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Fire hurts squirrels' cause

MOUNT GRAHAM - The Nuttall Complex wildfire could reverse recent gains made by endangered squirrels, but on a broader scale many biologists feel the blazes will do more good than harm to the Pinaleno Mountains. "Overall, it will be a positive effect on the ecosystem," said Jeanine Derby, supervisor of the Coronado National Forest. "It's frightening when it's happening, but it's what nature does." Just 10 percent of the 29,400-acre Nuttall Complex burned severely, reducing forests to blackened poles. The rest burned lightly or moderately, consuming fuel that had built up to unnatural levels thanks to decades of fire suppression. With the complex's two lightning-caused fires still smoldering this week, wildlife experts are hesitant to predict how critters will respond in coming years. But based on Arizona's recent experiences with wildfires, they suspect the opening up of forests and regrowth of grasses and forbs may help deer, bears and turkeys in the Pinalenos, 75 miles northeast of Tucson. "Every fire is different," said Eric Gardner, an Arizona Game and Fish Department biologist. "A burn in certain conditions can be good, setting the forest back to a different stage and allowing for new growth. In other areas, it can be so hot and extreme it kills off even the seeds in the soil, leading to high erosion rates, then siltation of the drainage system." Last week, Game and Fish flew a helicopter over the 119,500-acre Willow Fire, southwest of Payson, and found no dead or injured animals. But the agency is warning people who live close to burned areas that bears and other displaced wildlife may show up in urban areas. On Mount Graham, flames swept across about half of 1,961 acres above 10,000 feet that the federal government designated as a squirrel refuge in 1988. "It appears to be a mosaic burn in the squirrel area," said Tim Snow, a Game and Fish biologist who led a spring survey that estimated the squirrel population at 284. That was about half the number recorded in 1999, before drought and insect outbreaks wiped out much of the forested habitat at the very top of Southern Arizona's tallest mountain. About 46 squirrels had recently recolonized the Engelmann spruce and corkbark fir near Mount Graham's trio of telescopes. But the area, subject of lawsuits and civil disobedience in the 1980s and 1990s, suffered some of the Nuttall Complex's most intense burning. That forest hadn't seen a stand-replacing fire since 1685, tree-ring researchers concluded. "It certainly burned incredibly hot up top," said John Koprowski, head of the University of Arizona's red squirrel monitoring program. "We're probably talking a century before you have real habitat up there." Before the fire, biologists were hopeful the overall squirrel population would rise because last year was a bumper crop for the cones squirrels eat. Nine out of 10 females produced litters this spring, potentially adding 400 young squirrels, Koprowski said. Now, however, newborn squirrels that escaped the flames will struggle to make it through the winter because cones, mushrooms and other food sources are gone, while many of the middens where squirrels squirrel away their food have burned. The young squirrels "don't have the fat stores the adults have to be able to survive through a tough winter. They're going to really have a tough time," Koprowski said. "Things could have been much worse," he said. "The burn wasn't as severe as many feared, and it was controlled before it hit some of the best areas of squirrel habitat." What happened in blackened areas remains a mystery because biologists still haven't been allowed to access the burned terrain. "We really don't have any sense of survivorship because we still haven't been able to get in there," said Vicki Greer, a biologist with the UA's monitoring program for the past 15 years. Greer and colleagues spent Tuesday checking on squirrels that live in and around the 6,716 acres burned in the 1996 Clark Peak fire. Many of the trees are still skeletons, but grasses, ferns and aspens are already back in full force. Red squirrels' lives are centered around middens - piles of debris where the rodents store and, in essence, refrigerate food they must consume year-round to support their exceptionally high metabolic rate. The squirrels fiercely defend their middens, so it's unclear what will happen when displaced squirrels look for new homes. "They're so feisty for such little animals," Greer said after an 8-ounce squirrel "barked" at her from a tree limb above. There are hundreds of unoccupied middens on the mountain, but it's unknown if they're still suitable for squirrels. Scientists believe 33 middens were severely burned in the Clark Peak Fire and an estimated 27 squirrels died in the fire or through its suppression. "Certainly areas that burned in 1996 in a severe manner don't have squirrels in them, and they won't for years," Greer said. The fire doesn't appear to have done much damage to another animal protected by the Endangered Species Act - the Mexican spotted owl. "We don't have any owl territories mapped that were totally burned severely," said Anne Casey, biologist for the Coronado National Forest's Safford Ranger District.