Trees decrease East Bay fire risk
In September 2013, the U.S. Forest Service published an opinion that said logging eucalyptus trees would increase the risk of fire in the East Bay hills. Last year, the Federal Emergency Management Agency rescinded its $5.7 million funding to UC Berkeley and the city of Oakland for logging eucalyptus, Monterey pine and Acacia trees in our hills after a pro-eucalyptus group sued. Yet the proponents of cutting down nonnative trees like blue gum eucalyptus who claim they present an extreme fire hazard continue to try to implement logging projects in the Bay Area by joining local taxpayerfunded, vegetation management groups.
What they advocate will make our East Bay hills more fire prone, waste taxpayers dollars to implement fire mitigation plans that would turn our hills into the same grassand-brush terrain that was swept over the last few years by wildland fires, such as the Rocky, Valley and Butte fires.
All trees, no matter their species, reduce the risk of fire because their leaves collect moisture from the air and drip on the ground beneath. They provide shade that slow the sun’s heat from drying this moisture. They act as windbreaks, which slow down wind-whipped fire.
Additionally, even though we had plenty of rain this year, we do not have the water resources to fight another major fire like the 1991 Tunnel Fire in the Oakland hills. During that conflagration, firefighters were pouring water on the fire at a rate of 40 million gallons per hour. More than 25 years later, California’s population has increased by almost 10 million people, all of them using water. If the raindrought cycles continue in our state and a major wildlandurban interface fire like the Tunnel Fire occurs, it will severely tax our water resources.
Most wildland fires begin in grasses and brush in late spring, summer and fall before the rainy season begins. Grass fires easily travel to trees, regardless of their species. The higher the grass and the more dense the brush, the more chance a fire will occur. The 1970 and 1991 Oakland hills fires began in grass.
The most effective and most economical prevention fire prevention strategy is to have an ongoing maintenance program to cut the grasses and thin the brush during the fire season. This was one of the recommendations made by the task force (of which I was a member) that investigated the Oakland hills fire. Another important recommendation was “do not target particular tree species such as the blue gum (eucalyptus) or Monterey pine for eradication.” Both of these recommendations have been ignored.
The public has many opportunities to stop plans to deforest our hills. Learn the truth about how all trees prevent fire. Join a local vegetation management group, such as www.oakland vegmanagement.org. Contact your city’s mayor and council members. Talk to your neighbors, and if possible, form small groups to advocate for trees — even eucs. David Maloney retired from the Oakland Fire Department and is the former chief of fire prevention at the Oakland Army Base. He was a member the 1991-92 committee that investigated the Tunnel Fire, a wildland fire that killed 25 people and destroyed more than 3,000 homes in the Oakland hills.