Federal eco-SWAT team acts to minimize fire's aftermath

PINE, Colo. (AP) - The helicopter swooped and swirled over a mountainside turned into a sea of black with a narrow island of still-green trees snaking through the middle.

Pilot Doug Pascuzzo said into his headset: ''Whatever you want to see, just let me know.'' Three members of an eco-SWAT team sitting on facing seats behind the pilot grabbed their topographical maps and penciled marks on top of the elliptical lines that represent the 10,800 acres scorched by a fire in the Colorado mountains.

''That's an area of high-intensity burn,'' Tim Sullivan said into the small microphone on his helmet while pointing down at the massive, charred swath. ''That's a pretty good burn.''

Sullivan, a soil scientist with the U.S. Forest Service, heads a team of federal experts who began plotting the emergency response to the environmental aftermath even before the flames of the fire that destroyed 51 homes were out.

The Burned Area Emergency Rehabilitation crew will map the worst parts of the burn this week as firefighters monitor hot spots. A plan is being written to stabilize barren slopes before summer monsoons unleash slabs of soil into streams and flood already beleaguered homeowners.

Federal experts working with local officials are forming an emergency response to a 10,600-acre fire east of Rocky Mountain National Park that also erupted June 12 and spread quickly in the windy, tinder-dry peaks.

Similar teams recently swept into areas burned in New Mexico, including around Los Alamos where a 47,650-acre blaze destroyed more than 200 homes.

The first line of attack is reseeding land stripped bare of grass and brush, often by dropping tons of seed from the air. Crews also rake in the seeds, build terraces and mix straw into the damaged soil in hopes the water will be absorbed.

The foe is time: the longer the wait, the crustier and more impervious the scorched surface becomes.

''We need to get the seed down when the ash is still fluffy, within two to three weeks,'' Sullivan said.

Waiting for a helicopter ride, Sullivan scrambled up an untouched hillside and carefully dug through the pine needles and decaying matter underneath, the ''duff'' that recycles a forest's nutrients and draws in water. A severe fire consumes the layer, producing gases that are cooked in the soil by searing heat, he said, holding dirt in his outstretched hands.

The result is a water-repellant surface on which water beads like drops on a well-waxed car hood. A lot of water just rolls over the top.

The worst-case scenario unfolded four years ago a few miles down the road from the current fire.

A fire tore through about 12,000 acres in Buffalo Creek in May 1996. The area was reseeded and terraces were built to slow water, but a storm two months later flooded Buffalo Creek, killing two people and destroying houses.

Silt streamed into a river and reservoir that supplies drinking water to the Denver metropolitan area.

Sullivan called the storm that pounded Buffalo Creek ''a once-in-a-lifetime'' storm.

''If a storm like that hits again, there isn't anything we can do to stop that,'' he said.

The team's goal is to fend off storms that occur once every 10 to 25 years. The target is severely burned, water-repellant ground, which scientists estimate is about 40 percent of the area southwest of Denver. Another priority is moderately burned ground where clusters of homes are found off winding roads.

Complicating the work is the mix of public and private land. A little more than half the fire burned on national forest land, but the rest was a patchwork of mostly private acreage.

The Natural Resources Conservation Service will help pay for the seeding on private land, but needs permission from the homeowners. The federal agency plans to pay 75 percent of the reseeding costs on private property and local sources, including county emergency departments and soil conservation districts, may cover the rest.

Homeowners may have to pay some of the expense. Reseeding about 6,000 acres after the Buffalo Creek fire cost about $1.3 million.

After an aerial look at the devastation Monday, Sullivan and scientists from the Natural Resources Conservation Service a got close-up view as they drove through a neighborhood. Intact houses were interspersed with piles of rubble, burnt-out pickup trucks and a lone chimney jutting from the ground amid blackened firs and ponderosa pines.

''It's a little more real when you see the homes,'' said Sullivan, hanging out the window. ''Life and property are our No. 1 priority.''