SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Summer brings wildflower season to many mountain towns across the West and meadows burst with color, but these flowers have more than just their looks. They may also have a role to play in preventing wildfires. Phil Allen is professor of landscape management at Brigham Young University, who has spent decades studying these flowers. He joins us now. Thanks so much for being with us.
PHIL ALLEN: Thank you, Scott. It's a pleasure.
SIMON: What can wildflowers do to prevent wildfires?
ALLEN: Well, in the semi-arid regions of the Western United States, wildfires are a huge problem. So the role that wildflowers play is that they are able to, when in an established native wildflower community, reduce the risk of extreme wildfires. They do that in a few ways. First, they are perennial plants, while the fires are caused by annual invasive weeds that are ready to burn by early June. The wildflowers and their associated grasses stay green until late summer. A lot of the wildflowers bloom in May and June, and then by August, they've essentially disappeared. And so the fire season window is reduced, and the risk of a catastrophic wildfire is similarly reduced.
SIMON: So can the clue we take from that to be to plant wildflowers to frustrate the growth of wildfires?
ALLEN: The areas where it's most important are at the urban-wildland interface. We have a lot of that. The Wasatch Front, where most of Utah's population is, is north-south and it abuts the mountains. So the foothills are currently dominated by weedy annual grasses, including the most common plant in Utah, which is cheatgrass - a native of Eurasia. And so it's in areas like that where it has the greatest potential to reduce the wildfire risk.
SIMON: How feasible is this for communities?
ALLEN: Well, we've shown it to be very feasible on a volunteer-intensive local scale. There are a lot of weeds in the West. And a canyon that I'm very passionate about, located adjacent to Brigham Young University's campus, has, for over 25 years, carried out an ecological restoration, which I direct as a volunteer. This could be replicated. And my current project is to develop the how-to-do-it guide that can be replicated certainly around the Intermountain West, as far as Reno, throughout Idaho, in the lower elevation areas, Wyoming and Colorado. So I've had, on a small scale, some extreme success that leaves me very, very optimistic that if we want to bad enough, the volunteers will show up and they can make this happen on a much broader scale.
SIMON: Professor Allen, may I ask you what drives you to be a professor of landscape management?
ALLEN: Well, I grew up outside. So my cousins and I, we just love nature. I remember kicking sagebrush, and my first prickly pear cactus flower in bloom. And from that time, I was hooked. I've spent the rest of my life outdoors enjoying nature and becoming increasingly passionate about it and helping the students I'm fortunate enough to teach acquire that same passion. It's just a wonderful place we live in out West, and we just enjoy it immensely. So, you know, we've got to conserve water. Wildflower meadows conserve water as well as reduce the risk of wildfires, but we still need beauty. We still need to figure out ways of saving water while having beautiful landscapes.
SIMON: Phil Allen is a professor of landscape management at Brigham Young University. Thank you so much for being with us.
ALLEN: You're certainly welcome, Scott. It's my pleasure.
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