Earlier today (July 18) Oregon Representative Court Boice asked for insight regarding the current management actions taking place on the State’s largest active wildfire, the Flat Fire. It is now more than 8,000 acres in size in an area famed for its east winds and known for the past 35 years for some of the largest forest fires in Oregon history.
My fields are forest (and fire) history and reforestation, not wildfire management, and his request was for distribution to a 100+ email discussion group of actual wildfire management experts; which task was just completed. It will be interesting to see what the response will be, and that might largely depend on weather patterns over the next several days and weeks — and particularly the east wind.
Below I have copied this evening’s official report on the fire, and following that I have included the text of Rep. Boice’s letter of emergency to 30+ fellow politicians and USFS reps, including Supervisor Merv George. This fire has great potential for being an important learning experience for all involved, depending on how things develop. Here is the current report:
July 18, 2023 Evening Update
Size: 8,204
Start Date: July 15, 2023
Point of origin: 2 miles south east Agness, OR
Cause: Under Investigation
Total personnel: 378
Resources: 16 Engines
13 crews
2 bulldozers
2 water tenders
7 helicopters
Current Situation: Today the fire spread on the western flank. An infrared flight will be flown this evening to map accurate acreage. Firefighters have been successful in keeping the fire within control lines on the northwest section of the fire. They were also successful in completing small, targeted 10-15 acre burn outs reducing vegetation on the north flank, protecting communities in the Agness area.
Fire managers continued making use of aviation resources today, including helicopters and airtankers dropping water and retardant over the fire. Using water and retardant temporarily slows fire activity assisting crews on the ground.
Tonight’s activities: Nightshift firefighters will continue progress from the day shift, building fireline and laying hoseline.
Evacuations: Please monitor the Curry and Josephine County Sheriff’s Offices for official evacuation notices. https://www.co.curry.or.us/government/county sheriff/index.php
https://www.josephinecounty.gov/government/sheriff/index.php
Weather: Clear with low humidity on ridges.
Closures: The Rogue River Siskiyou National Forest has issued a closure order for the fire area including trails, roads, and a portion of the Illinois River. Please be careful when driving in the area due to increased fire traffic.
Restrictions: Fire Restrictions are in place https://www.fs.usda.gov/rogue-siskiyou
Information Line: 541-216-4579 8am-8pm
Media inquires: 541-237-6369 8am-8pm
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/flatfireoregon2023
Twitter: https://twitter.com/FlatFireOR2023
Inciweb: https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident-information/ xx1002-flat fire
Email: [email protected]
**************************
The Subject Line in Rep. Boice’s Email of Emergency was entirely in caps, as were several key words in the text:
CURRY COUNTY FLAT FIRE – IMMEDIATE AND BOLD ACTION NEEDED – URGENT…
Please give our Hero Fire Fighters Historically Proven Plans to Win – Stop another Curry Monster Wind Driven Fire!
Lessons Learned: The Afternoon Winds are upstream… generally towards the east on the Rogue and Illinois river drainages. As the sun sets offshore, the atmosphere becomes kinetic per the temperature change. The Chetco River has a weather anomaly. In the afternoons – the winds are toward the ocean, pushing west; This effect is why the town of Brookings has such nice warmer winter weather.
As and If the Flat Fire likely continues burning generally Southwest… upstream on the Illinois; it tops out into the Chetco drainage which is commonly known as the “Chetco Effect”… It will take the fire in the exact opposite direction… about due west to the town of Brookings. Already happened once – almost twice. This time it undoubtedly will happen faster. Communities of Pistol River and Gold Beach of course are also at risk and potentially even Smith River California.
The 2017 Chetco Bar took 191,000 and the 2018 Klondike likewise destroyed 176,000 acres. EACH cost a staggering $80 plus million dollars to fight! (Yes – Fact: combined $ 170 million in 18 months!) The fuels now are quicker and more volatile per brush regrowth due to multiple previous Mega Fires; Biscuit, (Still the largest Fire in Oregon History), the Collier, Chetco Bar, and repeatedly prove this.
ACTION NOW: Declare wise and legitimate emergency – Override Congressional Laws stopping designated wilderness areas – No Equipment Allowed. This mis-guided approach is brutally dangerous to our communities. Also we know without debate – millions and millions of our wildlife are incinerated – their instincts help them normally escape healthy fires, but they cannot survive our tragic Curry Nuclear Fires. History proves what follows will work and Save Lives, Property, Wilderness, Watersheds, Fish and Wildlife. ACTION NOW!
Immediately open and improve all relevant and advantageous roads
Seasoned Loggers and Fire Fighters (now in their 60’s and 70’s) – men on D-7 dozers…cutting lines on critical ridge tops
Hand crew ‘Back Burns’ can help off the ridges, but are very risky. That work must have unanimous consent between USFS, ODF and CFPA prior
Aviation work to cool both sides down
Hand crews catch the spots
Our Curry Fire History is invaluable. Our outlined steps either happen OR we know the fire will not be stopped… We cannot again wait for late October Rains – futile and unacceptable !
The risk of loss of property and life is immense. We could lose towns or worse.
Court Boice
State Representative – Oregon District 1
[email protected]
Phone (503) 986-1401
He sounds like he thinks he is an “actual wildfire management expert” … True?
“Stop a wind driven fire” – really? How? Bulldozers and chainsaws certainly haven’t in the past, and won’t now.
Ah, but what does “wind-driven” actually mean.. perhaps I just live in a windy area, but there’s almost always wind of some kind. and fires and embers tend to go with the wind.. and if it’s too windy they can’t use air resources..
Anyway, I’m not an expert either, but if we want to have a good discussion and build bridges among people with different views, we should probably understand the definitions people use.
Fires usually follow terrain/fuel. While they do often create their own weather, including lightning, and spot ahead of the main fire the wind doesn’t push the fire against terrain/fuel. In a wind driven fire the fire is directed by the wind often making downslope runs, spotting miles ahead of the main fire, backfires are ineffective except on the sides and flanks.
I live in a mostly grassland, so the fuel and terrain are mostly the same. When we have wind, the fire goes in that direction. Not sure it spots miles ahead but maybe spotting isn’t as big a thing in grass fires?
Maybe “wind-driven” is a concept that pertains more to forests or shrublands and/or areas with more topography.
That is exactly what the Flat Fire was doing in the first 24 hours after it started.
Local, as in-county State Rep, former County Commissioner who has seen the disastrous effects of “managing (?)” fires, and apparently knows the definition of insanity. Most likely familiar with the layout and subtle weather anomalies of the area. These folks feel helpless up against the federal machine, seen it in many circumstances. His biggest asset to the fire team is to work with the liaison officer to make sure his points are “uploaded” through the team. In this situation, hopefully they will at least listen.
FYI, Frank Carroll mentioned Firemappers 2.0. Here’s the latest image of the Flat Fire with areas and dates of previous fires, mainly Biscuit 2002 and Chetco Bar 2017.
https://forestpolicypub.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Flat-Fire-7.19.2023-Firemappers-2.0.jpg
What strikes me about this.. other than the question of “people disagreeing about fire management in real time” is the idea that instead of “nothing more to burn” in previous burned areas, that brush can have worse burning properties. Which would make folks want to try to keep fire out of them until trees are big enough to shade out brush. Which would be a long time. Just questions, no answers.
This is really different than when just grass grows back.. very site-specific.
One of the biggest problems, and controversies, is the lack of salvage after fires in timbered areas.
The exponential increase in snags after a fire burns through timber, even at moderate intensity, creates a problem for future suppression activities. It also increases rates of spread for subsequent fires, from spotting caused by these snags.
These lessons were learned after several reburns in the Tillamook Fires starting in 1933 and repeating numerous times up until 1951, as well as other fires in the PNW.
Unfortunately IMTs still look at maps and plan on “old burns” or fire breaks used along old burns as control points, ignoring that these old burns are full of snags that are great receptors to any spark that becomes airborne. Once established in these areas, control options are limited to aircraft since the snags make it too dangerous for ground activities.
Salvage of trees after fires on USFS and BLM managed lands is still a constant point of litigation. When projects of any significance are finally approved the material is no longer viable as a commercial product and the projects often go away.
This has been the case in this area since the Silver Fire in 1987 and has contributed to the repeated mega fires. It has also resulted in the almost complete transformation of the Kalmiopsis Wilderness from a unique and beautiful old growth forest to a burned over area that will take hundreds of years just to get trees reestablished.
Hi Greg:
I am not sure we have ever met, though I have been one of those folks calling for salvage since the Silver Complex — and been consistently ignored. I had my PhD in wildfire ecology at the time of the Biscuit, and was ignored then, too, while OSU did some politically powerful busy work instead. “Science” with an agenda from all appearances at that time, and also in retrospect.
My questions on the Kalmiopsis doesn’t have anything to do with its former old-growth, however that is defined, but the unusual endemic plants that were the basis of its creation in the first place. The Kalmiopsis was one of the very first Wilderness areas created by the federal government in 1964 and was named after one of the plants that grew on its serpentine soils. Question: Have these plants responded well to the Biscuit and subsequent fires, or have the fires reduced their populations and extents?
I have asked the botanists and supervisors of the Kalmiopsis this question for the past 20 years and never received a straight answer. It would seem to be one of the most important considerations moving forward with this experiment in land management and the predictable wildfires that have resulted.
A second question is whether the removal and abandonment of all of the mining roads that used to exist in the Kalmiopsis has contributed to the size and severity of the subsequent wildfires. These are legitimate questions not only for the Kalmiopsis, but for other Wilderness areas that have burned in catastrophic wildfires since they were created.
Bob
In response to your first question, there were areas after the Silver fire that burnt with lighter intensity and many of the plants came back. The Biscuit fire had a higher intensity in many of these same areas because the fuel bed was a carpet of natural seedlings with a snag overstory that burned hot and fast. If you remember Babyfoot Lake was an area that much of the fauna returned, and was a point of controversy due to salvage plans adjacent to the boundary. The Chetco Bar fire burnt with a much higher intensity not to far to the north of that area and the last time I was in there I went into the Chetco foot print. There was a noticeable difference in regrowth, but I have not been back since so I can’t say with any certainty what has returned.
As to the second question the lack of access has little to do with severity and size. The lack of aggressive initial attack inside the wilderness by the USFS at the first sign of fire is the problem and the inability to continue significant control efforts when the fire enters the wilderness is a big part of the problem. As Chetco Bar demonstrated, it is pretty tough to stop a 5 mile wide fire front that boils out of the wilderness, where it has has been allowed to burn for weeks, when a predictable east wind event occurs. Up to the Slatter Fire 2020 the only time any aggressive direct attack has been done is as the fires leave USFS managed lands and this has been done by State Fire Managers. I have been on numerous fires on USFS land where the only fire we got within a mile of was the back burn we were lighting.
Saelm Statemans Journal: “Fire crews get OK to use heavy equipment in Kalmiopsis Wilderness to fight Flat Fire.”
https://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/local/2023/07/24/oregon-wildfires-flat-fire-kalmiopsis-wilderness-heavy-equipment-forest-service/70457260007/?utm_source=psal-DailyBriefing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-briefing&utm_term=hero&utm_content=1074SJ-E-NLETTER65
USFS press release:
https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/rogue-siskiyou/news-events/?cid=FSEPRD1124772
Steve
That is a major improvement. It is likely a move pushed by the Forest Supervisor George who has been quite clear that fires would be quickly and aggressively taken care of, as well as the rather persistent pressure from one of the major landowners in Curry County, in addition to the outspoken calls by Mr. Boice.
There have been burn out operations happening nightly from day three possibly earlier, which is also a major change from previous tactics of taking weeks to begin actual control efforts while building a very big box.
Although many disagree with rallying public input and outcry while the IMT is present, previous after the event panels, reviews, and discussions did little to change tactics. While it’s still early for this fire, it would appear that the tide has changed for the better.
“That is a major improvement,” you say, Greg. By “that,” I assume you mean bulldozing the SAME old mining road bulldozed previously during the 2018 Klondike Fire. Which begs the question, “how is this an improvement over past practice?” In fact, it is identical to past practice.
Andy
Am I mistaken and equipment was permitted in the Wilderness previously? As far as I know we have had to stop all mechanized equipment at the boundary, this included chainsaws. Unless you’re talking about Bald Mtn road which skirts the boundary, is a drivable road and ends at the patented mine outside the Wilderness? I guess they could just pound the line with retardant for days on end, but apparently some people don’t like that idea either.
I’m curious what would you suggest the strategy should be? Let it keep burning and hope that the annual wind event doesn’t occur or does that matter? At this point the Wilderness will be parched earth for likely a thousand years before the old growth returns. Like Bob, I’m curious how much of the unique fauna that was the founding reason for the wilderness still exist and at what level.
Yes, the same road was bulldozed during the 2018 Klondike fire.
Andy
Do recall the time frame of when they opened the road and how long Klondike had been burning? In the past the agency has essentially monitored these fires until a weather event occurs causing rapid uncontrolled growth. Yes, doing this and early burnouts are an improvement.
What would be your strategy?
Greg, I don’t know those details. As for my “strategy,” I’m no firefighter.
It’s difficult to understand the basis for input given without understanding or experience as to how decisions being made effect the success as well as the safety of those on the ground, but everyone is entitled to their opinion.
One of the biggest problems, and controversies, is the lack of salvage after fires in timbered areas.
The exponential increase in snags after a fire burns through timber, even at moderate intensity, creates a problem for future suppression activities. It also increases rates of spread for subsequent fires, from spotting caused by these snags.
These lessons were learned after several reburns in the Tillamook Fires starting in 1933 and repeating numerous times up until 1951, as well as other fires in the PNW.
Unfortunately IMTs still look at maps and plan on “old burns” or fire breaks used along old burns as control points, ignoring that these old burns are full of snags that are great receptors to any spark that becomes airborne. Once established in these areas, control options are limited to aircraft since the snags make it too dangerous for ground activities.
Salvage of trees after fires on USFS and BLM managed lands is still a constant point of litigation. When projects of any significance are finally approved the material is no longer viable as a commercial product and the projects often go away.
This has been the case in this area since the Silver Fire in 1987 and has contributed to the repeated mega fires. It has also resulted in the almost complete transformation of the Kalmiopsis Wilderness from a unique and beautiful old growth forest to a burned over area that will take hundreds of years just to get trees reestablished.
Here is what I wrote about snags and reburns for Douglas Timber Operators last year regarding the North Umpqua fire history: https://theworldlink.com/news/local/report-build-up-of-dead-trees-causes-extreme-fire-risk/article_d2584ad8-2c8c-11ed-a6c9-ab7f6c232a2b.html
To accurately and realistically judge whether a wildfire is “wind-driven”, you need to measure the winds OUTSIDE of the wildfire zone. You cannot include the fire-generated winds to decide that a fire is “wind-driven”. Additionally, ‘normal’ winds also cannot be used, either. For example, the Rim Fire had ‘normal’ morning down-slope winds, flowing down the huge Tuolumne River canyon, in the morning, turning to up-slope canyon winds in the afternoon. There were no weather anomalies during that time period (other than a fire-generated ‘column collapse’, which snapped trees and pushed fire intensity in all directions).
Sure, if there are strong winds outside of the fire perimeter, yes, you can label the fire as being “wind-driven”.
Get on Facebook and search “Flat Fire” for everything fire, including pretty good aerial videos. Looks nasty; not going to turn out well unless the weather changes….
The chances are the weather won’t change for the better. Fire season usually goes into October, and this area is on its second reburn. The critical thing is to see what management did to treat the fuels following the previous two burns — and what this burn is leaving in its wake: http://nwmapsco.com/ZybachB/Articles/Magazines/Oregon_Fish_&_Wildlife_Journal/20200922_Oregon_Forest_Fires/Zybach_20200922.pdf
Here is an example of several salvage units I worked on during the Biscuit Salvage Prep. Very rocky, with little underbrush, yet it burned rather intensely. (Edit: Maybe it WAS brushy, being so close to the coast. The high intensity maybe ‘vaporized’ the brush. It was very steep, and most of the rocks were loosened. I did worry about causing a landslide.)
https://www.google.com/maps/@42.4448896,-123.7988954,1085m/data=!3m1!1e3?authuser=0&entry=ttu
Also of interest is that crazy road to nowhere. I wonder why it was built, and why it is still maintained.
That is a mining road. There is a lot of mining activity in that area (and plenty of mining evidence in that photo).
Your Action steps are perfect! This is a national emergency. That is, the lack of forest maintenance that contributes to large, destructive unplanned wildfires. We will spend exorbitant amounts of money suppressing wildfires but consistently go cheap on forest maintenance. We have a “Call to Action” in place. It shows the way. The first step: declare a national emergency. I am currently working on the latest revision that has been contributed by 67 (and counting) professionals in landscape scale conservation. We know what to do as your Action sequence shows. Thanks for your leadership.
During my 41 seasons of fighting Wildland fires I have worked on fires in this area, on this Forest, in similar areas and with other Forests, State Lands, Private Lands and other Federal Lands. The problem isn’t the landscape, while this particular landscape is challenging. The problem is the attitude and tactics that have now become the dominant way of fighting fires on federal lands.
We use to call it the “Big Box”, now they call it “Lanescape Approach” or some other name. The bottom line is the Management Teams and Contract Fire Crews rarely do direct attack, they fall back 1-3 miles and build line for weeks before doing thousands to tens of thousands of acres back burns, in many instances the back burn is so far away that it can’t join into the main fire and when a wind event happens the main fire spots right over the lines or they lose control of the back burn and only enhance the problem.
In this particular landscape there are areas that have snags from the previous fires, not mitigated and now not safe to work around, but there are many areas for aggressive direct attack.
In each of the previous fires listed for this area the Management Teams played around with contingency lines, refusing help from local resources, even releasing local resources because they weren’t “carded”, getting multiple 15 day assignments, until an East Wind event occurred and the fires blew up. Each time the response has been “We couldn’t have predicted this”…. These events happen two to three times every season in this area and if you don’t get the fire controlled and contained quickly you can predict what will happen.
Mr. Boice may not be spot on, but he has a very good grasp of what will happen and there is a good chance that these towns may not be so lucky this time if the same approach is used AGAIN!
I think the Oregon State Rep is going about it all wrong and that it seems to be political showboating. Haven’t we all heard the Action Now list before?
Trinity County Ca. has recently expanded on a program called the Local Area Advisor group(LAA). It was started in part by retired FS officials who were so upset about the lack of direct attack in exchange for indirect firing operations that the County BOS designated this group as official representatives under the County’s authority through its Office of Emergency Services. This was in 2008. It has morphed a bit since then and as community advocates we are inserted into the Incident Command Team through the Cooperator’s Meetings and have access to all Team members at any time of the day or night. We can bring our concerns and questions to Operations, the Incident Commander or any other appropriate Team member.
One of the many benefits and one of the most powerful aspects of this program, which I joined in 2015, is letting it be known that someone is paying attention to the day to day details and can ask difficult questions of decision makers. Making them explain themselves in as real time as possible to not just me, which I then report out through social media or phone calls on a daily basis, but to the community at large through many public meetings.
I have the utmost respect for many of the Team members and would never tell them how to do their job, but there are still some transparency issues when it comes to firing operations. such as having access to flight records of their drone usage. In fact all firing operations should be held to account on their necessity and effectiveness, given all the variables involved.
Local knowledge needs to be at the table due to the experience gleaned from decades of witnessing and fighting local wildfires and I’ve found through working with many Incident Management Teams that they are embracing this concept.
Larry, I’d like to post something about this.. do you have a link to an article on it and how it’s working? Or would you be willing to write a post about it for The Smokey Wire? Thanks!! Please email me at terraveritas at gmail.
Hi Larry: What is the record on wildfire management in Trinity County since 2008? When you are referring to “local knowledge” do you have any idea of the history of the Boice family in SW Oregon? If Rep. Boice is “going about it all wrong” and your LAA group has been doing it right, then how has that been reflected in your fire history over the past 15 years? I would also like to see a post on that topic — everyone is looking for solutions and you seem pretty confident that your approach is working!
Hi Bob, the reason I stated that Rep. Boice is going about it all wrong is all in the timing. For one thing, many of those Action Now suggestions are already being done as I would conclude the IMT is aware of those tools and practices and what effects they have. Also, making public demands on wildfire management decisions during a wildfire does more to inflame public opinion than it does to put fires out. He’s insinuating that the IMT haven’t thought of those things yet, therefore they need to be told.
But if a member of the Boice family, as an example, was embedded within the IMT in real-time, these “suggestions” can have real positive impact based on actual knowledge of past fire history and which roads and fuelbreaks worked in the past, or you’ll be given a reason why either it doesn’t make sense in terms of firefighter’s safety with current conditions or that they’ve already considered it but an alternative makes better strategic sense. This information can then be shared with the public to squelch any rumors as well as building trust between the communities affected by wildfires and the IMTs that rotate through.
The concept of an LAA inserts that person/community representative into the IMT from the start.
That’s the point I was trying to make when I made that comment.
Thanks Larry: I still hope you will follow Sharon’s request to post something on how the LAA functions — and how effectual it is. That would be a good strategy to consider going forward if it works.
My concern with the Josephine and Curry County fires began with the 1987 Silver Complex, which I researched as a graduate student in 1989 and was concerned about lack of road access at that time. The Biscuit Fire predictably followed in 2002 as I was completing my PhD and my proposals to do field research there were ignored, and possibly because I was strongly against the research and salvage plans that were being undertaken at that time. I did videotapes of the Deer Creek Fire (riparian veg was a culprit) and pre- and post-fire old-growth at Babyfoot Lake in following years with similar concerns. The problems weren’t fire management — which I have very little experience with — but the massive amounts of fuels that were being left behind for the next fire(s). The area is steep, mostly inaccessible on the ground, subjected to seasonal lightning storms, and increasingly flammable — a lot more snags and large, woody debris, a lot fewer trees, and a lot more brush with the added sun and nutrients.
So far as Rep. Boice’s “timing” — the fire had just started when he put out his email and was only two days old. Today, two days later, it is more than 15,000 acres and nearly 1,000 people are working on it. He’s a politician and I think his statement was both a call to action and a public service/education announcement. Similar concerns were expressed for the lightning fires on both sides of the Cascades that started in a Wilderness and a Reservation weeks before they blew up on Labor Day in 2020. I think Boice was/is doing what he could/can to avoid that type of result if at all possible.
What does “east wind” mean? When meteorologists talk about wind direction they talk about where it is coming from. “Easterly” means from the east. I assume this is because the characteristics of the air are determined more by where it is coming from than where it is going. It’s best to include the -ly suffix to avoid confusion, for example I think this post might be using “east wind” to mean westerly but it’s hard to tell.
“Onshore” and “offshore” winds are different: they refer to the direction the wind is going rather than where it is coming from. Maybe those terms come from sailors.
Hi Woody: In western Oregon the “east wind” is the dry continental wind coming from the east — and sustained east winds are associated with all of the largest wildfires that “blow up” under that condition. Along the Columbia River it is known as a “Chinook Wind” and in SW Oregon it is called the “Chetco.” The “west wind” comes in off the ocean, is full of moisture, and usually has a deadening effect on fires.
Thanks, that makes sense.
Interestingly, Wikipedia describes the PNW Chinook as a warm marine wind, though the eastern Colorado Chinook is a dry downslope wind of the type you are describing, most recently infamous for the Marshall Fire.
Hi Woody: Yes, the Columbia River “Chinook” is atypical in that most west coast Chinooks are westerlies — the story I was told as a kid was that it got its name from Indians smoking salmon upriver in the Dalles, with the smell going downstream on a warm east wind to Portland and Vancouver. On the other hand, Portland and Vancouver are downslopes from the Cascades. It might be one of those “silver trout” local names that depends on where you live, or when you lived there.
This fire started near a campground – my guess is it was probably an abandoned campfire. The forest brought in 2 VLATS (very large air tankers) the same day that the fire was detected (late in the afternoon) and there are currently a large number of helicopters with buckets working on the fire as well. The local Fire Protection Association (Coos Forest Protection Association) got equipment there quickly. This fire is spotting way out ahead of itself – dozer lines are not going to stop it. The “brush” that is there is primarily tanoak – an evergreen hardwood tree. The forest used to have a very active aerial herbicide program to allow conifers (mostly Douglas-fir) to dominate the evergreen hardwoods (madrone, tanoak, chinquapin, etc.). After the Silver Fire (very close to the Flat Fire) burned 100,000 acres in 1987 (1988?), ecologists noticed that the control plots from the old herbicide studies (where no herbicide was applied) survived the Silver Fire, but the plots that were conifer dominated (due to herbicide treatments) were completely destroyed in the fire….Dr. David Perry of Oregon State University documented this in his book “Forest Ecology”….
Hardwoods such as madrone can sprout from burned stumps, so in that way they are fire tolerant. No so with young conifers.
Tanoak trees and hardwoods in general have a lower energy release component (ERC) – and tanoak stands tend to have a much lower fire severity than conifer stands – fire in tanoak stands tends to creep around in the leaf litter on the ground and not be very active. The tanoak can survive that type of fire. When the fire is moderate or high severity, it does kill the tanoak trees (above the ground) and they resprout from burls. It is possible to look at mixed tanoak/Douglas-fir stands and find bark char 6+ feet up the bole on Douglas-fir, but a tanoak of similar size 2 feet away has a bark char height of 4 inches.
Aggressive direct or as direct as the terrain will allow, with air support does and has worked in this area. Spot fires are quickly suppressed and slowed with helicopters until crews can get on them. Heavy equipment is supported with retardant drops. Almost as quickly as roads are reopened and dozer trails are constructed, back fires are used to widen and secure the new lines, often being pulled towards the main fire due to the close proximity.
This is how private industry and ODF has fought fire in general and how the fires in this area are stopped after they burn onto State protected lands. It is also how the USFS previously fought fire up until the early 80’s.
In all the previous fires, starting with the Silver Complex, the federal IMT’s have worked for weeks/months building a big box around the fire, often enlarging the fire foot print by 4 – 10 times the size of the original fire.
On the Oak Flat fire of 2010 part of my second tour was spent stringing out 2 miles of hose a mile from the fire in the rain. My request to take our personal down to put trail along the fires edge was denied, it took several days utilizing drip torches and aerial ignition to bring the fire to a road located halfway between where we could have trailed and the hose lay – which we spent several more days removing, unused. During the Big Windy fire, up river to the east of this fire, we had a 100’ mopped up buffer along an existing line, only to be pulled out so the IMT could treat (burn out) several hundred more acres. There are many more personal experiences as well as instances relayed from other AD overhead and crews.
Often the IMT’s are not transparent with the local Forest regarding actual on the line activities. This was apparent during discussions with the Forest Supervisor regarding releasing of equipment and failure to allow local resources to protect private in holdings.
The only thing remarkable is that these stories are suppressed and dog & pony line tours given to diplomats and media to give a completely different perspective, and the money pours in to the now 4 billion dollar industry known as “wild land fire fighting.”
In the “Call to Action”, developed by 67 professionals (and counting), one of the top 10 actions calls for a much more aggressive initial attack and a far greater use of our smokejumpers. Nothing new.
For now, the concept of “managed fire” is an intellectual argument. Longer fires mean more smoke means more smoke-related deaths (about 40,000 last year). Thus, put unplanned wildfires out immediately.
We seem to have no qualms of spending $1 million+ per hour fighting fires, but go cheap when it comes to forest (forest are more than just trees) maintenance.
We know what to do. The “Call to Action” leads the way. This is a national emergency. We need to act as such.
Very respectfully. Please be safe and well.