Protection: Six ways to save Californians
Experts on wildfires say the safety of California’s nearly 40 million residents will require a multipronged approach, including thinning overgrown forests, better community planning and adapting to a warming climate.
Forestry officials say it will take years to thin out the huge expanses of parched brush, chaparral and woodlands that are now vulnerable to fire.
“This is not a matter of raking some
leaves,” said Keith Gilless, a forest economist at UC Berkeley and chairman of the California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, referring to President Trump’s muchridiculed suggestion that California rake the forest floors. “This is a matter of untold tons of biomass from decades of fire suppression.”
So California has a long way to go before its citizens are safe. Here are six ways to get there:
More prescribed burning: Controlled burning is the cheapest way to clear dry brush and excess debris in woodlands. Cal Fire increased its winter burning regimen from 3,200 acres in 2013 to 27,000 acres this past year. The recently signed pact between the state and federal governments would dramatically increase the amount of prescribed burning, but that creates new problems.
Many people worry about prescribed burns getting out of control or polluting the air. Residents and environmental organizations often sue to stop them.
Such a lawsuit delayed a plan by the Forest Service to log 3,000 acres of charred trees inside the massive burn scar left by the 2013 Rim Fire, which swept through the Stanislaus National Forest and parts of Yosemite National Park. The Forest Service wanted to burn the salvaged wood in a biomass plant, which would have created electricity. Streamline the permitting process: Red tape has often slowed prescribed burning, selective logging, forest clearing and other projects that reduce wildfire risk, according to experts. It is something the joint fire prevention agreement hopes to reduce.
Bill Stewart, a forestry specialist at UC Berkeley, said foresters must now prepare environmental documents, timber harvest plans and go through water quality and wildlife agencies to obtain permits for sustainable logging and forest clearing projects.
“There’s an amazing level of frustration because projects are designed, but implementation gets stalled,” Stewart said.
The statefederal stewardship agreement signed this month sets as one of its goals a more costeffective approach, but provides no specifics.
Create incentives for industry to get involved: Regulations and liability concerns often discourage timber companies and biomass industries from buying into the state’s fire prevention strategy, said Keith Gilless, a forest economist at UC Berkeley and chair of the California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Gilless said timber companies would be more eager to help with thinning projects if it cost less to get involved.
One goal of the statefederal forest plan is to create those incentives and ensure economic stability in the industries working on fire safety and sustainability projects.
“We are working on ways to encourage the development of industries to make products that can be used in innovative ways, like sequestering wood and other lowvalue material in buildings,” Gilless said. “The goal is to create a cash flow with selective logging for fire resilience and still preserve critical habitat for wildlife while also creating a situation where catastrophic wildfire is less probable.”
Improve building and de
sign codes: Local and state design codes should make homes more fireproof and prevent new development in areas where there is extreme fire danger, according to the experts.
To guide development, fire experts recommend using risk maps that pinpoint areas where wind, heat, vegetation and other factors pose a fire threat.
Max Moritz, a specialist in wildfire with the University of California Cooperative Extension, said defensible space should be designed into neighborhoods that also have stringent fireresistant building codes.
Many homes were built before the standards took effect, and state and federal grants to retrofit have been too low.
Implement policies of “adaptive resilience”: Adaptation is important, Moritz said, because the playing field changes every year as a result of climate change. Adaptive resilience includes retrofitting homes to reduce flammability and building in less fireprone areas. But it also means including green spaces and escape routes in fireprone communities.
Reduce carbon emissions: If nothing is done to combat global warming, Moritz said, things will likely get worse no matter what California does. As temperatures rise, he said, winters are getting shorter, less rain and snow are falling, vegetation is drying out and the frequency and intensity of wildfires is increasing.
That’s why fossil fuels need to be phased out in vehicles, transportation and in industry. And homes must be as energy efficient as possible, he said.
The move toward clean fuels means more electric vehicles will come on the market — and that requires a reliable electric grid. The hope is that the state and federal governments will work better with agencies like PG&E, which is working to fix an electric grid blamed for starting numerous fires in Northern California.