After fires, focus will turn to land recovery, policy
Yolo County farm advisers offer some ideas for land restoration
In the aftermath of a wildfire, affected farmers and ranchers may want to act quickly to begin restoring their land, but University of California Cooperative Extension advisors and others caution against moving too fast.
“There’s often a strong emotional desire to do something, and something big, because there’s so much damage,” Morgan Doran, a UCCE livestock and natural resources adviser in Yolo, Napa and Solano counties, said last week during a webinar on recommended post-fire activities.
Although that’s understandable, he said, he recommends landowners “temper that with the financial feasibility and the goals that you have, or your landscape that you manage.”
After a fire, it takes about three years for rangeland to return to normal productivity,
he said; in the meantime, broadleaf plants such as starthistle germinate, having been stimulated by the fire.
“Eventually, the grass species recover till it comes to what’s maybe considered an equilibrium in the third year,” Doran said.
Reseeding the land might not be necessary, he added, as there may be a seed bank already in place that survived the fire.
“If you are going to seed, do it for a good reason, be sure that it is financially feasible and it meets your goals, and be strategic in where you do it,” Doran said.
Nick Gallagher, a rangeland specialist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service in Yolo County, recommended clearing and protecting culverts, paying attention to drainages and allowing vegetation time to recover naturally.
“The main thing here on these large ranch lands is to take a look at your existing infrastructure,” Gallagher said. “Look at where your culverts are, look at your drainages that lead to roads, and identify the problems.”
Katherine Jarvis-Shean, a UCCE orchard systems advisor in Sacramento and Yolo counties, advised orchard farmers to examine the trunks of their trees for signs of fire damage.
“We need to remember that the trunk is really the conduit of all the water and nutrients to get up into that canopy,” she said. “If the trunk is quite damaged, that canopy is not going to recover—whereas if you just have damage up in the canopy, you can cut that back for sanitation reasons, so it doesn’t get more diseases spreading around there.”
Jarvis-Shean recommended waiting until spring to see what happens, as the full extent of damage may not be revealed for months.
She also recommended installing a timestamp app on one’s smartphone and taking a lot of photos to document damage, and moving quickly to open a file with the USDA Tree Assistance Program; producers facing orchard losses must file within 90 days of the damage becoming apparent.
The Tree Assistance Program is among a number of programs the USDA Farm Service Agency makes available to assist farmers and ranchers facing losses from wildfire. For more information, go to www.farmers.gov/recover or contact a local FSA office.
Thoughts also have turned to long-term forest management, with the aim of minimizing the chances of more catastrophes.
Shaun Crook, a Tuolumne County logger and California Farm Bureau Federation second vice president, said the plague of fires represents a long-owed debt being collected.
“To me, it just goes back to more proof of the 40 years of lack of management,” Crook said. “You’ve got a (National Environmental Policy Act) process that takes over a year to get a (logging) project out, and that’s to go manage a part of the green forest. And so what happens is, you have all these delays. It’s like compound interest; it just keeps compounding the problem every day that you’re not doing something.”
Though climate change may be a factor, basic fire science is still in play, he added.
“A fire needs two things to burn,” Crook said. “It needs oxygen and it needs fuel. We have provided the excess fuel load by not managing the forest. Without that fuel, there is no fire.”
In Washington, D.C., the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is due to take up the Emergency Wildfire and Public Safety Act of 2020, co-sponsored by Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Steve Daines, R-Mont.
In a statement of support, CFBF President Jamie Johansson said the bill, S. 4431, boosts “the pace and scale of forest management activities, including mechanical thinning and controlled burning, reduces the threat of catastrophic fire, protects lives and communities, and safeguards and enhances California’s essential water resources.”
A companion bill in the
House was introduced by Reps. Doug LaMalfa, RRichvale, and Jimmy Panetta, D-Salinas.
At the state level, the Legislature enacted Senate Bill 901 in 2018 with the goal of providing $1 billion over five years to fund wild fire mitigation projects—but that funding did not come through this year.
“That’s something that we haven’t quite been able to really pinpoint as to why,” CFBF policy advocate Robert Spiegel said. “We have members of our organization who have lost homes, lost their ranches, lost their farms and have been impacted by the wildfires. It’s something that our membership takes very seriously.”
Though Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund carbon auctions have seen some volatility amid the COVID-19 pandemic, he said, revenue for fire-mitigation projects should have been available.
“Extreme fire risk exists on the landscape, and California has not done its job to mitigate that risk,” Spiegel said. “It has not improved the regulatory climate for private landowners, and relies too heavily on the federal government to manage its own lands. Unfortunately, wildfires do not recognize jurisdictional boundaries.
“The ramifications of mismanaging or not managing that land have a direct impact on California’s fiscal situation,” he said. “It is always more expensive to fight wildfires than to treat the symptoms beforehand.”
The Legislature adjourned for the year Aug. 31 and will not reconvene until January, unless Gov. Gavin Newsom calls a special session.