You can read any number of articles right now about this that say ESA was adopted by a nearly unanimous Congress and signed by President Nixon on December 28, 1973. Its supporters find success in its protection of 99% of the species listed from extinction, while critics complain that only 3% have been recovered. To me, that’s apples vs oranges, because it is much easier for a law to stop bad things from happening than to make good things happen. I’d love to see those who complain about ESA out there arguing for more money to implement recovery plans. (And I fail to see the logic of opposing additional listings because recovery is unlikely, when recovery without listing is even less likely.)
But I was curious about what the Forest Service might have to say about this momentous anniversary, and this posting showed up on their website. It’s written about California, but must represent the agency’s perspective. The current priority is evident in the second paragraph:
Large, extremely hot fires have ripped through many of these lands, charring if not destroying habitat crucial to species survival. To help reduce the risk of large, devastating fires, the Forest Service is working to remove vegetation that could feed a fire and is working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to simultaneously support the conservation of listed species.
That would be listed species that depend on “vegetation that could feed a fire,” which would be removed. We’ve seen that with spotted owls, the Fish and Wildlife says this should mean focusing fuel reduction projects on areas that are less important to the species. It would be interesting to hear about how this approach is being implemented through agency policy, forest plans, and/or implementation strategies. This explanation by the Forest Service falls a little short of a “strategy” for accomplishing this.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages the species program, often partners with the Forest Service on steps to protect species listed under the act. Collaborative efforts carry intertwined goals forward. Wildlife specialists and biologists from each agency review project plans, survey forests for species populations, collect data, and analyze the best available science. The Forest Service often includes wildlife conservation measures in as part of land management planning, which means on-the-ground activities needed to increase forest resilience align with the needs of wildlife.
For example, specific types, sizes and heights of trees are left in areas of a forest known to be actively used as nesting or denning sites by threatened or endangered species. The Forest Service plans work to occur during times of the year that will not disrupt key life stages, such as mating season or when adults are caring for young. The Fish and Wildlife Service reviews these plans before work is started to ensure that species needs are being met.
I like that they recognize the importance of forest plan standards as a key tool for protecting species, but I’d like to know more about “Collaborative efforts carry intertwined goals forward.”
Thanks to Tim at the Hotshot Wakeup for pointing out this project.
Here’s the link to the project documents. The EA is 60 pages, including five pages of response to comments. The draft EA was released on August 14 2023, and the final DN and FONSI on October 30, 2023. There were two fires involved, Hermits Peak Calf Canyon in 2022, and the Luna Fire in 2020. Acreage and time for the project: 24,420 acres over the next 1-10 years or until completed.
Some interesting things about it:
* Speed- draft EA out in one year.
* Tiers to FEMA programmatic.
* Uses emergency authorities so no objection process (helped with speed).
* As far as I have been able to ascertain, the woody material is being given to local not-for-profits or governments to distribute. There are no sawmills in the area.
Here’s the clause in the DN about objections:
“The Hermits Peak Calf Canyon and Luna Post-Fire Recovery Project has been approved by Forest Service Chief Randy Moore for use of the Emergency Authority Determination under Section 40807 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-58 Nov. 15, 2021 ). Under section D in this authority,
An authorized emergency action carried out under this section shall not be subject to objection under the predecisional administrative review processes established under section 105 of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003 (] 6 U.S. C 6515) and section 428 of the Department of lnterio,; Environmental, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2012 (16 USC 6515 note; Public Law 112-74).”
Here’s the project description:
“The Proposed Action provides the opportunity to implement a suite of restoration activities on approximately 24,420 acres over the next 1-10 years or until completed, as part of the Hermits Peak Calf Canyon integrated response and recovery approach to the current disaster and to possible future events associated with FEMA-4652-DR-NM. The “Proposed Action” section of the EA lists four items that the decision incorporates. Per the Final EA “Purpose and Need” section, implementation of the project as analyzed includes:
• Aerial re-seeding
• Re-forestation
• Ground-based material removal
o Using ground-based equipment on steep slopes
o Removal using conventional ground-based equipment
o Personal fuelwood
o Temporary road use on 58.1 miles, with decommissioning of these routes after
project completion
o Treatment of slash, including pile burning
• Recreation site stabilization
• Other recovery efforts, after assessments have been completed within the Hermits Peak Calf Canyon Fire portion of the project area:
o Noxious weed abatement (treatments approved in the Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Invasive Plant Control Project. Carson National Forest and Santa Fe National Forest (USDA 2005),
o Restoration and reforestation of fire-adapted vegetation types,
o Restoration of riparian areas,
o Post-wildfire hillslope stabilization treatments, including aerial seeding,
o Post-wildfire channel treatments,
o Post-wildfire road, culvert, and trail flow diversion treatments,
o Post-wildfire ash, sediment, and debris removal and infrastructure repairs,
o Structure demolition, relocation, or alteration, and
o Hydraulic capacity improvements and protection of water infrastructure.
Based on the resource specialists’ analysis/reports, as summarized within the EA, and tiering to FEMA Programmatic Environmental Assessment for the State of New Mexico Watershed Resiliency and Post-Wildfire Treatment Projects, the implementation of the Proposed Action and associated activities (including design features) can be implemented such that the proposed project will not result in a significant impact. This determination is based on the following:
• How well the selected alternative achieves the need.
• How well the selected alternative protects the environment and addresses issues and concerns.
• How well the selected alternative complies with relevant policies, laws, and regulations.
My decision to implement the Proposed Action is based on how well the alternative responded to the purpose and need and public comments received during the public involvement process. My decision facilitates the need to address recovery actions, particularly for the Hermits Peak Calf Canyon Fire as part of the integrated response for this emergency while also addressing vegetation recovery needed within these burned areas. My decision best meets the purpose and need to aid in recovery efforts, while complying with applicable laws and regulations and addressing the public’s concerns. In making this decision, we thoroughly considered issues and comments identified during scoping and from the public during the 30-day Draft EA comment period. Our decision balances public concerns and the need to restore and participate in integrated recovery efforts.”
Many thanks to John for this link to a Seattle Times story on John Marshall, who is taking photographs from the same areas as the Osborne photos of the 1930s. Very cool photos and it’s not paywalled. If you want to learn more about the Osborne photos, Bob Zybach provided a link to a project trying to provide comparison photos over a broad area. The Osborne photos from some areas you may be familiar with are posted on the site. This seems like a useful effort, and it sounds like lots of different folks are funding different parts. I’m surprised someone with funds doesn’t take this on more broadly and coordinate. Here are some quotes from the story:
His images, taken from the same vantage points nearly a century later, illustrate the consequences of relentless fire suppression. Across the state, Marshall has documented the transformation of landscapes historically characterized by patchworks of saplings, mature trees, shrubs and meadows — all shaped by frequent, small fires. Today, clearings have been swallowed up. Habitat diversity has diminished, and ridges and hillsides are thick with timber. Many forests, especially in Central and Eastern Washington, are stressed by overcrowding, heat, drought and insect infestations — and primed for megafires.
It’s not a new story, but the pictures tell it in a way words can’t.
…..
Forest Service ecologist Paul Hessburg, who helped recruit Marshall to the panorama project in 2010, has used the before-and-after images in scores of scientific publications and nearly 200 presentations to peers and the public, making the case for allowing some fires to burn and deliberately setting others to reduce the risk of massive blazes.
“These visuals are so powerful because they show the scale,” says Hessburg, who’s based at the Pacific Northwest Research Station in Wenatchee. “People come up to me after talks and say, ‘You know, I wouldn’t have believed it until I saw it — but there it is.’ ”
The panoramas also helped Hessburg bust a long-standing myth that high-elevation forests in the Northwest hadn’t burned frequently in the past. “John and I have been working together in different geographies to show people how, in 100 years or less, the forest has changed,” he says. “And it’s changed more than we could have even imagined until we had these pictures.”
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The agency recently launched a forest health initiative that includes tree-thinning and prescribed burns. “We’ve grown up with these dense, thick forests, so people naturally think that’s what a healthy forest looks like,” says Chuck Hersey, of DNR’s Forest Resilience Division. “But our fundamental forest health problem in Eastern Washington is that there’s too many trees.” Side-by-side images separated by nine decades make the case at a glance, showing the stark changes in the landscape.
One example is Squilchuck State Park near Wenatchee, where fire used to sweep through every dozen years or so before land managers started snuffing out every blaze. A detail shot from the 1934 Osborne panorama shows open meadows interspersed with clumps of mature, fire-resistant Ponderosa pine and sparser stands of firs and other species. In the image Marshall made in 2018, the area is blanketed with wall-to-wall trees. The pictures helped Washington State Parks explain its rationale for two recent thinning operations to lower the fire risk.
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In 1934, several patches across the landscape had recently burned, he explains. Some were ringed with shrubs and deciduous trees. Now, most of those areas are completely knitted in with conifers. But in other places, there seem to be more openings in the tree canopy today than 90 years ago.
“That’s due to insects and disease,” Marshall says. While fires clear out flammable material, infestations don’t. “It only adds to the fuel loads, which are just ginormous now.”
We might want to email the reporter and thank her.. “catch people doing something right”.. maybe FS folks remember the training we had on that..
Yesterday we were discussing environmental justice and residents of dry forests. Jon said “Beyond the formal environmental justice realm (which does not appear to include “rural communities in dry forests”), this is pretty much a matter of opinion, and not a very practical criterion.”
I ran across this article in Wildfire Today which raises other questions. In addition to Jon’s question, I think pre-climate change, some people were originally not sympathetic to dry forest inhabitants (they shouldn’t live there). Now that wildfire is thought to be a result of climate change, though, it seems like attention has been drawn to the fact that low income people also live here. Which I think we knew, but…
I don’t know about 90 percent of all people exposed.. maybe there is a map somewhere that shows it. Also how “exposed” is defined.
Around 90 percent of all people exposed to wildfires over the past 23 years lived in either California, Oregon, or Washington. Among those, researchers found a disproportionate number were poor, a racial minority, disabled, or over the age of 65.
A recent study examined the “social vulnerability” of the people exposed to wildfires over the last two decades. Social vulnerability describes how persons with certain social, economic, or demographic traits were more susceptible to harm from hazards including wildfires or other natural disasters.
From 2000 to 2021, the number of people in the western United States who lived in fire-affected areas increased by 185 percent, while structure losses from wildfires increased by 246 percent. The vulnerability of the people living there, however, isn’t well known despite these populations potentially never recovering after a disaster strikes.
Researchers asked whether highly vulnerable people were disproportionately exposed to wildfire, how vulnerability has changed over the past 20 years, whether population changes before a fire alter the vulnerability of the population, and whether social vulnerability of people exposed to fires was equal among states.
Each of the three West Coast states recorded disproportionate wildfire exposure of the socially vulnerable; Oregon and Washington had more than 40 percent of their exposed population being highly vulnerable while California had around 8 percent of of those exposed considered highly vulnerable. The most vulnerable populations were also those with low income, while age, minority status, and disability also affected populations’ ability to cope after wildfire.
The number of highly vulnerable people exposed to fire in the three states also increased by 249 percent over the past two decades. An increase in social vulnerability of populations in burned areas was the main contributor to increased exposure in California, while Oregon and Washington saw wildfires increasingly encroaching on vulnerable population areas.
“Our analysis highlights the need to increase understanding of the social characteristics that affect vulnerability, to inform effective mitigation and adaptation strategies,” the study said. “Particular attention to residents who are older, living with a disability, living in group quarters, and with limited English-speaking skills may be warranted, and cultural differences need to be addressed for effective policy development and response.”
Other research published earlier this year, The Path of Flames: Understanding and Responding to Fatal Wildfires, found unequal access and assistance could also play a role in who survives and who dies during catastrophic wildfires. In the study, researchers found that for many of the Paradise, California residents who died in the 2018 Camp Fire, the inability to evacuate on their own was a major factor in their deaths.
A gray wolf is seen in the Sequoia National Forest. Michelle Harris, Samantha Winiecki-Love, Ryan Slezak and Colibri Ecological Consulting/via the California Department of Fiash and WIldlife
The journey started on Wildfire Today.. this headline intrigued me..
A keystone species — an organism that helps define an entire ecosystem — is calling the fire area home again, 150 years after being hunted and driven out.
I became curious about what the current definition for a keystone species is. When I was with the FS I had to attend numerous presentations by wildlife researchers who all had rationales for why their species was a keystone species. It was kind of an interior joke to me .. how far would they go in rationalizing their “keystone-ness?”
It was interesting to see how folks like WEF and NRDC defined keystone species..according to WEF (the World Economic Forum, who knew that they were interested?) the gray wolf is a keystone species.
In short, keystone species enable other species to survive, occupying a key role in the ecosystem they are part of. Without them, their ecosystems would be dramatically different or even cease to exist.
I’ve been many places around the west before reintroduction and expansion of wolf populations, and thereafter. They don’t seem dramatically different to me. Maybe because “dramatically” has no scientific definition. Or because our state wildlife folks manage deer and elk populations such that they don’t need extra carnivores to keep the populations down (and some populations of deer and elk are apparently having trouble with numbers even without wolves). If you’re going to argue “it’s better with wolves”, I need more than “that’s the way it used to be.” Because nothing else in our environment is exactly the way it used to be.
As a native Californian, I never thought of the Porterville area as “southern California.” I’d go for Central Calif, or the southern Sierra. And I’m not so sure the wildfires themselves drew them to that area. There are plenty of wildfire acres north of the Windy Fire.
“If you walk through a burned landscape with lots of dead trees, you’ll be surprised by the vibrant life which springs from the ashes,” says Andrew Stillman, an ecologist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
The female traveled about 200 miles from the nearest known wolf pack, scaling the mighty Sierra Nevada mountains.
Why did the wolves move so quickly into a burned landscape? When fires kill trees, more sunlight is able to reach the blackened soils; this stimulates dormant plants such as grasses to sprout. The nutritious grasses attract deer and other species, offering wolves a buffet.
I think the question is rather “why did the wolves go through so many other burned landscapes and settle on this one?”
The return of the predators has also led to some conflict with humans: McDarment and other reservation residents say wolves have killed their livestock.
But that link goes to a generic Sci Am article on wolves and livestock predation studies.
It looks like the California wolves were just news of the day bait for more generic statements by UBC ecologist, a senior scientist at Los Alamos, a UCLA ecologist, a Cornell bird ecologist, and a fire researcher at Natural Resources Canada. So what’s up with that?
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I then went looking for “livestock killed on the Tule Reservation” and ran across an article in the Guardian.
The Guardian, like many news organisations around the world, is working to find new ways to fund our journalism to ensure we can continue to produce quality, independent journalism in the public interest.
Increasing philanthropic support for our independent journalism helps fund impactful Guardian reporting on important topics such as modern-day slavery, women’s rights, climate change, migration and inequality.
But can they call themselves completely “independent” if they take others’ funds, when those others have definitive worldviews? Check out this link to “philanthropic partnerships”
The Guardian is different. We have no billionaire owner or shareholders to consider. Our journalism is produced to serve the public interest – not profit motives. And we avoid the trap that befalls much US media – the tendency, born of a desire to please all sides, to engage in false equivalence in the name of neutrality
They seem very certain of what they think is correct.. personally I’d prefer some humility. Anyway, back to the wolves.
The land on the reservation is high desert meets alpine, 55,000 acres of scrub and redwoods bordering Sequoia national forest.
Many of us live or have lived in the Sierra foothills.. we wouldn’t call it “high desert”; nor is the Sequoia National Forest “alpine” at that point. And it’s Giant Sequoia, not “redwoods.” A reporter could have easily found this excellent website on the reservation vegetation by the Tule River Tribe, which has all the details a person might want.
The fires brought another change: wolves.
After the blaze, the reservation became a perfect place for den sites and hunting. Wolves love open forests, too, and the reservation had plenty – plus beefy cows. In July, a gray wolf pack was spotted in nearby Sequoia national forest after a nearly 150-year absence in southern California.
If the fires brought the wolves, why did it take them two years to get there?
They need to hide, says Jordan Traverso, the communications lead for California’s department of fish and wildlife, because while many in California’s left-leaning cities cheered the wolves’ return, those living in and around them, like cattle ranchers, have little recourse if a wolf kills their livestock, which is why wolves are “so controversial”.
Just in case we didn’t know how the reporter feels about California (he is a Californian, if you go to his webpage you find that he writes on all kinds of topics):
That also explains why California is actually a progressive paradox: it is both an environmental bellwether that influences everything from emissions to endangered species policy, which boosts conservation, but it’s also filled with large-scale agriculture and industrial farming which can often pollute and destroy the land.
Actually I don’t think California has much of a say in endangered species policy, which I think the feds have pretty well sewn up.
Then there are several generic quotes from a Montanan on wolves.
Wolves are neither monster nor romantic symbol – and they rarely attack humans or livestock. When the government reintroduced 41 wolves to Yellowstone national park in 1995, ranchers in Montana and Wyoming were up in arms. Over the next eight years, wolves killed just 256 sheep and 41 cattle in those states (states with millions of livestock).
“Instead of decimating cows,” Wolke says, “wolves reduced elk numbers, so willow and aspen trees came back. So did birds and beavers, which improved wetlands.”
While no one knows how many cows have been killed here, wolves cause less than 4% of US cattle deaths.
I tried to look up sheep and cattle deaths and found that.. people disagree. I did find the USFWS says that there were 154 cattle deaths in 2016 in Wyoming alone. Of course, if you use the 8 years after reintroduction, there were probably fewer wolves on the landscape than the 377 they counted in Wyoming alone in 2016.
Impacts to livestock from wolves creates costs borne by livestock producers, including mortality from wolf predation and other indirect impacts. These costs are unevenly distributed and localized, with some producers suffering greater losses than others. Although wolf depredation is a small economic cost to the livestock industry as a whole, the impacts to individual producers can be substantial.
.7,12 For those impacted by wolf predation, the economic and emotional impacts can be substantial. Both direct and indirect losses could significantly affect the livelihood of individual ranchers operating on thin profit margins in volatile market
Anyway, back to the Guardian piece:
It seems wolves are all locals want to talk about. Fear is the central theme, says Greg King, the author of The Ghost Forest: Racists, Radicals, and Real Estate in the California Redwoods. “Ranchers fear for their livestock and humans fear for themselves. Fear is destructive. Maybe we can’t have it all.”
King is from Humboldt County.
And when locals get spooked, wolves often pay the price. Case in point – December 2018, when a northern California rancher saw a wolf feeding on a calf. Investigators determined the calf probably died of pneumonia, but that wolf was found dead on the side of a road, riddled with .22 caliber rounds. A rancher was arrested, but officers couldn’t prove that he pulled the trigger, so they let him go. That could happen here.
I’m not sure that once counts as “often.”
The LA Times says that the wolves reappeared in Giant Sequoia National Monument.
“Wolves rewild the landscape and that’s good not just for the wolves but for entire ecosystems,” said Amaroq Weiss, senior wolf advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity.
“California years ago laid out a welcome mat for wolves, and we can keep it there if we don’t get led astray by old fears and misconceptions,” she said.
****
It’s interesting that Ms. Weiss’s background is in law and advocacy, and not ecology nor wildife.
In any case, gray wolves occupy a small part of their historic range. Scientists say a comprehensive recovery plan encouraging their return is crucial to returning ecological stability across thousands of square miles of still-wild habitat.
Among them was ecologist Chad Hanson, who, in an interview, said the wolf pack has become, of all things, the beneficiary of wildfires that jump-started new generations of nutritious grass and shrubs that attract deer they prey on.
“Higher ungulate abundance provides prey for wolves,” he said. “Logging reduces habitat for deer, adversely impacting endangered wolves.”
That kind of talk leaves some federal forest managers and timber industry advocates quietly seething.
But I thought scientists had given up on “ecological stability” as a concept? Maybe that was only ecologists or only some ecologists? Thousands of square miles of “still wild” habitat? Is the southern Sierra “still wild”? And Hansoniana also leaves many scientists “quietly seething.”
Could Hanson be the source of the strain in all this reporting of “fires attract wolves”?
So let’s look at the journalists involved Louis Sahagún of the LA Times; Adam Popescu an independent journalist (who wrote the Guardian and the Scientific American versions); and Hunter Bassler is a reporter in Saint Louis who writes for Wildfire Today. Which is not to criticize them, certainly most of us couldn’t cover the range of stories that they do in any meaningful way. As we said about climate science, they have to work with the systems they have. And currently, apparently outlets can’t afford to pay people to keep this kind of expertise in their newsrooms. The outlets that can afford it like E&E news, are not accessible to the average citizen nor many not-for-profits. And the folks who fund journalism have definite worldviews that they promote. It’s not a pretyy picture.
I don’t know if this one is particularly good but I needed a photo.
A friend has asked for examples of communities that have done exceptional work in becoming wildfire adapted and resilient. This would include all aspects of resilience, ignition reduction, structure and infrastructures design and hardening, fuel treatments/ mitigation, evacuation, and probably many things not on this list. Please comment below and provide links if possible.
Many thanks again to Kelly Martin for making herself available for a presentation on the Wildfire Commission Report last Friday! And thanks to all who attended and participated.
We had an interesting discussion afterwards, in which members of the group disagreed on some things (e.g. around the use of beneficial wildfire) and agreed on others (developing affordable housing for firefighters). One of my favorite moments was toward the end of the video, when Kelly talks about her passions for this work, and why she continues working on these issues in retirement. I’m sure she articulated how many of us feel and can’t express nearly as well.
I’m hoping the video will work for those who couldn’t attend. It’s posted here. Please comment below if it doesn’t work for you.
On today’s show, I welcome Kelly Martin to discuss the new Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission’s report to Congress, everything happening with the workforce, legislation, and beneficial fire.
The Presidential Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission was established in 2022. Kelly was one of 500 applicants who applied to voluntarily serve on this 50-member Commission. She was selected to fill the primary seat representing Wildland Firefighters.
Kelly’s 35-year federal career as a wildland firefighter provided invaluable technical and subject matter expertise to the Commission, ultimately obtaining unanimous consensus on comprehensive workforce reforms (see recommendations 84-103 in the Commission report).
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Comment Moderation- New Tab
I don’t get to read everyone’s comments, but I have noted a couple of requests for moderation. So I made another tab above labelled “Moderation Requests and Discussion” so I can find them. Please put all such comments there or a link to the moderation comments you’ve already made. I do want to respond but I want to be more or less consistent, and I want to be able to find them all. Thank you!
The Zoom will be held Friday, November 3 (this Friday) at 1PM Pacific, 2PM MT, and 4PM ET.
All are welcome to this first TSW Zoom! Email me at Sharon at forestpolicypub.com for the link. Kelly is a member of the Commission. Here’s her bio:
Kelly is the President of Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing the public with information and education regarding much needed wildland fire workforce reforms. Her organization advocates on behalf of thousands of wildland firefighters.
She is also very active as a Burn Boss for The Nature Conservancy (TNC) mentoring and coaching other TNC employees and nonprofit organizations to help them become more skilled and proficient in applying “good fire” on the landscape.
After 35 years as a fulltime federal wildland firefighter, Kelly retired federal service in 2019 for an opportunity to pass her knowledge to the next generation through her volunteer work as a subcommittee chair of IAWF hosting “Ignite Talk” presentations and serving as the President of Grassroots Wildland Firefighters.
She is a Burn Boss; Fire Behavior Analyst; Operations Section Chief; and Operations Branch Director and served on Interagency Incident Management Teams for over 20 years. She has served as a Fire Management Officer for both the US Forest Service and the National Park Service in Moab, UT; Carson City, NV; Placerville, CA; and Yosemite, CA. She is a strong advocate and leader for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion promoting gender parity throughout the Wildland Fire Community. Her current work includes providing leadership for the Women-in-Fire Prescribed Fire Training Exchange (WTREX) and Indigenous Cultural burning Training Exchanges (TREX) events.
I happened to run across something that contradicts Bob Zybach’s repeated assertions that, “these fires have been clearly predicted by me and others because of USFS management policies and Wilderness designations and have zero to do with warming climate or drier fuels.” The Union of Concerned Scientists calculated the effect of warming climate and drier fuels on burned area, and the result from their peer-reviewed analysis is not “zero.”
Climate change is causing hotter, drier conditions that are also fueling these increasingly large and severe wildfires. In particular, vapor pressure deficit (VPD), a measure of atmospheric “thirst,” has emerged as a key way of tracking how climate change is amplifying wildfires because of its role in regulating water dynamics in ecosystems and, together with rising temperatures, contributing to increasing dryness (Box 1).
UCS used a combination of data and modeling to determine how much the carbon emissions associated with 88 major carbon producers (hereafter, the “big 88”) have historically contributed to increases in VPD and burned forest area across the western United States and southwestern Canada (see Methodology).
Across western North America, the area burned by forest fires increases exponentially as VPD increases, which means that relatively small changes in VPD result in large changes in burned forest area. The observed rise in VPD has enabled a steep increase in the forest area that has burned across the region since the mid-1980s. Since 1986,1 a cumulative 53.0 million acres of forest area has burned across western North America as VPD has risen. Without emissions tied to the big 88, the rise in VPD would have been much smaller, and 33.3 million acres (IQR 27.7 million–38.5 million) would have burned (Figure 4). That means that 37 percent (IQR 26–47 percent) of the cumulative burned forest area from 1986 to 2021 is attributable to emissions from the big 88. This represents nearly 19.8 million acres of burned forest area, or an area roughly the size of Maine.
You can criticize UCS for being agenda-driven (and we’ve talked about the limitations of “burned area” as a metric), but I’d challenge Bob or others to provide a similarly peer-reviewed research paper that attributes fire effects to his chosen causes.
There is much to talk about in the Wildfire Commission Report. Kelly Martin has offered to talk to us about it (she is a member of the Commission) via Zoom, so please let me know if you are interested. Today, though, I had heard that Commission members were making Hill visits to highlight priority actions. I don’t know what they came up with as priorities, so hopefully someone will let us know. But I thought it might be fun to generate ideas here. There is plenty of expertise among TSW readers. The way the Report is written, it’s an emergency- so that gives us room to think outside the box.. way outside the box!
Here’s mine.
1. Workforce. Of course, give wildland firefighters a living wage and what they are already owed. Work on housing. How about a CE for FS and BLM to develop sites on federal land to house workers? Perhaps for workers’ RVs or trailers, or provide those to them at reasonable cost? Maybe used FEMA trailers? Cheaper and quicker than building permanent housing, as some places are trying. What else can we do?
Perhaps synchronistically, I received in my mailbox this morning a post from a person whose pseudonym is N.S. Lyons, who writes a Substack called The Upheaval. He was talking about the failure of security systems in Israel at the border, but I thought this might be relevant to this topic.
One of the most famous sayings of the legendary U.S. Air Force pilot and strategist Col. John Boyd, who helped develop modern maneuver warfare (and is maybe best known for inventing the “OODA Loop”) was: “People, ideas, machines – in that order!” While warfighting devices were and are important, as are doctrines, tactics, and stratagems, these are all less important than the people doing the fighting, planning, and organizing – and are far less adaptable and reliable. As Boyd would often harangue Generals in the Pentagon, usually to no avail: “Machines don’t fight wars… Humans fight wars!”
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Today we have come to practically worship technology and complexity for its own sake, believing it to be the sorcery that must be able to solve our problems once and for all. Except far too often it actually doesn’t – it just creates the illusion of having done so, while our own capacities have actually diminished and our vulnerabilities to entropy-induced system failure have increased. In this way, technology has increasingly become a false idol, squatting in the place of or even preventing genuine human ingenuity, innovation, and adaptability.
People, ideas, machines.. indeed! So let’s invest in them. First.
2. Build Trust About Use of Beneficial Fire. Having fuels experts live in their communities (see 1) will help. I would add Congress asking the FS to stand down on plan revision until each Forest finishes (including litigation) a plan amendment that develops 1) PODs, or equivalent mapping of potential operational sites 2) conditions and places for prescribed fire and wildland fire use and 3) programs to understand and reduce human-caused ignitions. The amendment would include an EIS for ongoing maintenance of PODs and maybe some programmatic stuff for prescribed fire and wildland fire use. By doing this with an open, public process, communities could quickly get on board with understanding how PODs related to their own efforts and can coordinate. Right now in many places it appears that communities are doing the “random acts of mitigation” without the kind of knowledge that fuels and fire suppression folks from the agencies have available. My thinking is that building trust with individual humans who live in their community, and the kinds of discussions and public involvement that would come with an amendment, will build a solid relationship for working together on mitigation and beneficial fire. If Forests just proceed with plan revisions, fire will be one of many things on a relatively small sample of forests.. is it or ain’t it an emergency?
3. Commission or Workgroup on Wood Waste Utilization. When I read these recommendations in the Report, I thought “we’ve been working on this for forty years now.” And I know some of the folks who continue to work on it today. We have long had grants for this kind of thing, and yet.. Ten years or so ago, I was in a meeting with DOE who wanted to try something at a gigantic scale, and The Wilderness Society who was afraid if we developed markets for small diameter woody material that they would take over politically and the environment would be sacrificed. So all the bright young Colorado entrepreneurs at the meeting gave up. Then there is the question of supply, that 4FRI was developed in part to deal with. When I look around I see excellent efforts by some FS researchers, by Extension faculty at land grants, by entrepreneurs and so on, and yet…we’ve lost capacity in terms of forest economists and utilization specialists. Weirdly we spend more money on modeling problems in the future than on solving problem right in our face (emergencies!). What’s up with that?
California had a 50-member working group on “advancing collaborative action on forest biofuels” (of course biofuels is only one use of woody waste) and produced a report in 2022, plus they have some zones of agreement with ENGO’s so perhaps some of those folks could be tapped to anchor a national Commission or Workgroup. Whatever we have been trying has not been working, and needs organized, comprehensive and dedicated attention. Key stakeholders are small businesses with experience in the space, technology folks, economists and utilization operations specialists, communities and ENGO’s. If we keep doing what we always did, we’re going to get what we always got.
And finally (a girl can dream…)
4. Stick a Fork in the Current Admin’s MOG Initiative..err.. climate resilience and adaptation initiative. Parsing out what treatments are best to protect OG or any forests from wildfire.. would be best developed by fire amendments to forest plans. All hands on deck. Focus. This is what climate adaptation looks like.. worked out day by day with resource professionals and communities in specific places. Many excellent folks are working on MOG who could be working on fire amendments to forest plans, collecting data, etc. Emergency? Yes if you really want to protect OG and mature stands (at least from wildfire).
