Forest Fires in the deserts of SoCal

by

Image

KURT MILLER/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER. An air tanker battling the Mountain Fire burning near Mountain Center makes a fire retardant drop on Tuesday afternoon, July 16, 2013.
 
My youngest son lives in a small desert community near Palm Springs. He says the skies there are currently filled with so much smoke that the sun looks like a “street lamp” and his swimming pool is becoming covered with ash. Here is the link: et/hemet-headlines-index/20130716-mountain-center-mountain-fire-burns-8000-acres-no-end-in-sight.ece
 
Here is the opening text to a comprehensive reporting of the fire:
 
STAFF WRITERS
July 16, 2013; 07:52 AM

No end is in sight for the wildfire that has blackened more than 12.5 square miles of trees and brush in the San Jacinto Mountains, where steep and inaccessible terrain is hampering firefighters and billowing smoke is hindering air tanker pilots.

At least a couple of burned homes have been spotted, but fire officials have not released a comprehensive tally of the damage in the sparsely settled region. The fire remains 10 percent contained.

The fire has forced residents of about 50 homes to evacuate, along with several hundred children from summer camps, a pet sanctuary and a Zen center.

The fire, which started Monday afternoon near Mountain Center, was burning aggressively through the timber and chapparal on Tuesday. For much of the day, wind was pushing the fire east toward Palm Canyon Drive in Palm Springs, U.S. Forest Service John Miller said. 

That prompted an evacuation order for 24 homes in the Andreas Canyon Club, a cluster of 1920s houses on the east side of the mountains. Miller said a strike team of engines was stationed near the homes, which Palm Springs firefighters believed were mostly unoccupied.

Miller said the fire had burned onto the Agua Caliente Indian Reservation. The Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians said it was helping assess the fire threat to the reservation and the Canyons recreation area, which it manages.

 

 

Kudos For West Fork Fire Information

by

When I was hunting for a photo for a post.. I decided to look at the West Fork fire (I was thinking of a map that would illustrate the interstices of wildland and development in the area).

Well, I went to Inciweb and found this link. Then I went to their blog here, and found this:

West Fork Fire Complex

Note: Due to high demand, our email account and Inciweb have become intermittently unresponsive. This blog is provided as an official alternate source of fire information.

I particularly liked the link to fire photos here.
Maybe that’s standard for a fire nowadays, but I hadn’t seen it. Maybe this will be news for other retirees. When I retired, blogs were a no-no. Good to see.

I did try to leave a nice “thank you” for the photos..but find doing so on Blogger way challenging. First you have to pick an identity, sign in and then pass a test that you are human which I usually fail a couple of times. Anyway, thank you!

Stand down from Western wildfires – John Maclean

by
West Fork Run by Pike IHC
West Fork Run by Pike IHC

Here is a link to an High Country News piece by John Maclean.

The headline is a bit overwrought in my opinion. But perhaps that’s the job of headline writers. In recent phone calls around the country, I’m also hearing about forest fires and homes elsewhere than in the west..

Here are some excerpts:

We need to encourage firefighters to exercise more caution, even when homes are at stake. Let the fires that are riskiest for firefighters burn. And assure the firefighters that the nation will have their backs when the inevitable complaints pour in.

Before I retired, there was a massive effort led by Chief Tidwell called the Safety Journey. Part of it was directed specifically at exactly that.. helping people become comfortable with saying “no” to unsafe conditions. Perhaps these efforts did not work and are not working. But it doesn’t sound like a policy question. The policy is not to endanger yourself.
Later, Maclean says:

Every firefighter like her who just says “No” needs support from the fire community and the public.

That was the point of the Safety Journey. If that’s not happening, I bet someone is studying why not. It would be good to hear from them.

Even with everything we hurl at the flames, Western states keep setting new records for homes lost and acreage burned. The federal government alone, not counting the state governments and other entities, has spent more than $3 billion per year on this war, on average since 2002, according to the Congressional Research Service. The U.S. Forest Service has tilted its budget toward preparedness and suppression, and the president’s 2014 budget calls for a 27 percent increase in the firefighting funding.

Meanwhile, budgets for fuels reduction — fire prevention — are cut, robbing the future to pay for the present. In the 2014 budget, for instance, fuels-reduction programs take a 37 percent hit, down to $201 million. The funding shift also reduces support for campground services, research projects, trail maintenance and other worthy — and popular — endeavors.

The prescribed burning and forest-thinning projects that fit within the budget are often stymied by environmental activists and locals complaining about smoke. Or severe fire risk interferes, as the prescribed-burning season grows ever shorter. Government agencies cannot catch up to the problem: There isn’t enough money or political will.

Even though safety practices have improved, each year between eight and 30 wildland firefighters are killed in the war (download one report here and another here covering a longer period.) It might not sound like a large number, but it takes a terrible toll in the families and the close-knit firefighting community. No one would be surprised if the toll rises. And regardless of the numbers, there’s a principle of homeowners taking responsibility.

It’s great that many homeowners are trying to make their homes more fire-resistant, but we need to tell them, we can no longer commit to saving their homes if their efforts fall short. They chose to live out there, and they — and their insurance companies — must accept the consequences.

I just read this piece in the Denver Post the Black Forest Fire this morning.
“Black Forest fire insurance claims nearing $300 million.” So at least in Colorado, folks are pretty aware of the consequences of fires burning.

At the end, he talks about letting his cabin burn. Once again, a cabin is not a subdivision. It seems like in many of these stories that are in the press, and op-eds, places like the Black Forest or Waldo Canyon are conflated with cabins or parcels deep in the woods.

If you are curious about the firefighter deaths statistics, here’s the paragraph in the report Macclean cites that describes the reasons for the fatalities:

Deaths on the Fire Ground
The breakdown of causes of fatal injuries on the fire ground is shown in Figure C. Thirty firefighters were killed in 20 fire department vehicle crashes during fire suppression activities, including 24 in 16 aircraft crashes. Nineteen of those 24 victims were contractors (mostly pilots) working for state and federal land management agencies. The others were employees of state and federal land management agencies.
Overexertion, stress and related medical issues accounted for the next largest proportion of deaths. Sudden cardiac death accounted for 25 of these 26 fatalities; one firefighter died of heat troke.
The third largest proportion of deaths during fire suppression activities occurred when firefighters were caught or trapped by fire progress (25 deaths). Seventeen of them died as a result of burns; eight died of asphyxiation.
Eleven firefighters were struck by objects — five by a tree or snag, three by vehicles, one by a rock, one by a section of an exploding storage tank and one by a rope that snapped while he was trying to tow a stuck apparatus at a wildfire.
Seven firefighters were electrocuted – five came into contact with downed power lines and two were struck by lightning.
Two firefighters fell from cliffs and two fell from apparatus during fire ground operations.

Managing wildfire risk in fire-prone landscapes: how are private landowners contributing?

by

A timely paper from the PNW Research Station:

Click to access scifi154.pdf

IN SUMMARY

The fire-prone landscapes of the West include both public and private lands. Wildfire burns indiscriminately across property boundaries, which means that the way potential fuels are managed on one piece of property can affect wildfire risk on neighboring lands.

Paige Fischer and Susan Charnley, social scientists with the Pacific Northwest Research Station, surveyed private landowners in eastern Oregon to learn how they perceive fire risk on their land and what they do, if anything, to reduce that risk. The scientists found that owners who live on a forested parcel are much more likely to reduce fuels than are those who live elsewhere. Private forest owners are aware of fire risk and knowledgeable about methods for reducing fuels, but are constrained by the costs and technical challenges of protecting large acreages of forested land. Despite the collective benefits of working cooperatively, most of these owners reduce hazardous fuels on their land independently, primarily because of their distrust about working with others, and because of social norms associated with private property ownership.

These results provide guidance for developing more effective fuel reduction programs that accommodate the needs and preferences of private forest landowners. The findings also indicate the potential benefits of bringing landowners into collective units to work cooperatively, raising awareness about landscape-scale fire risk, and promoting strategies for an “all lands” approach to reducing wildfire risk.

Interesting Tree Contest

by

Let’s take a little break from controversy, here. We all love trees and have seen our share of cool stuff, out there, in the “woods”. There are two options here. You can send me ( lhfotoware (at) hotmail.com) a picture of your “interesting” tree, and I will post it below. Feel free to add a caption, and I will add that, too.  Or, you can describe your tree in the comments. There is nothing to win, except for our undying respect. Also, you can rate the trees, if you want to.

PA232150-web

This ponderosa pine was along a trail, below the rim, in Bryce Canyon National Park. This tree swoops back to the ground before going vertical again. It actually has a decent, healthy crown. The bark has a true spiral, and I really don’t know why the tree ended up like this. I did see a similar tree during my last trip to Bryce Canyon.

P_pine lone wolf

Thomas promptly sent me this lonely pine, standing proud and healthy.

Cedar and Stump

This anonymous contribution of a cedar tree growing out of a very old stump (including a historical springboard notch) is quite interesting.

4212FirFromHHcropedit

This urban Douglas-fir looks to be growing very well, with full sunlight. Thanks louploup.

wolfy8

Most of us know what “wolfy” trees are. They seem to use more energy in developing strong branches, rather than a straight and tall bole. I think we need to plant some of these trees into openings, where they can thrive, as future nest trees.

Larch

Thanks to Mike D. for submitting this exceptional image of larch crowns in the fall.

1613BW_Burl

Now, here is an impressively-odd tree, sent in by Dr. Bob Z. That’s a burly set of trees, alright!

Everyone, rural or urban, has stake in forests

by
Burn on Silas Little Experimental Forest
Burn on Silas Little Experimental Forest

Bob Williams’ comment below reminded me of this piece from April, by him and Dan Botkin. I thought I had posted it before, but couldn’t find it when I searched.

Here is the link and below is an excerpt:

Forest fires in the drought-stricken West and Southwest received a lot of attention last year, and scenes of several large, destructive fires were widely shown on television. Could this happen elsewhere in the United States?

In early March, columns of smoke rose from the Pine Barrens, visible from the New York and Philadelphia metropolitan areas. One might think these fires are dangerous and should be suppressed, but they were intentionally lit by the Forest Fire Service of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, with more to be lit this spring.

Given the inherent dangers of fire to homes, and remembering Smokey the Bear telling us, “Only you can prevent forest fires,” lighting fires near big cities might seem like the last thing a government agency should be doing.

However, light forest fires are a necessity for the Pine Barrens, needed to sustain the natural forests and their biological diversity, and to prevent the kind of devastating, intense wildfires that can damage towns and cities.

In fact, most forests of America evolved with fires. They were originally started by random, periodic lightning strikes, but perpetuated for thousands of years by Native Americans prior to European settlement. Only in the last few centuries have people changed how fire is used in forests. The fire suppression of the recent past has created a growing fuel load and conditions that are ripe for a really large fire that will result in significant loss of life and property.

Suppression has led to high-intensity, hard-to-control wildfires that are devastating to forest ecosystems and more likely to burn through houses, towns, and cities. Modern prescribed burns in the Pine Barrens by the state Forest Fire Service reduce the fuel load. They demonstrate the way forests should be and need to be managed across our nation.

That rising smoke near the big Eastern metropolitan areas signals both a burgeoning acceptance that some change in the environment is natural, and a spreading recognition that to sustain our resources and to live successfully and symbiotically with our environment, we must accept and even promote these natural changes.

For centuries, people have lived, worked, and played in the Pinelands, all of which is part of the fabric that makes this forest so environmentally, ecologically, and economically unique. Iron has been mined out of the sandy soils. Berries, pine cones, and sphagnum moss have been harvested from the forests. The Barrens have been farmed, fished, and charcoaled for centuries. They supplied lumber for one of America’s earliest industries, ship building. New York City and Philadelphia were originally built with wood from the Pine Barrens.

After much analysis and debate, in 2005, the Pinelands Commission’s Forestry Advisory Committee stated, “Forestry, if practiced in accordance with sound management practices, can provide wood and wood products and ensure the protection of water quality and critical habitat for wildlife, as well as a way of life and culture that will otherwise soon vanish.” Surprising as it may seem, the Pine Barrens are, as they have been since the late 1600s, a place of active and valuable commercial forestry.

Today, in the 21st century, not much is heard about commercial forestry and its role in our lives and our forests in the public or the media. Although the history and products of the Pine Barrens demonstrate that we are a forest-dependent species, our growing urban culture has moved further and further away from a basic understanding of the land and the forests. However, if you breathe air and drink water, you need forests.

We are all part of forest ecosystems, not intruders – even those of us who live in metropolitan areas.

This raises a couple of thoughts:

1. For some SAF work, I have been doing phone calls with folks across the country asking them about fire; seems like the southerners (and folks in New Jersey) are more accepting of prescribed burning. Is it cultural? Less likely to escape because not so dry? Better procedures for control? Better relations with state air quality folks? I bet someone has studied at least some aspects of this question.

2. While looking for a photo, I found this piece which said

In addition, scientists expect that continued wildfire suppression, and the use of only very low-temperature, cold-season controlled fires, will over time change the composition of Pine Barrens forests by favoring oaks in their competition with pines for dominance of the forest. This potential fundamental alteration of the ecosystem will be gradual and will only be visible over a period of several decades or more.

So it sounds like the dominant species will change if only prescribed fires occur, because the fire effects are different. Will that be a change that’s good? or bad? or simply is?

3. Here’s a link to the Silas Little Experimental Forest.

The Misplaced War Against Western Wildfires

by

watching smoke

Here’s an op-ed by Stephen Pyne in today’s Denver Post. It’s beautifully written.

What to do about it depends on how we characterize the problem. The paradox of fire stems from its role as the great shape-shifter of natural processes. The reason is simple: Fire is not a creature or a substance or a geophysical event like a hurricane or an earthquake. It is a biochemical reaction. It synthesizes its surroundings. It takes its character from its context.

Fire integrates everything around it — sun, wind, rain, plants, terrain, roofing, fields, and everything people do, and don’t do. In this way, it indexes the state of an ecosystem. It is also our signature act as a species, the one thing we do that no other creature does. While we did not invent fire (it has been integral to Earth for more than 400 million years), we exercise a monopoly over its controlled use.

All of this makes fire universal, difficult to grasp, and tricky to wrestle into manageable shape. There is no solution to fire, because there are many kinds of fires, and they change with their context. Some fire problems do have technical fixes. We can build machines that reduce combustion to its essence and contain it.

We cannot survive without fire; we just need it in the right ways. It is certainly a problem when it burns freely through cities. But it is also a problem when it is removed from wildlands that have adapted to it, because its absence can be as ecologically significant as its presence. The point is, urban fire is not a model for wildland fire.

Our prevailing templates for describing fire are similarly misdirected. They portray the burn as a disaster and the fight against it as a war story. The battlefield allusion leads observers to reason that there must be more sophisticated technologies than shovels and rakes with which to suppress the flames. We must meet force with greater force. Such metaphors matter, because they mis-define the problem.

Here are a couple of my thoughts:

1. I don’t think the “war” is the prevailing template (let alone “our” prevailing template). I think the last 30 years or so “we’ve” (the fire/ecology/natural resource community) been fairly successful at promoting the concept that fire can have good effects and fire can have bad effects. So who is “we” in this case (the unspecific use of “we” is one of my pet peeves, as regular readers know)?.

2. I agree with Pyne’s point that “urban fire is not a model for wildland fire.” But I think we need to look more closely at his statement:

But it is also a problem when it is removed from wildlands that have adapted to it, because its absence can be as ecologically significant as its presence.

The adaptation of “ecosystems” has always been an interesting concept. For one thing, it depends on “ecosystems” being a real thing instead of a human construct. There have been two schools of thought about this.. one that mixes of plants and animals develop and change through time.. the other that there is something called an “ecosystem”, with a greater or lesser subtext of “balance” or focus on what is currently there (or there in the past) rather than the fact that individual components are always changing.

Species evolve.. that’s what you learn in courses, through the traditional forms of genetic adaptation. What is an “ecosystem” and how does it “evolve”? Through what mechanism? Now backing off from the reification to the reality, if cones open only in fire or hot weather, it does seem that the species might do better with fire (or hot weather), or certain species regenerate better with fire, that is a reality. Without intervention, you won’t get those plants back without fire.

So I think it’s important to look at each impact or lack thereof separately. Say, sedimentation..how much do you get? What organisms is it good for? Which is it bad for, etc.?

So this reminded me of this story in the Atlantic, “SW Forests May Never Recover From Megafires.”

Much of the Los Alamos burn resembles today a lunar landscapes — vast slopes of denuded gray soil where little vegetation has come back. Hillsides, once covered with ponderosa pine and squat, drought tolerant pinon and juniper trees, now grow only clumps of cheatgrass, an invasive species, and occasional bush-like shrub oaks. Biologist Craig Allen of the U.S. Geological Survey, who has has spent years studying the Southwest forest ecosystem, says that areas like these won’t be forested again in our lifetime, and possibly they never will be. The reason that Allen and others are pessimistic is that climate change is hitting the Southwest harder and faster than most other areas in the U.S. The region has warmed on average between 2 and 5 degrees during the past century, and this trend is expected to accelerate in the years ahead.

Add to this the danger from what scientists call a possible “mega-drought.” The Southwest has always been prone to extended dry periods, like the one which archeologists believe drove the Anasazi people of Chaco Canyon in the Four Corner’s area to the wetter Rio Grande Valley in the late 13th century. But a study published last year in the journal Nature Climate says that, by 2050, the region will be even drier than in previous mega-droughts. Moreover, hot summer temperatures in the southwest will literally suck the water our of leaves and needles killing trees in unprecedented numbers. “The majority of forests in the Southwest probably cannot survive in the temperatures that are projected,” one of the study’s co-authors, Park Williams, a bio-climatologist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory told Environment 360.

As a person who spent the early part of her career helping figure out how to reforest dry areas, I think it’s worthy of experimentation to try planting some species in these areas. I think we have gone way past “natural” and now simply have to consider what we want and what we can afford.

MLB, U.S. Forest Service decreases bat shatter rate

by

Summertime brings to mind more than wildfires…

Here’s a link… below is an excerpt.

As the 2013 Major League Baseball (MLB) season slides into the All-Star break, U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the results of innovative research by the U.S. Forest Service, and funded by MLB, that will result in significantly fewer shattered baseball bats.

“This innovative research by the U.S. Forest Service will make baseball games safer for players and fans across the nation,” said Secretary Vilsack. “The U.S. Forest Products Laboratory has once again demonstrated that we can improve uses for wood products across our nation in practical ways – making advancements that can improve quality of life and grow our economy.”

Testing and analyzing thousands of shattered Major League bats, U.S. Forest Service researchers at the Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) developed changes in manufacturing that decreased the rate of shattered maple bats by more than 50 percent since 2008. While the popularity of maple bats is greater today than ever before, the number of shattered bats continues to decline.

“Since 2008, the U.S. Forest Service has worked with Major League Baseball to help make America’s pastime safer,” said U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell. “I’m proud that our collective ‘wood grain trust’ has made recommendations resulting in a significant drop in shattered bats, making the game safer for players as well as for fans.”

“These results would not have been possible without the outstanding work of the Forest Products Laboratory and the tireless efforts of its project coordinator, David Kretschmann,” says Daniel Halem, MLB’s Senior Vice President of Labor Relations. “Major League Baseball greatly appreciates the invaluable contributions of the Forest Products Laboratory and Mr. Kretschmann on this important issue.”

Court rejects Baucus-requested EPA rule that gave wood-burning biomass facilities a pass on compliance with federal greenhouse gas emission standards

by
On Tuesday, Senator Baucus (D-MT) sent President Obama a letter outlining Sen Baucus’ “Montana-centric” ideas for combating climate change. Sen Baucus’ ideas for combating climate change included approving the dirty tar sands Keystone XL pipeline, increasing oil and gas drilling in the Bakken and increasing industrial logging on our public lands.  Yes, you are not alone if you believe these are not good ways to combat climate change. Anyway….In the letter to the President, Senator Baucus also bragged:

“In 2011, in response to me and several other senators, EPA delayed for three years the application of any greenhouse gas permitting requirements to facilities that use biomass, like sawmills.”

Well, today, the U.S. Court of Appeals scrapped the Senator Baucus-supported EPA delay that had given wood-burning biomass facilities a pass on compliance with federal greenhouse gas emission standards. Here’s a copy of the ruling.  This is good news for those who value clear air and reducing pollution.

Here’s an article about the U.S. Court’s rejection of the EPA rule from E & E Publishing. What follows is the opening few paragraphs:

A three-judge panel scrapped a U.S. EPA rule today that had given biomass-burning facilities a pass on compliance with federal greenhouse gas emission standards.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit panel found EPA failed to justify its 2011 decision that provided a three-year exemption to its greenhouse gas rules for facilities that burn materials ranging from wood and algae to scrap tires.

In exempting biomass, EPA said it needed more time to study the overall impact of the industry’s carbon dioxide emissions. Industry has contended that in some instances — wood burning, for example — biomass facilities have a net neutral CO2 impact because trees absorb the heat-trapping gas before they are cut down.

Environmentalists didn’t buy EPA’s approach. The Center for Biological Diversity said the “blanket exemption” violated the agency’s greenhouse gas policies.

What follows is a quick legal analysis of what today’s U.S. Court ruling means.

As a legal matter this means that:

a)      The court reaffirms its view that EPA has authority to regulate greenhouse gas pollution and that those requirements are clear and mandatory

b)      In order for EPA EVER to implement an exemption from clear statutory requirements, the Agency must justify that under one of the legal doctrines available to it for crafting exemptions, AND with a robust record in science (in this instance) supporting its decision

c)       EPA did not have a robust record supporting the very broad exemption it created here – remember that even though it was for ‘just’ 3 years, it was for EVERY kind of biomass fuel, even though the science shows that burning most biomass fuels make climate disruption worse than burning fossil fuels per unit of energy created by the combustion of those fuels.  Best line from the lead opinion is the one that says that the atmosphere can’t tell a difference between a ton of biogenic CO2 ton and a ton of fossil fuel CO2.

d)      The fact that the court VACATED the rule, didn’t just remand to EPA to ‘fix’ it, shows that the court understood that there isn’t a fix available on EPA’s record – it underscores the point about the science not supporting the broad exemption EPA tried to craft here.

As far as the last question, what this means for facilities permitted during the exemption, it means they are supposed to have pollution control for their CO2 and any other air pollution they emit above the regulatory significance levels.  It means that citizens can go back and demand that, as soon as the mandate issues.  The court as it has in this case typically defers issuance of the mandate pending the review period.