FORESTS FACE MORE FIRES WITHOUT MANAGEMENT
OROVILLE » Historic fires will continue and worsen in rural forested communities like Berry Creek, until people learn to live with and control fires, California scientists warn.
The North Complex is the kind of fire local scientists cautioned could result, with much of the north state’s foothill terrain overgrown and dangerous after another year of drought.
The complex’s West Zone (formerly known as the Bear and Claremont fires) continues to pose a tough challenge to firefighters, who have informed the community day after day it is difficult trying to secure and maintain lines in steep, rugged terrain.
Earlier in the summer, Butte County Resource Conservation District’s Forest Health Watershed Coordinator Wolfy Rougle had warned the ongoing danger of overgrown areas near Concow and the burn scar could endanger communities like Berry Creek. Rougle also mentioned the growing necessity of referring to indigenous people’s methods of fire control, rather than suppression.
“When a fire is driven by high winds in extreme conditions, like the Bear Fire was on Sept. 8-9, whether the land has had a prescribed burn or not probably will make very little difference,” Rougle said.
Rougle argued “in extreme wind conditions, the fire is no longer spreading from tree to tree by flame contact, so it barely matters how close together the trees are: rather, the fire is spotting (throwing wind-borne embers) miles ahead of itself.
“The Bear Fire made its biggest run through land that had been very actively logged in a checkerboard pattern, leaving large areas of no trees at all.”
Cal Fire-Butte County’s current Incident Fire Behavior Analyst Jonathan Pangburn (urban forester for Cal Fire San Benito Monterey) said the conditions faced Sept. 8 were a perfect storm “for a massive crown fire.”
Communities like Berry Creek in the foothills are uniquely at risk for major fires pushed by extreme weather incidents and drought, Pangburn said.
“We are in a severe drought in this part of California,” he said. “This last winter was extraordinarily dry. The one time
we did get rain was right at the seed germination time for grass — we had rain at the exact right time to get the fine fuels that help carry fire.”
Combined with two record heat waves, vegetation was “primed” and hot when lightning storms arrived in August, he said. The topography of the area then caused problems for firefighters, with many steep ravines and drainages.
“That allows fire to run uphill and even when it backs downhill, some burning material can get dislodged, roll down the hillside, ignite a fire below and run back up again. That steep terrain helps drive the fire, but it also is resistant to control because it is extraordinarily steep.”
Pangburn argued the nature of the foothills, full of mature forest with heavy undergrowth, does contribute to major fires when burns start from the ground and shoot up the tree to reach the canopy, which causes “crown fires” — wildfires which burn even the tops of tall trees.
This didn’t used to be normal, he said. The Sierra Nevada’s mixed conifer forest including firs, Ponderosa and sugar pines “used to be much more resistant to fire because we had a lot fewer trees.”
Pangburn said from the history of white colonization and white settlement in the region, before land settlement trees were once separated by 10 to 20 feet or more, and fires burned low, taking out undergrowth and rarely passing between trees due to their distance. Low intensity fire intervals of five to seven years were common and kept clearing undergrowth.
Today’s forests, such as in the Plumas County and Butte County hills, have thick canopies with heavy undergrowth, resulting from fire suppression and suffering consecutive years of drought and more intense periods of heat.
All three main factors — fire suppression, forest management and climate change — cannot be discounted, he said.
“Climate change is a factor in that we’re seeing more and greater extreme weather events. Yes, last year we had a decent rain year, but before that were five years of sustained drought.”
Because trees live for decades, one year with more rain doesn’t make a significant difference, he added.
Each region must also pay attention to the land’s “carrying capacity” — the amount of water (rainfall or snow), soil nutrient capabilities (the quality of soil and ability to make plants grow) and sunlight available, he said. In Butte County, drought and high numbers of thick trees, shrubs and vegetation close together will continue to present a problem for fastspreading fires.
Much of the state’s forests are federally owned, with some commercial timber “and a lot of private and development land,” which all share responsibility for management, he added.
“We need to set up proper conditions for development, fire safety engineering with building code and construction requirements for structural hardening, fuel breaks … So we can start to live with fire,” Pangburn said.
“You can’t get away from it, it’s a part of the landscape.”
Pangburn said prescribed fire, as much as possible, must be prioritized while considering the long term effects of climate change and fire suppression.
“If and when we as a society as a whole want to embrace it, we’ll get there. But it’s going to take everyone on board,” he said.
“When we put good fire on the ground we are not just helping ourselves, we are improving the overall health of the forest — if we do it in the right way,” Rougle added.
“To know what ‘the right way’ is, it’s important to take our lead from Native communities who have a long history of burning these lands, because after all, their traditions are precisely what shaped the forest we consider healthy,” she said. Meanwhile, we also need to keep monitoring the results of our burns (and our other actions, like logging and home building) and we need to have the humility to change our tactics if they aren’t getting us good results.”
New legislation
Local and national responses are underway to the need to prevent major, disastrous fires like the North Complex.
According to Rougle, on Wednesday the Butte County Resource Conservation District was recommended for funding from two California forest health grants, totaling $1.6 million. The two Wildlife Conservation Board Forest Conservation Program grants will help improve wildland health on up to 17,300 acres.
The Upper Butte Creek Forest Health Initiative provides $1.44 million for a plan for forest health thinning, reintroduction of fire, meadow health treatments and aspen improvements on 15,800 acres of the Lassen National Forest around Jonesville. The project area contains the headwaters of Butte Creek, which supports the largest self-sustaining population of spring-run Chinook salmon, and is a climate refuge for multiple species.
The Concow Pyrodiversity Project provides $180,000 to develop up to 1,500 acres for priority “fire pods” around the ConcowFlea Valley area, identified by Plumas National ForestFeather River Ranger District and Cal Fire professionals for defensible fuel profiles for the communities of Concow, Yankee Hill, Pulga, Paradise and Magalia. The project will also improve habitat in the Camp Fire burn scar by breaking up existing continuous chaparral.
Nationally, legislation arrived Thursday that is poised as a strategy to prevent major fires with pre-fire season controlled burns — The National Prescribed Fire Act of 2020. As written, it could increase the pace and scale of controlled burns, create a controlled burn workforce and give states more flexibility to regulate controlled burns in winter months to reduce fires and smoke in summer.
This act would establish funding and incentives for burning on federal, state and private lands and a workforce development program for prescribed fire practitioners with employment for tribes, veterans, women and those formerly incarcerated. It also requires state air quality agencies to use laws and regulations to allow larger controlled burns.
The National Prescribed Fire Act of 2020 is currently under review.