kiln hardens clay into ceramic. That makes it difficult for new seeds to germinate, said Jim Whittington, a volunteer coordinator with the U.S. Forest Service.

Wildlife generally fared better than vegetation.

Most elk and deer outran the fire; birds simply flew away. Experts are concerned, however, about the fire’s effect on the Jemez Mountain salamander, which lost about a third of its habitat on Forest Service land.

The fire also burned a number of archeological sites, including some that are sacred at the Santa Clara and San Ildefonso pueblos.

And it wiped out log cabin ruins built around the turn of the century, said Rory Gauthier, an archeologist at Bandelier.

“We have a tremendous loss of information from that,” he said.

This summer the U.S. Forest Service will send out a team of archeologists to assess the damage and determine if the blaze uncovered any new finds.

Though the losses are many, the forest is rejuvenating with the help of hundreds of volunteers who, beginning last June, nearly overwhelmed public agencies with offers of help.

Volunteers have put in 2,000 hours since the fire, raking 767 acres to loosen the hardened soil, then seeding it with barley and rye to prevent erosion, Whittington said.

To quicken the regrowth, volunteers will plant some 12,000 seedlings this year and about 50,000 seedlings next year, Whittington said. Tree planting will continue for the next four to five years.

Already, though, there are signs of new life.

Los Alamos residents living near the burned area have heard the bark beetles, which feed on charred wood, said Natasha Kotliar, a wildlife biologist with the Geological Survey.

Next came rare three-toed woodpeckers, identified by yellow markings on the backs of their heads. The birds feed on the insects and live in tree cavities, Kotliar said.

“For a lot of species, that forest is not ugly as it is to most people. It’s kind of an Eden for them,” Kotliar said.

Elk, too, seem content to return to the burned areas. Evidence of their presence above Los Alamos was seen on a recent spring day.

But the comeback of the ponderosa pine forest will take decades, if not centuries, depending on conditions, the experts said.

Foxx, who studied the effects of the 1977 La Mesa fire near Los Alamos, said trees planted after that disaster are now 10 feet tall. At higher elevations, about 7,500 feet, the aspens will return first and, in 20 years or so, could begin to show their brilliant golden fall foliage.

Once the aspens create shade, the ponderosa pines will at last begin to grow under their canopy and eventually reclaim the burnt land.

Despite all the efforts to rehabilitate the burned area, Los Alamos residents likely won’t see the return of the forest they knew in their lifetimes.

The trees will come back, Whittington said, “but they’ll come back on Mother Nature’s time schedule.”