Fire officials sound the alarm; September could be most dangerous month

‘Cut and paste the Caldor Fire behavior into Mammoth Lakes,’ fire chief says

It wasn’t that long ago that the local fire season started to come to an end in mid-to-late September due to the cooler days and nights and oftentimes, the first snow.

Those days may well be over due to climate change and even if not, this September is looking like it could well be the most dangerous month yet for the Eastern Sierra.

That is because regional fuels, things like brush, grasses and trees, have had an entire summer to dry out. Add to that a drought, the record-breaking heat that has characterized much of the summer (with more in the forecast far into the fall) and things get a bit – make that more than a bit – dicey.

“It’s bad, unlike anything I’ve ever seen since starting in ‘79,” said Mammoth

Fire Chief Frank Frievalt. “To grasp our situation, as I recently told the Mammoth Lakes Town Council, ‘Cut and paste the Caldor Fire behavior into Mammoth Lakes. That’s pretty much it.’ We’re a little higher altitude, but also a little farther south. When I came to Mammoth Lakes in 2012, the first tactical association I made with it was the Angora Fire (an older fire near the Caldor Fire that burned 250 structures in 2007) in terms of fuels, wildland urban interface and intermix, and the limited roadways in/out of the area.

“Add to that the fact that this year, we are in a serious drought and heavy fuel conditions are creating new records,” he said. “Add to that the fact that national, state, and local resources are tapped out, and we’re just starting into what is typically our fire season for the next few months,” he said.

The Inyo National Forest Public Information Officer Deb Schweizer said that just in the past several days, firefighters caught several vehicle fires that could have spread in the current conditions.

“We had a few fires that started over the weekend, mostly vehicle related, although we are still investigating them,” she said. “All were caught early enough to keep them small; one was up Highway 6 near Montgomery pass; there was a roadside fire near June Lake junction on Sunday, another vehicle fire that went into the vegetation, and there was one on Mammoth Scenic Loop that grew to five-by-five (feet). We were slightly protected by the monsoon moisture this summer on the forest overall which was great, but that protection is gone now because the fuels have dried out and that means we are at a high fire danger status.

“It is hot, it is dry and if there is any flame at all, the fuels are ready to burn,” she said. All this said, the massive Creek Fire that swathed Mammoth in thick smoke and triggered some of the worst air quality on the planet for almost two months last year did have one beneficial effect for the Mammoth area – it burned a huge chunk of thick forest on the west side of the Sierra crest stretching in a north-south direction roughly from Bishop to Mammoth – and that big, black burn area is acting like a kind of macabre fire break for potential new fires that might otherwise start in that area.

“Our risk of fire advancing toward Mammoth from the San Joaquin drainage is greatly reduced, and will be, for about 10 years,” Frievalt said, due to the Creek Fire burn and the older Lions Fire burn above Reds Meadow as well.

The Creek Fire burn scar has also kept Mammoth’s air quality relatively decent all summer because the burn scar is southwest of Mammoth and most local summer winds flow from the southwest. Because no large fires can start in the huge burn area (most of the fuel is burned up) the southwest flow has kept Mammoth enviably clear of smoke.

That said, there is still extreme danger surrounding the Town of Mammoth due to the thick forests which have not burned and surround much of the town, Frievalt said.

If a fire starts, it most likely will come toward town from the Lakes Basin direction.

“We can experience fire approach from any point on the compass, but least likely is from the southeast (S.R. 395) and most likely is from Lakes Basin because the prevailing (southwest) wind comes from there,” he said. “There is also a lot of structures on the south-facing aspect of topography (south-facing slopes are hotter and drier than other slope aspects) from Lake Mary Road down to the Trails, which means there is plenty of fuel continuity and loading,” he said.

There are a lot of programs underway to thin these fuels – but the work is slow and fires move fast. Frievalt’s hope is that there is enough time to finish the work being done to make the outskirts of the town more fire resilient before a fire starts – but there are no guarantees.

So, what can a homeowner or local resident do?

“I’d still say my first priority is to care for the defense of their own properties – it is the single best collective mitigation against fire loss that we have,” he said. “Work on your defensible space. If you have to prioritize that, scrape back the first five feet around the perimeter of your building and keep your decks clear of ANYTHING combustible and/ or that could serves as a needle/ember trap. We lose a lot of structures to decks.

“Another thing is to support a future supplemental tax measure so we can expand our tiny fire department to meet the need,” he said. “If you’d like a justification why, please refer to my “State of the District” address I recently given to Town Council. It starts at about 1:03 hours into the meeting (see link to the meeting below).

“Additionally, ask to participate in the Firesafe Council in your community,” he said. “They do a lot of good work.

“For example, any new fire starting within the Lakes Basin will need to move through the fuels reduction project supported through our Firesafe Council,” he said, noting the large thinning project that has been underway in the Basin for the past few years and that will continue when weather conditions permit this year.

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE

• To listen to Frievalt’s assessment of Mammoth’s risk of fire, go to https:// pubtownofmammothlakes.escribemeetings.com/players/isistandaloneplayer. aspx?id=27ca3a83-ac3e-4286-bf7f-42a7a12cd05d

• Access the MLF District’s website for practical tips to make your property more fire resilient at https://mlfd.ca.gov/