The Emmett index. [volume] (Emmett, Idaho) 1893-1925, 1915-04-22
THE SEEDING OF BEAR
WALLOW
How the Forest Service is Re-
fOresting Burnt-Over
Timber Lands.

1hlS is the first of two articles de-
scriptive of the methods employed by
the forest service in re-seeding land
in the forest that has been denuded OF
timber by fire. The first installment
is descriptive of the Bear Wallow, a
divide on the Middle Fork of the Pay
cite, whose timber was swept by fire.
The second article, to appear next
week, will tell of the methods en-
ployed to re-seed the burnt-over lands.
Twenty-Five years ago the area now
known as the Bear Wallow Burn was
a magnificent body of yellow pine tim
Der, interspersed with Douglas fir. To
day it is a treeless waste, brush grown
in impenetrable thickets of ceanothus,
aspen and willow. Twenty-Five years
hence it will be covered by dense
stand of yellow pine saplings 20 feet
high.
Situated as it is on the low divide
between Long valley and Garden val
lev, it was inevitable that there should
be much travel through this region.
The settlers of that day, 1890, built
by subscription a wagon road, So
called, from the mouth of Server S
creek up a series of ridges to the head
of Bear Wallow creek, and thence
down into Long valley by way OF
Round valley. And the lamentable,
but apparently also inevitable, result
of the travel over this trail, for trail
is all it ever amounted to, was tire;
in fact, series of fires.
The occurrence of old burns ada
cent to routes of travel followed by
the early settlers and prospectors is
too common, too invariable, to be
mere coincidence. Douskin trail,
Lightning creek trail, Peace valley
road. the Monumental trail and the
Bulldog wagon road, each in its early
davs has been the Incidental occasion
of large and disastrous forest fres-
So also with the wagon road through
Bear Wallow.
This road was constructed about
1889. In 1890 forest fires burned over
an extensive area about Bear Wallow,
which is a small peat bog which was
so named because at one time it was
much frequented by bear, and which
has given its name to the entire re-
gion about it. This first fire was fol-
lowed at intervals of several years by
other fires of even greater violence.
The last of these occurred about SIX
wears ago and killed the last isolated
trees on the present Bear Wallow
Burn, leaving it absolutely treeless,
but with very few seedlings, the
progeny of the scattered seed trees
which escaped the initial and first few
succeeding fires. A forest fire never
makes clean sweep of any extensive
area, but leaves here and there an
occasional group or strip of timber.
The dead timber Incidental to large
fires. however, constitutes such fire
trap that succeeding fires are inevi-
table unless some efficient patrol and
protection is provided.
The history of burn is readily de-
,iphered from the fire scars of the
living trees scattered within it or
about its edges. Thus by notching
,rees around the Bear Wallow Burn
me finds that the ring of wood added
% this tree by its growth "a years
100 has been scorched and burned IN
parts. Therefore there was a flre
1t that time. Further inspection
shows that this ring of growth had
attained overage size. Therefore,
since a tree makes most of its growth
Turing spring and early summer, the
ire had occurred in the fall of the
year. Further study of the rings indi-
.ates that other serious fires occurred
Il, 19, 13 and years ago, with mlloer
,lazes over parts of the area on Other
years.
Thus when this region was included
ii q 1NdIlOlldl L OlSSl, NAlC L CSSCt ehAi0
ame under the management of the
Forest Service, it was an area de-
roid of living trees, heavily grown :
o brush, Uttered with standing and
allen dead and highly infammable
imber and thus constant menace to
he valuable timber bodies surround
ng it. During the first years of gov
rnment administration, frequent
'lazes were started by lightning strik-
ng the standing snags. As efficient
'atrol kept these incipient fires from
,ecoming serious. In the last four
ears, moreover, decay has eliminated
most of these menaces, and in 1914 1t
vas decided that reforesting could be
afely undertaken.
So long as fires were serious risk
was not good policy to invest much