 |
||||
  
 
 |
Debut of 'The Missing Fires' reveals role of cleansing burn in ecosystem
By the USU Communication Department
One year to the day after pitching his idea for an educational video to representatives of the National Park Service and National Interagency Fire Center, Utah State University graduate student Darren McAvoy gave The Missing Fires its American debut Wednesday in Taggart Student Center. The 22-minute film describes the benefits of fires that are set and controlled by forest and park managers to clear woodlands of overgrowth and debris, and thus restore balance to ecosystems that require occasional cleansing flames to remain vibrant. For example, according to the video, the forests near Flagstaff, Ariz., averaged 23 Ponderosa pines per acre for hundreds of years while fires kept growth in check. However, since fire-control practices became widespread at about the beginning of the 20th century, the density has increased to 850 pines per acre, creating optimal conditions for a catastrophic fire during a drought or after a lightning strike. The Missing Fires refers to the fact that humans have always played an important role in igniting and spreading fires in the wildlands, but modern Americans have been reluctant to take on that role. McAvoy says the initial reaction he received to his proposal a year ago was, "That's great, kid, now go find the money somewhere else." He did, eventually getting grants from the National Park Service to do research and shoot interviews in Idaho, Arizona and southern Utah, as well as to produce the film. McAvoy said he spent hundreds of hours in the summer of 1999 at an editing computer, condensing six hours of stock fire footage he copied at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, six hours of interview footage and six hours of landscape and forestry footage into a 28-minute video. After receiving critiques from experts on fire management, he cut the video to 22 minutes and added a second narrator. One of the difficulties of condensation was that professors, scientists and land managers "don't really speak in sound bites," McAvoy told the audience before showing his film. McAvoy said he expects the video to be shown at the visitor centers at national parks and national forests. He also hopes for showings to high school classes and on television. McAvoy, a former firefighter and forestry consultant in the Idaho Panhandle, produced, wrote, shot and edited the video as his master's degree project in the communication department. The video had its international debut in October at the Beijing Broadcasting
Institute during a visit by communication department head Edward C.
Pease. |
Archived Months:
September
1998 |
||
