{"id":7555,"date":"2018-11-11T13:31:26","date_gmt":"2018-11-11T21:31:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/?p=7555"},"modified":"2025-12-16T13:33:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T21:33:13","slug":"california-fights-wildfires-aggressively-but-prevention-takes-a-back-seat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/2018\/11\/11\/california-fights-wildfires-aggressively-but-prevention-takes-a-back-seat\/","title":{"rendered":"California Fights Wildfires Aggressively\u2014But Prevention Takes a Back Seat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Julie Cart, PUBLICCEO]<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Dave Kinateder has a keen eye for trees. But when Kinateder, a fire ecologist in the Plumas National Forest, surveys a hillside lush with pines, he doesn\u2019t see abundance or the glory of nature\u2019s bounty.<\/p>\n<p>He sees a disaster-in-waiting.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a ticking time bomb,\u201d he said, gazing across the dense, green carpet of trees near Quincy, a small community high in the northern Sierra Nevada.<\/p>\n<p>Last year\u2019s wildfires, the worst in modern California history, have put a microscope on the forests that cover a third of the state\u2013in particular, on managing these wooded lands in ways that would reduce the frequency and intensity of such blazes.<\/p>\n<p>California is grappling with the counterintuitive dilemma of too many trees, packed too closely together, robbed of the space they need to thrive\u2014and with how to clear out more than 100 million dead trees, felled by drought or insects, that provide tinder for the next infernos.<\/p>\n<p>Curing these unhealthy forests is both difficult and expensive, and as with human health, prevention is far less costly than treatment. But these days the state firefighting agency, Cal Fire, spends the bulk of its resources battling fires rather than practicing preventive measures.<\/p>\n<p>At stake is nothing less than life, property, air quality and the lands that hold most of California\u2019s water. A state commission recently\u00a0<a>prescribed<\/a>\u00a0radical changes to address what it terms the \u201cneglect\u201d of California\u2019s largest forests.<\/p>\n<p>A 19<sup>th<\/sup>-century California forest would have held fewer than 50 trees an acre. Today the state\u2019s forests have grown to an unnatural 300 to 500 trees an acre, or more. That doesn\u2019t count the 2 million drought-stressed trees a month lost to bark beetles that have killed entire stands.<\/p>\n<p>Gov. Jerry Brown, who in 2014 declared tree mortality a state of emergency, said in his January State of the State\u00a0<a>address<\/a>\u00a0that California needs to manage its forests more intelligently. He vowed to convene a task force \u201cto review thoroughly the way our forests are managed and suggest ways to reduce the threat of devastating fires.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>California has dozens of agencies attacking problem but still cannot keep up with the work. Crews around the state have been busy clearing trees as fast as funding allows. This wielding of chainsaws they call \u201cwhacking and stacking\u201d leaves massive wood piles along highways in some areas. But it amounts to no more than triage: Cal Fire removes trees on fewer than 40,000 acres a year, far short of its goal of clearing a half-million acres annually.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"rs-article-iframe-src\" title=\"California forests, by the numbers\" src=\"https:\/\/e.infogram.com\/622609aa-3ca1-46f9-b882-64c5204019da?src=embed\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" data-srcset=\"\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Kinateder estimates that removing trees in this way costs as much as $1,400 an acre. By comparison, controlled burns\u2014those set by fire managers to remove vegetation from forests\u2014is a bargain at less than $150 an acre. Fighting a wildfire comes in at just over $800 an acre, according to the report.<\/p>\n<p>Far from the forest floor, California officials are wrestling with the financial and environmental cost of the state\u2019s forest practices. At a hearing in March in Sacramento, legislators listened to lurid descriptions of raging fire and wrenching stories of human misery recounted by a stream of state and local officials: flames rearing up like an enormous beast, residents running for their lives, neighborhoods leveled, fire burning so hot and for so long that soils were rendered sterile.<\/p>\n<p>A portion of the proceedings focused on a recent\u00a0<a>report <\/a>about wildfires and forest health from the Little Hoover Commission, an independent state oversight agency that gave its findings to the governor and Legislature in February. The document pulled no punches, calling the state of the Sierra Nevada\u2019s forests \u201can unprecedented environmental catastrophe.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It cited a century of \u201cmismanaging\u201d the 10 million wooded acres in the Sierra, calling out state and federal firefighting agencies for their longstanding policy of aggressively putting out all fires rather than letting those that can safely burn do so, thereby thinning the choked woodlands.<\/p>\n<p>Helge Eng, deputy director of Cal Fire, acknowledged the report was \u201cspot on\u201d in its assessment of the state of the Sierra, adding that the analysis \u201cdid an especially good job of recognizing that there are no easy, black-and-white answers to the problems we are facing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cal Fire boasts that it stops 95 percent of fires at 10 acres or less, saving lives, property and entire forests from conflagration. Fire experts argue that a negative could be turned into a positive if fire bosses let them burn while still steering them away from people and structures and toward overgrown wildlands in need of clearing.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s an approach sometimes used by the National Park Service, but it\u2019s difficult to defend when forests are ablaze, frightening the public and many elected officials alike.<\/p>\n<p>Still, the report said, \u201cit is not enough for agency leaders, scientists and advocates to recognize the benefits of fire as a tool; the bureaucracy of the state government and public sentiment as a whole must undergo a culture shift to embrace fire as a tool for forest health.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Eng said Cal Fire is considering adopting the managed-burn approach, when appropriate, but noted that federal firefighters are often working in wild settings, away from development.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCal Fire\u2019s mission is different; we protect life and property\u201d in areas that may be densely populated, Eng said in a written response to questions. \u201cThere is most often not an opportunity to let a fire burn. The risk to human life is just too great.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The report also detailed a public safety threat from 129 million\u00a0<a>dead trees<\/a>, the crushing cost\u2014up to $1,000 a tree\u2014to private property owners to have trees removed from their land and the enormous burden on rural governments to both recover from fire and prepare their forests to mitigate the intensity of the next one. In no uncertain terms, the commission prescribed dramatically ramping up tree-thinning projects and, as awful as the optics are, creating and controlling some fires to achieve the same result.<\/p>\n<p>Eng agreed that the state firefighting agency was far from achieving its \u201caspirational\u201d goal of clearing a half-million acres of land each year, citing such impediments as \u201cthe logistics of capacity of staff and equipment and environmental compliance,\u201d among other factors.<\/p>\n<p>In a moment notable for its rarity in Sacramento, there was bipartisan agreement in the hearing room this month about the problem, its scope and the appropriate measures to deal with it. Focus more intensely on the problem, they agreed, and throw money at it. The state spent $900 million fighting fires last year. Just one of those late-season blazes caused more than $9 billion in reported property damage.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve made mistakes, and we\u2019ve created systems that are unwieldy\u2026.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s all of our fault,\u201d Jim Branham, executive officer of the\u00a0<a>Sierra Nevada Conservancy<\/a>, a state agency, told CALmatters. \u201cMoney alone won\u2019t solve it, but we won\u2019t solve it without money, either.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The mosaic of land ownership in California means the state owns only 2 percent of the forests but has legal responsibility over much more: 31 million acres, including land in rural counties.<\/p>\n<p>Cal Fire received more than $200 million for forest health projects last year and has proposed an additional $160 million for the next fiscal year. Those sums are on top of the agency\u2019s current $2.7 billion budget. Cal Fire, in turn, doles out millions of those dollars in grants to local governments and community groups to do some thinning themselves, and it teams with the federal Forest Service to tackle clearing projects.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>The work to improve forest health dovetails with other state priorities\u2014protecting water sources and reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.<\/p>\n<p>The Sierra Nevada range is the headwaters for 60 percent of California\u2019s developed water supply. Burned, denuded hillsides don\u2019t store water efficiently when it rains. Sediment cascades downhill, filling streams, affecting water quality and loading up reservoirs, reducing their storage capacity<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>The carbon equation is equally direct: When trees burn or decay, they release\u00a0<a>greenhouse gases<\/a>. The 2013 Rim Fire near Yosemite National Park produced\u00a0<a>emissions\u00a0<\/a>equal to those of 2.3 million cars in a year.<\/p>\n<p>Prescribed burns emit less carbon than higher-intensity fires, because managed fire is aimed at smaller trees and shrubs. Cleared forest land may still ignite, but it will burn with less intensity and fewer emissions.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, when trees die, they stop absorbing carbon from the atmosphere. The state depends on that critical service to help reduce greenhouse gases.\u00a0<a>Research<\/a>\u00a0suggests that severely burned areas regrow with shrubs or grasses, plants that store about 10 percent less carbon than trees do.<\/p>\n<p>John Moorlach, a Republican state senator from Costa Mesa, suggests the Democratic governor, a champion of the fight against climate change, has a \u201cgigantic blind spot\u201d when it comes to reducing carbon emissions. Moorlach said in an interview that Brown\u2019s emphasis on electric cars, for example, ignores the role of fire in California\u2019s greenhouse gas inventory.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cWe\u2019re being absolute phonies about climate change if we are not dealing with the real driver of greenhouse gas; that\u2019s these wildfires,\u201d said Moorlach. He has\u00a0<a>proposed<\/a>\u00a0that the state dedicate 25 percent of the revenue from its cap and trade grreenhouse-gas-reduction system to help counties\u2019 fire mitigation efforts.<\/p>\n<p>Counties would welcome the help. Randy Hanvelt, a supervisor in Tuolumne County, said that where forest management is concerned, there\u2019s a \u201cleadership problem.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTalk is cheap,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have got ourselves a giant colossal mess. This is a war of sorts. Time is against us. Every available tool has to be applied.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>One such tool is carefully designed burns. But the meticulous planning necessary can take two to three years, and the burns require favorable weather, a permit from the local air district and, crucially, buy-in from local communities that must first be educated about the benefits. And controlled doesn\u2019t mean risk-free.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPolitically, you have to have the ability to make mistakes and move on,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"fitvid0\" class=\"rs-article-iframe-src\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/262300538?wmode=opaque\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\" frameborder=\"0\" data-srcset=\"\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Nick Bunch, who plans thinning projects for the Plumas National Forest, pointed to a partly cleared hillside outside of Quincy where one of his extensively planned prescribed burns went awry, undone by a shift in the wind.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were about an hour into the burn and the smoke started going into town,\u201d Bunch said, shaking his head at the memory. Even though the burn was going as planned, the smoke was not acceptable to nearby residents, who protested to fire officials. \u201cPhones started ringing. Calls were made, and we shut it down.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Another method is used in Florida, which trains and certifies private property owners to burn their overgrown land and provides limited liability coverage in some cases. Florida cleared 2.1 million acres this way last year. Scott Stephens, who heads a wildland fire research lab at the University of California, Berkeley, said the widespread adoption of the policy has educated residents on both its benefits and risks.<\/p>\n<p>Back in Plumas County, a hulking building in a parking lot outside a community health complex may offer the final piece of the forest-health puzzle: creating a market for trees removed from California\u2019s forests.<\/p>\n<p>Part of a<a>\u00a0project<\/a>\u00a0managed by the Sierra Institute for Community and Environment, the unremarkable square structure shows a potential use for California trees. The building is the state\u2019s first to be fully constructed from cross-laminated timber\u2014layers of wood pressed together to make thick sheets and posts\u2014equal to or greater than the strength of steel.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, the $2.3 million facility will house a large boiler to provide heat for the health center by consuming 500 tons of local wood chips a year.<\/p>\n<p>The project is the brainchild of the institute, which envisions it as a way to boost the economies of forest communities. It\u2019s the kind of innovation the governor and Legislature hoped to promote by establishing a\u00a0<a>Wood Products Working Group<\/a>\u00a0to develop commercial uses for the piles of trees beside the state\u2019s roads.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s little left in California today of the early 20th century\u2019s timber cutters, sawmills and biomass industry. If the state follows the Little Hoover Commission\u2019s recommendations and accelerates forest thinning, an entire segment of state industry would need to be rejuvenated.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, officials emphasize the need to educate Californians about the role of forests in the ecosystem.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you want people to care about something, they have to understand why it matters,\u201d said Pedro Nava, chairman of the Little Hoover Commission. \u201cThey need to understand the deep connection between the health of our state and the state of our forests.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Branham, of the Sierra Nevada Conservancy, said that won\u2019t be easy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSome of our messages are counterintuitive: We must cut down healthy living trees to save the forest,\u201d he noted. \u201cIt\u2019s a challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><a><em>Originally posted at CALmatters.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Julie Cart, PUBLICCEO] Dave Kinateder has a keen eye for trees. But when Kinateder, a fire ecologist in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":"","thumbnail":"","medium":"","medium_large":"","large":"","1536x1536":"","2048x2048":"","darknews-slider-full":"","darknews-featured":"","darknews-medium":"","darknews-medium-square":""},"author_info":{"display_name":"News MoLo","author_link":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/author\/admin\/"},"category_info":"<a href=\"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/News\/news\/\" rel=\"category tag\">News<\/a>","tag_info":"News","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7555"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7555"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7556,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7555\/revisions\/7556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}