Group learning intricacies of prescribed burns to prevent wildfires.
Prescribed burns could be the answer to coping with dangers of wildfires
WATSONVILLE >> Between rows of lettuce and berries, a woman in a yellow Nomex suit gathered last week with other firefighters at the Watsonville Slough Farm. But the woman — in her 60s with a long salt-and-pepper ponytail — and those who surrounded her on an overcast morning weren’t typical firefighters.
They were fire lighters, igniting the Central Coast Prescribed Burn Association’s first official burn.
Whoops and yelps erupt as a patch of grass — the test plot — catches fire.
It’s not usually how people react to wildfires. This intentional fire, however, is aimed at reducing wildfire risk and invigorating native plants and animals.
“This year is one of the worst droughts we’ve ever seen, and fire season isn’t even fully underway and we’re all terrified,” said Jared Childress, burn coordinator for the new association. “People are looking for solutions and prescribed fire is one of the solutions.”
For Northern California communities forever changed by the wildfires of last summer — with little relief in sight — more prescribed fires could offer hope, as well as the possibility of making climate-change-fueled megafires less severe.
“Prescribed fire has this ability to take something really negative and kind of debilitating and give people something to do and put their efforts into — and feel like they’re not just a victim,” Childress said.
The new association aims to increase the frequency and scale of prescribed burns across Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Benito counties. That goal has been touted by Gov. Gavin Newsom,
fire agencies and local leaders alike.
But to accomplish this, a hefty population of trained fire lighters are a necessity. The association could help fill that gap regionally.
“We’re sort of in this time period of … renewed interest in prescribed burning. There’s not a lot of people who know how to do it today,” said Devii Rao, livestock and natural resource adviser with the University of California’s Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
The association is a collaboration of the UC Cooperative Extension San Benito County and the Resource Conservation District of Monterey County. It’s starting out with nearly $380,000 in funding from Cal Fire.
‘Fire ballet’
The process to light this managed fire at the Watsonville Slough Farm, owned by the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County, has been a year and a half in the making. It involved permitting and addressing liability concerns and environmental factors such as air quality and land resources.
Before work can begin, volunteers are briefed on hazards and strategy for the day. The morning meeting is led by Phil Dye, the burn boss.
“There’s a lot of money being pumped into fuel reduction work right now, but the state can’t do it all,” Dye said, speaking to volunteers. “They’re finding ways to get the work done via alternative means, and that’s each and every one of you.”
The burn has attracted ranchers, environmentalists, winemakers, fire department crews, agencies and residents of Santa Cruz and Monterey counties and beyond.
“We have people driving to burns from Oakland, people who live in the suburbs and cities, people where fire management isn’t their livelihood,” Childress said. “They’re addicted to the subject and passionate.”
Fire departments and other agencies are also learning. At this burn, crews from the Branciforte Fire Protection District in Santa Cruz County started things off.
The heavy-duty wheels of the fire department’s trucks crushed tall grass, then a crew sprayed water on the tire tracks. That extra step further decreased the possibility of the blaze getting out of control.
Once the boundary was established, fire lighters began their choreography.
“This is like fire ballet,” Childress said.
The burners kept pace with the trucks. The crews used drip torches filled with diesel and gasoline, and the dry golden grasses ignited like paper.
Volunteers carefully set fire to 1-acre plots of native grasses, letting each purposeful blaze burn. The control lines boxed in the flames. By the end of the day, 6 acres of land was burned.
Sometimes it’s not that simple. In heavily wooded areas, with steeper slopes, prescribed fire can be more challenging.
So this flat grassland is a good place for the association to train. The fire also revitalizes native perennial grasses such as California meadow barley and wild rye.
“These coastal grasslands evolved with fire,” said Matt Timmer, natural resource manager for the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County. “This is another way we can reduce competition and give those native grasses a leg up.”
History of fire
Centuries ago, Indigenous peoples established the ecological benefits of intentional fire. They not only lit fires as a spiritual practice, but also to cultivate foods and invigorate the forest. Researchers estimate that 4 to 5 million acres were intentionally burned by California’s Indigenous peoples annually.
The stewardship kept megafires from igniting, according to Valentin Lopez, chairman of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, who is working with the burn association. But colonization and genocide eventually wiped cultural burning from the landscape. As a result, forest litter and fuels have built up to an unhealthy level.
“The consequences of the CZU fire woke people up and made them realize we cannot continue managing the landscapes as we have been,” Lopez said. “People are listening now.”
Cal Fire is certainly paying attention.
“Until we can get some fire back on the ground, that’s really the only way to mitigate the larger fires that we’re seeing, that will only get worse year after year after year,” said Andy Hubbs, forester with Cal Fire’s San Mateo-Santa Cruz-San Mateo Unit.
Fire is one part of a forest management equation. To Childress that includes grazing, thinning, delimbing and other means to reduce out-of-balance fuel loads. In turn, a more diverse forestscape with tan oaks, redwoods and madrones that are more resilient and more adapted to fire can take hold.
“If we were to create more space — and I’m not talking clear-cutting — these trees have more breathing room, more water, more sunlight and our streams then have more water,” Childress said.
Growing pains
Gov. Gavin Newsom has made $1.5 billion available to spend over the next year on wildfire prevention and emergency preparedness, according to the governor’s office. But details remain to be worked out on how funds will be allocated.
For prescribed fires to become more common, it will involve training thousands of more Californians and buying tens of millions of dollars in new equipment for fire-resistant clothing, hoses and trucks.
For now, the prescribed burn association has enough funding to complete five burns within Santa Cruz, San Benito and Monterey counties.
Jane Manning, a Santa Cruz Mountains resident and volunteer with the association, tried for years to get hands-on experience burning but couldn’t. This year, however, she’s already worked two prescribed fires.
“I’m just encouraged that more and more people are using fire and that the prescribed burn association will allow more landowners to have access to fire,” she said. “I’m very hopeful, and this reinforces that hope.”