Could Beavers Be the Secret to Winning the Fight Against Wildfires?

The East Troublesome fire erupted on October 21, 2020, whipped by strong winds and fueled by drought-parched forests. The fire roared through northern Colorado’s spruce and fir woods; it leaped roads and rivers and the Continental Divide, scaling mountain passes above tree line. It incinerated historic buildings in Rocky Mountain National Park and homes in Grand County, killing two people. Ultimately, it torched nearly 200,000 acres, making it the second largest fire in Colorado’s history.

In the end, just about the only thing the East Troublesome didn’t consume was beaver ponds.

This was not entirely surprising. Beavers, of course, build dams that store water—and water, as you may know, doesn’t burn. But the benefit the semiaquatic rodents provide goes further than that. In a study published weeks before the East Troublesome blew up, Emily Fairfax, an ecohydrologist now at the University of Minnesota, found that beaver ponds and canals irrigate the landscape so thoroughly that they turn crisp, flammable plants into lush, fireproof ones, forming green refuges in which wildlife and livestock can retreat. In a nod to another firefighting icon, Fairfax and her co-author titled their paper “Smokey the Beaver.”