Cheesman Canyon and Wildland Fire
In June of 2002, the Hayman Fire started a 138,000 acre run through central Colorado. The epicenter of the burn was near Cheesman Reservoir on the South Platte River.

The fire was high-intensity and described as “catastrophic.” It burned a few buildings, but for the most part, human structures were spared. The fire did kill most of the vegetation, including canopy trees, in this large area, subjecting the watershed to intense erosion.

Immediately, anglers lamented “the death” of Cheesman Canyon, a popular tailwater stretch downstream from the reservoir. While I was only six at the time, I’d suspect that the fisheries in Yellowstone National Park were cast off in a similar manner a decade earlier.

Cheesman Canyon was my favorite section of the South Platte during college and I spent time there before and after the fire. Also in college, I researched and wrote an undergraduate thesis on the effects of wildland fire on salmonid habitat in the Upper Columbia River Basin. More specifically, I looked at fire’s effects on sedimentation and large woody debris (LWD for short, a fancy way to say “logs”) recruitment and how burn in the riparian zone affects these variables one year after a fire.

For over a year after the Hayman Fire, discolored water affected the fishing, particularly in the Deckers area downstream of the canyon. Fish did die during these runoff events, but most fish survived and the fishing remained okay.

Since then, the fishery has improved towards pre-fire conditions, but heavy rains last week negatively affected the river in the Deckers area, a hurtle in the path of full recovery. This rain also prevented me from reaching the river this trip. The heavy runoff washed out the road to the river.

In my opinion, the negative impacts of fire, even in a severe burn like the Hayman, are overstated and the benefits of fire are underappreciated.

Yes, heat and toxic chemicals during a fire may cause a fish kill, but this event has only been documented a few times in the scientific literature and only in small (1st and 2nd order) streams.

Yes, sedimentation after a fire can cloud a stream and bury spawning gravels and aquatic macroinvertebrates, but these negative impacts are short-lived (1-3 years) assuming ground cover can re-vegetate in the watershed.

And here lies the problem on the South Platte, the watershed hasn’t re-vegetated. The soil in the area is highly erosive. Much of the ground is covered with pea-sized granite pebbles that roll like ball bearings.

In comparison, ground cover re-established on my study watersheds in Western Montana within one year of the burn and most of the erosion was promptly halted. Sure, a major rain event would wash out some of this growth, but for the most part, the negative effects of the fires were short-lived, even after an intense canopy burn.

Unfortunately, the Hayman Fire was an unnatural event and the ecosystem is reeling. The forest around Cheesman Reservoir is predominantly ponderosa pine. Before we began suppressing fire, ground fires would burn through ponderosa frequently (every 2-20 years or so). These fires removed forest litter and small trees, resulting in “parks.” The park landscape was comprised of clumps of large ponderosa interspersed with grasses. I’m not talking Serengeti grasslands spacing here, it still looked like a forest, but there were fewer trees, larger trees, and a lot less undergrowth than we had moments before the Hayman Fire.

Ponderosa have evolved to cope with fire and the large trees were unaffected by the ground burns, in fact, they benefited from the frequent fires. Sure, the burns would sometimes hop into the crown, resulting in spotty canopy removal, but that just increased habitat heterogeneity. In aquatic and terrestrial environments alike, habitat diversity is crucial to the survival of an array of species. Forest inhabitants and plants evolved to depend on fire, something the European settlers did not realize.

Years of fire suppression resulted in an unhealthy forest. The tree density around Cheesman Reservoir was obscene. Smaller trees surrounded the larger ones, creating “fuel ladders” by which fire could access the canopy. When an arsonist (who also happened to be a local Forest Service employee) started the Hayman burn during a bad drought, the fire made up for lost time and burned it all.

The geology of the area is not suited for a rapid recovery from such a large fire. Had we allowed less intense fires to burn over the last 100 years, we wouldn’t be in this mess. There are very few homes in the Hayman Fire zone, so I assume fire suppression was implemented to protect timber interests and the water supply. Ironically, these are the two things that were damaged the most by the Hayman burn.

Our paranoia of forest fire originated during the truly catastrophic burn of 1910 that swept through western Montana, northern Idaho, and eastern Washington, killing many people, destroying whole towns, and generally changing the face of the landscape. In comparison, the Hayman was hardly more than a nice place to roast marshmallows.

Thus began our war against fire. The name “Smokejumper” comes from the organization’s objective of putting out each burn before the flames truly developed. Smoky the Bear told us about the beauty of green forests and the evils of flames. The natural fire regime was repressed, compounding the risk of a “catastrophic burn.”

Finally, in the ‘70s and ‘80s, scientists accepted fire’s role in the ecosystem. The smaller fires that eventually merged into the ‘88 Yellowstone fire were allowed to burn (at first) as part of a new Park Service plan to help restore the natural regime.

Yellowstone is predominantly lodgepole pine forest. As opposed to the ponderosa around the South Platte, lodgepole has evolved to burn “catastrophically.” Large areas of canopy would burn every 50-150 years before our war against fire. Lodgepole have serotinous cones, meaning their cones only open during the intense heat of a fire. In other words, the species has evolved to depend on a stand-clearing burn to prompt regeneration. What happens if the burn never arrives? Just look at Summit County, CO and other areas where beetle kill has ravaged the forests.

The scientists were right and Yellowstone is thriving, despite being cast off as “ruined” immediately after the burn! The natural process of forest succession has been restored and the fish are doing great.

I believe that aquatic ecologists are in the process of realizing that fire may be as important to streams as it is to forests. Just like with the terrestrial ecosystem, it is tough to shake old ideas about fire’s effects on aquatic creatures. Every time there is a burn we are surprised that it isn’t as bad as we thought, that the fish lived to eat another Adams.

Not only are fish adept at surviving the negative impacts of fire, but they can even benefit from fire in the long run. Fire kills trees, creating logs. A substantial number of those logs will wash into streams, providing protection for salmonids of all sizes, trapping nutrients in the system, and defining channel morphology. For decades, studies have shown that LWD is crucial to trout, salmon, and steelhead. Today, studies are showing that fire is a major, perhaps the major, source of this crucial habitat ingredient in the western U.S.

“Trees for Trout” is a program in the South Platte watershed that essentially accelerates this natural process. The Cheyenne Mountain Chapter of TU, based out of Colorado Springs, along with Colorado Division of Wildlife and other partners, started this program in 2004. Recently, the Orvis Company has hopped on board, helping to raise money.

The idea is to harvest logs from the Hayman Fire zone and use them for stream improvement efforts in local streams. Already Tarryall Creek, a major tributary to the South Platte, has benefited from this effort. I hear that the program hopes to use the burned logs in the Elevenmile Canyon of the South Platte in the future.

Well, I’m rambling on and I still have to discuss non-native species, not to mention the fishing. My thesis was almost 100 pages long, so don’t get me going on this stuff! One last point and I’ll move on.

After a fire, the burnt timber is sold for “salvage.” The term implies that this wood is no longer of value and timber companies can take as much as they want without harm. I would argue that these logs are of utmost importance to streams, particularly the tree stems that are near or in the riparian zone. Logs farther up the slopes provide animal habitat, nutrients, and minimize erosion.

I hope we are slowly moving towards restoring fire’s role in forest management. As we move in that direction, we also need to improve our post-fire management, including a reduction in “salvage logging.”

Elevenmile Canyon and Invasive Species
Invasive species are a huge environmental problem for which all of us are partially responsible. By now, everyone knows about whirling disease, an ailment which hit Colorado hard thanks to the state’s liberal use of hatcheries.

While whirling disease is still affecting waterways, new invaders are also causing problems. New Zealand mud snails (NZMS) were probably introduced through commercial fish farms in central Idaho. It is a little known fact that if you purchase a potato and a rainbow trout at any supermarket in the U.S., it is more likely that the fish will be from Idaho than the spud.

Now that they are here, NZMS are definitely being transported by anglers. They are tiny (5mm across), rendering them near impossible to detect on wading gear. Once they enter a favorable waterway, they proliferate at a rate that puts cottontails to shame. Densities of several hundred thousand snails per square meter have been observed. These snails don’t directly influence trout, but they displace aquatic macroinvertebrates, affecting the food chain. While trout will eat NZMS, they yield a fraction of the nutritional value as our native macroinvertebrates.

Currently, we have no way to control these snails once they enter a waterway. The limiting factors on their spread are habitat parameters such as water temperature, substrate type, water chemistry, etc. Also, of course, the snails can’t spread where we don’t take them.

For this reason, it is important that every angler is aware of this species and becomes personally responsible for minimizing its spread. At very least, every angler needs to clean and wash their waders, boots, gravel guards, boat, etc. Scrub your gear with clean water and rinse well to remove all mud, gravel, and aquatic vegetation. Remove your shoelaces and insoles to access these hard-to-clean areas. Cleaning your gear will also help fight the spread of whriling disease and didymo, a funky algae that may (or may not) be on the verge of taking over our large tailwaters.

Also, please read these other Official TU Tips.

A recent study by the state of California found that a mixture of a specific type of Formula 409 (the antibacterial lemon fresh variety) and water can kill the snails. Freezing and boiling can also kill NZMS. Bleach and most other chemicals are ineffective (at least in concentrations that won’t erode your gear).

Since freezing and boiling are not practical options for someone living in a pickup, I have been going the 409 route for the last year. Recently, I made a huge improvement in my methodology that I should have thought of from the get-go. I have dedicated a Rubbermaid tub to the process. I prepared the proper 50-50 mixture of Antibacterial Lemon Fresh 409 and water in the tub.

When I get off the river, I simply dunk my waders in the solution for ten minutes (the required time to kill the buggers) as I prepare to leave. Before I drive off, I put my boots and gravel guards in the tote and close the lid. While I’m on my way to the next great river or TU project, my equipment is being thoroughly cleaned as the solution sloshes in the back of the truck. I don’t recommend leaving your gear in there for more than half an hour or so, but this technique certainly gets the job done! My tote allows me to re-use the solution multiple times, saving money and reducing chemical waste.

I haven’t been able to tell if the 409 damages my gear at all. It certainly isn’t as bad as the bleach I used while working for the Forest Service, but it may eat at the seams of wading boots a little bit. I abuse my wading gear anyway, so I don’t want to use the 409 as a scapegoat.

But even if it does damage your gear slightly, isn’t it worth it if it helps the trout? If you are a miser and answer, “no” you should at least wash and scrub your gear without the chemical because this will both increase the life of your gear AND minimize the spread of invasive species, including the NZMS.

For extra credit, hound the proprietor of your local fly shop to set up an antibacterial 409 (again, not just any 409 will work, look for the “antibacterial lemon fresh”) dunk station. The West Denver Chapter of TU helps their local shop maintain such a resource.

I remember seeing whirling disease dunk stations at Yellowstone area fly shops when I was a kid, but they have since fallen out of fashion. Fortunately, 409 is less volatile than bleach and a mud snail cleaning station is a lot less maintenance.

The diligent webmaster for West Denver TU, David Brady, has compiled a fine website on NZMS and all the effective means of killing the little bastards. I recommend you check it out by clicking HERE.

Before I FINALLY talk about fishing, I want to discuss one more thing. Anglers have a responsibility to minimize the spread of terrestrial invasive species as well. Noxious weeds de-stabilize our riparian zones and watersheds. Please remove all seeds from your gear and wash the wheel wells and undercarriage of your truck!

Okay, the good news is that despite problems like whirling disease and NZMS, there are still trout to be caught in the South Platte. Since the flooding prevented me from accessing Cheesman, I opted for Elevenmile Canyon, arguably an even more beautiful gorge upstream from the fire zone.

The trout were rising to blue winged olives and while I may have caught bigger fish subsurface, I had fun casting baetis emergers and parachutes to 8-10” browns and ‘bows. Since the Hayman Fire, Elevenmile has attracted a ton of angling pressure, but on this particular day it wasn’t so bad. I had plenty of water and angler-free canyon vistas.

The rock faces were stained with rainwater, accentuating their texture. The ponderosa stood guard at every cliff. The aspen leaves oscillated with the wind, livening the mood. And the trout cooperated.

We are so fortunate to have such easy access to beautiful trout fisheries like the South Platte. As we enjoy these resources, it is important that we take precautions to ensure we don’t love them to death.

Click Here to see my photos

Links:
TU’s National Exotic Species Page
West Denver TU’s Invasive Species Page