Despite above-average rainfall for the Black Hills area this year, Black Hills National Forest officials are worried about wildfire, particularly near one high-profile spot: Harney Peak.

A major mountain pine beetle infestation surrounding Harney Peak has made the peak and the Black Elk Wilderness around it particularly susceptible to fire, according to Dennis Jaeger, deputy forest supervisor.

"Our biggest worry is what if we get a lightning strike on Harney Peak this year?" Jaeger said. "The threat of a fire with all those brown needles right now is a high concern. We're watching that real close."

Jaeger said mountain pine beetles have hit the Black Elk Wilderness hard, which could pose a major wildfire threat to not only Harney Peak but to Custer State Park, Keystone, Mount Rushmore National Memorial, Palmer Gulch and Hill City.

Although the fire danger for most of the forest was rated moderate as of Thursday, hot, windy weather could change the picture quickly, Jaeger said.

And lightning from a summer thunderstorm could pose a real problem.

Jaeger said the forest gets between 130 and 150 lightning-caused fires each year. "We have a 98 percent rate of keeping those below five acres."

That other 2 percent is the danger, said Frank Carroll, public information officer with the Black Hills National Forest.

Conditions that are conducive to the mountain pine beetle are also attractive to fire, Carroll said.

In dry years, like those for most of this decade, trees don't have enough moisture to make pitch to drive the beetles out.

When the beetles infest a tree, the tree dies, even though it is still green - and it is already susceptible to fire.

"When the trees turn red, for a brief period, they're very dangerous," Carroll said.

The next year, after the needles fall off the dead trees, they become "gray ghosts" and less of a source of fuel for fires.

After several more years pass, however, those gray ghost trees fall.

"When they fall down, … they create a pick-up-sticks kind of a mess, like a big barbecue. Then when you light it on fire, it's severe," Carroll said.

Right now, Carroll said, Harney has all of those conditions.

"In the case of that wilderness, under the right conditions, on the right day, it's an explosive situation," Carroll said.

Jaeger said Forest Service officials have been working on ideas for how to attack a fire in the Black Elk Wilderness, despite the legal restrictions. They have been lining up federal, state and volunteer firefighting resources.

"We've done some fire behavior modeling," Jaeger said.

A heavy helicopter, capable of dropping more than 1,000 gallons of water or retardant, is stationed at the Custer Airport, Jaeger said.

Firefighters cannot drive vehicles into the wilderness to fight fire. So there wouldn't be any fire lines built by bulldozers - not that there are roads in the wilderness, anyway.

But the laws regulating wilderness areas would allow hand crews, aerial fire tankers and helicopters that bring in portable water tanks and small pumps.

It still would be an uphill battle in the heavily forested deep canyons south of Harney Peak, Carroll said. "Fire in that country would be very difficult to stop."

Any source of ignition, whether by lightning or a campfire, could be catastrophic under the right conditions, he said.

One of the defensive measures being considered is a proposal for prescribed burns on the southern boundaries of the Black Elk Wilderness area next to Custer State Park, according to Lynn Kolund, Hell Canyon District Ranger.

Since 2000, wildfires have burned more than 183,000 acres out of the 1 million forested acres on the Black Hills National Forest.

The biggest, the 86,000-acre Jasper Fire west of Custer, in 2000, didn't burn any homes, only because it was the least populated part of the hills.

"If you had stuck Jasper on the east side of the Black Hills, it would have been a catastrophe," Mystic District Ranger Bob Thompson said.

Since the passage of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003, the Black Hills National Forest has stepped up its thinning efforts to reduce fuel for fires as well as limit the spread of pine beetles.

The Forest Service is not trying to stop wildfire completely, Thompson said. "We can't. We're just trying to manage it."

Contact Steve Miller at 394-8415 or steve.miller@rapidcityjournal.com.