Episode 26 : The Bad Luck Fire : an interview with Orville Daniels [transcript]

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:29:15 Debbie Lee: Welcome to the Subway Bitterroot Wilderness History Project, which is made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The University of Idaho, and Washington State University. Part of the project’s mission is to collect, preserve, and make public oral histories documenting the history and people of the subway. Bitterroot wilderness. For more information, please visit our website at SPW lib edu Idaho edu.

00:00:29:18 - 00:00:54:16 Debbie Lee: And then I think people, I think people get so much out of being in a wilderness setting. Once you take away cars and money and telephones, people are different and they are different to each other, I think. and, and then they draw on things in themselves that maybe are a little rusty from our crazy life out here.

00:00:54:16 - 00:01:25:12 Debbie Lee: Now, I think the ways that people get along when they’re isolated in a place like that, that they place that they want to be, are really it’s a wonderful thing.

00:01:25:15 - 00:01:53:00 Debbie Lee: Thank you for joining us for the 26th episode of the Selway Bitterroot Wilderness History Project. In this episode, titled The Bad Luck Fire, we hear from Orville Daniels, who grew up in Kansas and graduated with a degree in forest management, which he immediately put to use as a ranger on the National Forest in Idaho. It was while he was working there that he and his family took a trip through the Bitterroot Valley, and he saw Trapper Peak for the first time.

00:01:53:02 - 00:02:20:12 Debbie Lee: As Orville put it, I said, this is where I want to be. I want to work here. I want to work here. And it was just an instant reaction to how beautiful Trapper Pike is. And mountains. As originally a kid from Kansas, those mountains were really very special. He transferred to the Job Corps program and eventually landed a position as a supervisor for the Lolo National Forest, later transferring to the Bitterroot National Forest, where he would serve for 20 years.

00:02:20:15 - 00:02:40:28 Debbie Lee: During his time there, Orville would be a part of the group responsible for implementing the wilderness fire policy and for originating the one launch per day floating policy on the Selway River. Here, he talks about one of the famous early fires that tested the new fire policy and the subsequent controversy surrounding it.

00:02:41:01 - 00:03:11:24 Orville Daniels: so anyway, we had that, we had that team going and the, the, the, the next critical part of it was to sell the program to the chief of forces, because what we wanted was that this be an official program sanctioned by the chief so that it could be replicated elsewhere and so forth. And quite frankly, you could not do wilderness fire management without chief’s approval.

00:03:11:26 - 00:03:44:16 Orville Daniels: So we took the we we took the program back to the Washington office. Once we had thrashed it out, decided what what the prescriptions would be. And we’re the prescriptions would apply on the ground. we flew back about much and I to so the program and then and selling is the right word the you know, the and we would to the chief of staff and you know there’s there’s a there’s a lot of memories with that.

00:03:44:16 - 00:04:10:22 Orville Daniels: We we went to the congressional offices and talked to them. We did a whole bunch of of preparing the soil for people to accept this concept. And I’ll never forget the most telling, personal account that that occurred during that. And, and we were we were, we were presenting it to chief and staff, and I believe his name was Buchman.

00:04:10:22 - 00:04:36:24 Orville Daniels: He was a he was the, associate chief for research. And he said, we need to get behind this program. He said, because of all of those big old yellow bellied ponderosa pine that want that need to be preserved, we need to get behind this program because fire management will keep those going and so forth. So.

00:04:36:26 - 00:05:10:16 Orville Daniels: McIntire trying to get chief name at the time McGuire John McGuire. John McGuire was also a researcher and came out research. But John was a really great chief. I would I would put him in at that time as being the best of the modern. So he really, really understood. And his comment was. He said, well, you know, you’re right about those trees, but that’s not the purpose here.

00:05:10:19 - 00:05:36:26 Orville Daniels: The purpose here is to maintain the ecosystem mechanisms, not the yellow bellied pine. And I thought, yeah, we got it. I mean, that was so to see here. The chief of the Forest Service put it so succinctly that we needed fire for the ecological purposes of fire and wilderness, that, you know, you’re going to make it. And so we got approval.

00:05:36:28 - 00:05:54:16 Orville Daniels: And it wasn’t long after that that we had our first fire in the wilderness, a little one that didn’t amount to much, which would have been the first fire, with chief before service sanction. in the nation. but anyway.

00:05:54:16 - 00:05:55:26 Debbie Lee: The bad luck fire.

00:05:55:29 - 00:06:13:03 Orville Daniels: The. Well, the first one was a little one, that that burned up on the hillside. It was a lightning strike, and it was only two and a half acres and went out by itself. Then the second one was a bad luck fire, and that one is just rife with with personal experience, losses and things that happen.

00:06:13:04 - 00:06:19:12 Debbie Lee: Can you, talk about a couple of that happened? Very vivid to.

00:06:19:12 - 00:06:28:18 Orville Daniels: You. Oh, yeah. There’s some there’s some real, vivid memories there.

00:06:28:20 - 00:06:51:18 Orville Daniels: I was in I was in Missoula. The meeting, when the bad luck fire started and they called me and they called me on the phone. We got a fire. We got a fire, and. And I tell the group, I got to leave the meeting. I go down and animal it, and and of course, at that point, whether to apply the prescription or not, fill 2 or 4 supervisors.

00:06:51:18 - 00:07:11:21 Orville Daniels: I mean, only the forest supervisor could make the decision. And I wasn’t about to make the decision. Setting in a meeting. So we went down and and the group briefed me on where it was, why wasn’t important, whether it fit in. And we said yes. And so we allowed it to start burning and it burned for 42 days, as I recall.

00:07:11:23 - 00:07:43:20 Orville Daniels: it was a it was a fascinating experience. Now, I mentioned that, that I had, how I got to the job, but I didn’t mention that I was fire was, you know, when I say, I don’t know if where I got this idea of fire use fire suppression fire was was something I had been doing. I was there was a fire control, what they call the fire control staff at that time, on the Charles National for, for a couple of years.

00:07:43:23 - 00:08:10:00 Orville Daniels: And that’s a that’s in the, Middle Fork country and is what’s now the Frank church wilderness. And so I had some feeling there, but I was a fire person. I, I it started when I was on the Bridger National Forest. as a person who, who, I went out as an assistant ranger, and we fought fire and I wasn’t enough what I call the fire fraternity.

00:08:10:02 - 00:08:37:24 Orville Daniels: But I was active in fire management and the leadership of the Forest Service was kind of pushing me towards that as kind of one of my career interests. And. And so I knew that I wanted to make that decision based on the information and make it make it carefully. But then when I got so soon as it was, it was going and, I, I didn’t go over there immediately.

00:08:37:29 - 00:08:46:08 Orville Daniels: But the first weekend that came along, I took my two boys and we went over and we walked the fire. We could from Paradise, you could walk.

00:08:46:09 - 00:08:48:06 Debbie Lee: Oh, what does it mean to walk the fire?

00:08:48:07 - 00:09:15:03 Orville Daniels: Just get out and walk through it. And I was carrying a, I was carrying a a shovel, which every good firefighter carries a shovel when they’re on the fire line. And, and, and it was like the personal recollection is really strong standing on a hillside and there’s a burning log. And my inclination as a fire control person was a turn that logs or and roll down the hill.

00:09:15:05 - 00:09:46:04 Orville Daniels: I would turn a log. And then I thought, no, that’s not what we’re doing. It was it’s a paradigm change. I mean, the agency, even though I had, a commitment and if still the old habits and, and and the whole agency had that the old habit, it was a slow transition, even when it’s logical, even when your brain says this is what we’re doing, you know, habits and emotion carry.

00:09:46:06 - 00:10:22:03 Orville Daniels: And so it was like, I would I’d want to stop those rolling pine cones from burning and rolling down the hill. And I want to turn the log. And and I had to resist my own impulses of suppression and and finally, after about an hour and a half of walking through the fire with my sons who were, you know, I think probably around ten and eight at the time, so they could keep up and, and, and the fire was burning benignly and you could see it creep along and, and take out a little, patch of Douglas fir and you see.

00:10:22:04 - 00:10:43:07 Orville Daniels: Yeah, that’s one of the things that we wanted to do and blah, blah, blah. And so it was it was just a revelation to be out there, you know, everything up to then had been an intellectual game at that point. We got on the fire and you really watched it, and you begin to think of it in ecological terms, even though I was prepared for it.

00:10:43:10 - 00:11:12:08 Orville Daniels: But to sit there. And so finally I would just sit and watch it, and you could see how it was varying its pattern of burning and how intense it’d be here wouldn’t be over there in this big conflict narration. And she always, before any agency and even with me, with my feelings for fire. You always figured it. You’re you get when you went on fire, you did not observe the fire.

00:11:12:12 - 00:11:43:26 Orville Daniels: You put it out. I mean, you were there to put that fire out. And so you never stop to really look at it, to really watch what it was doing. And now you might in a prescribed burn like I had seen. But when it’s a wildfire, it’s just like your head clicks and and so the reality is, I don’t think hardly any people in the Forest Service that were in the fire game had ever just sat and watched the fire burn very much.

00:11:43:29 - 00:12:09:19 Orville Daniels: It just wasn’t what they were doing. And that’s why this, this, this little technician burning that I watch was so unusual because he was using it for a prescription, and not very many people were really there. Some. But most of the reason fire to burn, slash and do those things. And he was, you know, so it’s sort of like being a microcosm of the change the agency had to do.

00:12:09:25 - 00:12:10:27 Orville Daniels: I had to do it.

00:12:10:29 - 00:12:24:17 Debbie Lee: Did you realize at the time how, much of an impact what you were doing would have on the on fire policy for the whole country, or is that something you realize looking back or a.

00:12:24:17 - 00:12:46:18 Orville Daniels: Little looking back? You know, looking back as you. I don’t know when you’re pioneering something you don’t really you don’t really think in that way of, well, I’m making a difference in the country. What you really do is I want to do this because I think it’s right. And you focus on that instead of the broad policy implications.

00:12:46:18 - 00:13:10:00 Orville Daniels: I didn’t have enough maturity. you know, when I was 50, 60, I might have looked at it and said, hey, we’re changing the whole view. But at the time, no, it and and that’s a fascinating thing that you raise. It’s one of the things I’ve learned over my career is that when you’re on a cutting edge, you normally are not doing it to try to influence a whole world.

00:13:10:02 - 00:13:35:26 Orville Daniels: You’re doing it to make that part of the world that you’re in, or you’re trying to do the right thing as you see it and, and often. And it’s it’s a it’s a fallacy of youth. You don’t understand what you’re setting in motion or all hands sometimes will say, oh, no, you start that. And a lot of the old time fire guys were saying, no, this fire was just bad.

00:13:35:28 - 00:14:09:24 Orville Daniels: Till teach people bad habit, we won’t put out fires. And there was tremendous resistance within the fire community without but more leadership in the regional office. I don’t think we could have ever gotten this done. and on the bad luck, fire was was typical. Now the bad luck fire there were there were some instances there I’d like to talk about, but one of them, the major one was the fire got outside the fire management boundary, and it’s in fact has been well documented and so forth.

00:14:09:24 - 00:14:36:06 Orville Daniels: And, and and it crossed the across the river, the drainage and started on the other side of the drainage well, the by right, you put all the fire out. But this is our first fire. It was our chance to do it. And so I made an executive decision, which was probably wouldn’t have stood the test of legality, that we were going to have two fires.

00:14:36:06 - 00:14:56:25 Orville Daniels: We’ve had fire north on the south side of the drainage, which we were going to suppress, and a fire on the north side, which we were going to allow to continue to burn. And we really needed that far on the north side. So it was sort of like cutting and fitting the situation. We’d never really thought about that in total depth.

00:14:56:28 - 00:15:17:10 Orville Daniels: But so we called him the incident command team. And that incident command team were just furious that we wouldn’t let him put the fire up. And, I can’t remember that fellow’s name. It’ll come to me, but he he was an old time fire fighter. And he was. He thought we were totally crazy. And that we should not do that.

00:15:17:12 - 00:15:36:22 Orville Daniels: Let me put that fire out. And. No. And without Bud’s blessing, I couldn’t have pulled it off. Even though I made the decision, he supported it. And and, later on policy was that if it gets out of control, the whole thing is out of control, and you got to put it out or do something, do it, or we’ve got new terminology and new strategies.

00:15:36:22 - 00:16:01:18 Orville Daniels: We’ve learned so much since then. But when the fire was burning, I just had to be out there. I and the other things went aside. And then the after the fire with them just I think it was five days after the fire had gone out by itself. Bob much and I went out and we walked the park and this fire became very personal fire.

00:16:02:14 - 00:16:03:04 Debbie Lee: The bad luck.

00:16:03:11 - 00:16:31:16 Orville Daniels: The bad luck fire, the bad luck for. And it was beginning to sprout green grass was coming up, little forms popping up. And you saw it as something of renewal, not something of destruction. And it had burned in a nice mosaic. It had burned out some dense, spans of Douglas fir left all the pretty much all the big pile.

00:16:31:18 - 00:16:49:27 Orville Daniels: And it hit it had done what we wanted. And when we watched it, we’d go out there and for 2 or 3 days it wouldn’t even, it would just smolder. And then you’d get the right conditions and you’d get a little bit of a burn for a day or two days, and you could see the varying intensities of fire.

00:16:50:00 - 00:17:14:23 Orville Daniels: And that’s one thing that it demonstrated that most of us had never seen. Because when you go out to suppressive fire, it’s usually in a very active burning stage and all you see is is pretty uniform black running fire. But when you’ve got a fire burning under the natural conditions, it creeps, it burns a little here, it doesn’t burn there, etc., etc. if it’s in the right conditions, if it’s under prescription.

00:17:14:25 - 00:17:42:03 Orville Daniels: So it was that Bob and I walked out and then we went back the next spring, and by the next spring when the when the snow went off, I mean, it was a carpet of, of bringing flowers and things coming back and, and you knew and so as a result of that, for, I don’t know, maybe 10 or 15 years, I’d be on a speaking circuit talking about the value of wilderness fire.

00:17:42:03 - 00:18:11:18 Orville Daniels: And by then we fully knew what what it meant. And from a systems standpoint, within a very short time, it was clear it was it was going to change the agency. And and although we weren’t thinking as much about that at the beginning, it became clear very quickly. And it was it was almost like a religious experience to experience that fire.

00:18:11:20 - 00:18:34:10 Orville Daniels: It it gives you a passion for it. when you’ve done that, you’ve invested so much in the study, so much in the and, and convincing people to do it, that it really does become almost an ideology. And, and it captures people.

00:18:34:12 - 00:19:01:14 Debbie Lee: Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Selway Bitterroot Wilderness History Project, which has been made possible by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The University of Idaho, and Washington State University. The project coordinator is Debbie Lee, recorded and produced by Aaron Jepson.