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Diane Abendroth, an ecologist with Teton Interagency Fire, looks at plant growth near the Red Hills Campground in the Gros Ventre. Last year's prescribed burn helped grow more forage for bighorn sheep and other wildlife. NEWS&GUIDE PHOTO / CORY HATCH

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While a gaggle of fire personnel watched conifers up Horsetail Creek burst into flame Thursday, fireweed, aspen shoots and pinegrass stood in blackened soil amid charred stumps of sagebrush a few miles north on the Gros Ventre Mountains’ Red Hills.

One year after fire officials with state and federal agencies used a helicopter to drop flaming gel on roughly 5,600 acres to start a prescribed fire in the Lower Gros Ventre drainage, plant life on this chunk of land is thriving.

In the burned patches, bluebunch wheatgrass, buffaloberry and fireweed are taller, greener and more nutritious than in unburned areas. The ash from the fire boosted nutrients, and the flames thinned the tree canopy, letting in more sunlight.

All this healthy plant life means good food for wildlife. Officials with Grand Teton National Park, Bridger-Teton National Forest and the Wyoming Game and Fish Department started burning the land in 2007 to benefit big game. The idea is to rectify decades of fire suppression that have left the landscape’s plant life older, less diverse and less palatable.

This year’s prescribed burn in the area currently is under way.

During the next four years, wildlife and fire managers hope to burn between 20 percent and 30 percent of 17,000 acres between the Red Hills and the Grand Teton National Park boundary as part of the Lower Gros Ventre Habitat Enhancement Project. This nutritional boost will last for about seven years and animals will benefit from more diverse plant life for several decades.

In a parking lot near the Red Hills Campground, Steve Kilpatrick, a habitat biologist with Game and Fish, said wildlife managers hope bighorn sheep, especially, will benefit from the burn.

During the winter of 2001-02, a tough layer of crusty snow blocked forage and helped wipe out 40 percent to 60 percent of the area’s sheep population, leaving the Gros Ventre Mountains with only 250 to 300 animals.

While the herd has since rebounded to about 450 sheep, better habitat should help that number grow even larger.

“Anything we can do from a habitat standpoint is going to help build and maintain this herd,” Kilpatrick said. “If you have good groceries, you will fend off diseases, parasites and predation.”

Lots of food also helps boost the bighorns’ birth rate and helps ewes make more and better milk for their young.

In addition to providing nutrients for growing plants, the fire burns away unpalatable shrubs and trees such as sagebrush. The decreased ground cover allows the snow to melt earlier and plants start to green up one to two weeks earlier in the spring.

“The sheep have access to nutritional forage at a key period,” Kilpatrick said. “They’re at their nutritional low. It’s the bottleneck, especially because in a few weeks, they’re going to have a lamb on the ground and will be lactating.”

And food isn’t the only benefit of fire to bighorn sheep. Burning away tree cover near cliffs gives sheep a good view of predators that might approach, giving them time to reach escape terrain. 

Other wildlife benefit, too. Elk, deer, moose and pronghorn will all reap the benefits of a greener, healthier landscape. Even sage grouse can take advantage of a burn, as long as there’s at least some cover.

“We try not to burn more than 20 to 30 percent of [the sagebrush],” Kilpatrick said. “Sage grouse love those little burn patches. Those burnt areas are insect factories, and those chicks feed on insects almost exclusively for the first two weeks.”

Diane Abendroth, a fire ecologist with Teton Interagency Fire, recently led a hike into last year’s burn area. As she walked among the remains of charred trees, she pointed out the difference between plants that sprouted from burned ground and those from areas the flames didn’t reach.

“In the burned patches, they are twice as big and tall and lush as the same species growing in unburned places,” she said.

Aspen stands, in particular, have regained their vigor since the spring.

“Aspen sprouts are growing further out from the aspen stand than they have before,” she said. “The aspen stand is expanding.”

Fire benefits aspens by getting rid of conifers, which compete not only for space and sunlight but also for water.

“If too many evergreens come into the forest, their rapid and winterlong evapotranspiration tends to remove water from the site,” she said. “That makes it less desirable for aspen.”

“When you have a fire, the aspen will resprout from their roots,” she said. “For decades, they will have that advantage and will have more access to water.”

Aster, antelope bitterbrush and Douglas fir also benefit.

“The bigger and older Douglas fir have that thick bark; they can survive a fire that is burning on the ground,” Abendroth said. “The younger ones, less than about eight inches thick, are more easily killed. [That] opens up the understory for herbacious plants and gives more water and nutrients to the bigger and older Doug fir trees.”