Our Wildfire Predicament

by Bill Eastwood
September 2, 2008

Bill Eastwood Photo: Jeri Fergus

Trees Foundation board member Bill Eastwood is a geologist with 35 years experience in various aspects of watershed restoration and sustainable forestry. As co-director of the Eel River Salmon Restoration Project he has been involved in a wide range of fish, habitat, erosion control, and educational projects. Bill is a founding member of the Institute for Sustainable Forestry (ISF) and served on the staff for ten years. He is also on the staff of the Southern Humboldt Fire Safe Council where he is helping develop a regional fire plan and various fire hazard reduction and education projects. He lives with his wife Gail on 300 acres of forest and meadows on Elk Ridge a few miles north of Briceland in southern Humboldt County.

Fuel Reduction Field Trip
For anyone who wants to learn more about this type of work we've decided to do a field trip to our land September 20. Attendance will be limited. Please call the Trees Foundation office at (707)932-4377 for details and to sign up.

More that 2000 fires were started in Northern California by the June 21 lightning storm. Many are still raging more than two months later. We've been trying to keep fires out of the landscape for over a hundred years, and we're failing. In this article I'll briefly relate a little of the origin of our fire problem, and describe some of my personal thoughts and ongoing efforts to deal with it on my land, and how that may extrapolate to the bigger picture.

It's now generally recognized that fire has an ecological role in the health of forests. As plants evolved they developed various strategies to assure survival from wildfires. The forests of this region are a good example. We know for sure that much of this region was covered by fire resistant old-growth forests. From tree ring fire scar data we know that these forests burned as often as every 5 to 30 years. We also know that the countryside was much more open and park-like than it is today.

1982 prescribed burn area before prep work and burn--dead manzanita under Douglas-fir. Photo: this article: Bill Eastwood, unless noted

Beginning the 1982 prescribed burn with a drip torch.

The 1982 prescribed burn area as it looked in 2002.

By today's standards fires as frequent as every ten years sounds like a lot of fire. We now know that in most forested areas a balance was established where frequent, low intensity ground fires kept the fuel on the forest floor from building up to the point at which intense stand-replacing fires could occur (Biswell, 1989). The frequent ground fires killed most young trees, keeping the understory open. Also, as trees grew taller lower branches had less available light, died and fell to the ground, to be consumed by the next ground fire. This raised the bottom of the canopy and reduced the chance of a fire reaching up into the canopy and consuming the tree. As the trees aged, their bark thickened and became more fire resistant. The shading of the ground under old-growth forests also created a microclimate that was more humid than surrounding areas. Most of the present day fire hazard reduction work I'll talk about later essentially mimics these conditions.

While lightning must have caused some of these frequent fires, it is clear that Native Americans were responsible for many of them. Wildfires would have been a serious threat to their villages, and it makes sense that Native Americans would have quickly learned how to use fire on their terms instead of waiting for whatever fate brought. They learned to burn under safe conditions and developed sophisticated fire management techniques to promote edible plants, produce quality basketry materials, control oak diseases, reduce fire danger, promote forage, and keep the forest open for travel and hunting (Anderson 2005). Had this year's lightning storm happened during that period, the fire-effects of the storm would have been much milder.

When white settlers moved in, Native Americans often clashed with them over continuing their burning practices. The settlement period, beginning in this region in the 1850s, rapidly eliminated frequent Native American burning
and set the stage for increasingly destructive wildfires.
The fire situation in northwestern California is a culmination of what happened across the United States as white settlement expanded westward. Eastern forests were cut to provide farmland for the advancing settlers. Some of the wood was utilized locally and the rest was burned. Demand for lumber increased along with the population. As the railroad network expanded westward "lumber barons" began making fortunes off of the green gold of the forests, especially in the Great Lakes region. Huge areas of forest were leveled, leaving slash and mill residues piled high. Slash fires burned here and there but didn't seem to be a problem--until the Peshtigo fire during the great drought of 1871.

The previous year had been dry and after June 8 there was no rain for 117 days. Rangeland fires in the eastern Dakotas were moving into Wisconsin. On October 7 the area around the lumbering town of Peshtigo, near Green Bay, exploded in flames killing 1,200 people in 20 minutes. On the same day, driven by the same winds, the Great Chicago Fire killed 300 people and consumed 12,000 buildings. Interestingly, lumber baron William Ogden, owner of the Peshtigo Lumber Company, pledged to help rebuild Chicago, unaware that his timber empire had also gone up in flames. The Peshtigo fire reached 1,280,000 acres, and similar fires in Michigan burned an additional 2,500,000 acres (Biswell, 1989).

This pattern of large, often lethal, fires burning slash-choked cutover forests continued into the early 1900s and beyond. The ecological role of fire and its varying uses by Native Americans was generally not understood. While the fire danger of logging slash must have been obvious, it was only noted in passing in this seemingly endless period of westward-moving resource extraction. The old-growth forests of the United States have now been pretty much cut all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
It's now up to us to deal with the remaining hazardous fuel conditions of logging slash and thick second growth forests.

The Fire Exclusion Policy

The hazardous condition of much of the nation's forests, coupled with a lack of understanding of the ecological role of fire, led to the conclusion that efforts must be made to control all fires. This was the beginning of what amounts to a 100 year ill-conceived fire exclusion experiment, the results of which we are now stuck with. The official policy of suppressing all wildfires began in Yellowstone National Park in 1886 and in California in 1924 (Biswell, 1989). Social and bureaucratic pressure, often using liability threats, gradually caused many forest and range managers who were using fire as a management tool to discontinue these practices. This even happened in the longleaf pine forests of the Southeast, where the critical role of fire was well understood by many forest managers. The policy of fire exclusion is still essentially intact, although the ecological role of fire in maintaining healthy forests is becoming widely known, and some efforts are being made to return fire to its rightful ecological role.

For many years, as the technology of fire fighting improved, it seemed that the fire exclusion strategy would work. However, the number of acres burned in high intensity fires is steadily rising. Recent research (Westerling, et. al., 2006) shows that large wildfire activity in the western US increased suddenly and dramatically in the mid-1980s with higher large wildfire frequency, longer wildfire duration and longer wildfire seasons. Westerling points out that there has been extensive discussion within the fire management and scientific communities as to the reason for the sudden increase, with some researchers focusing on land-use history and others pointing to climate changes. In any case we are in deep trouble, with no relief in sight.

So, in general, we have gone from old-growth forests that in many cases were maintained in a relatively fire resistant state by frequent, low intensity, understory burns, to the present condition of infrequent, high intensity, stand replacing fires

Thirty Three Years Experience Doing Fire Hazard Reduction

During the logging boom of the fifties and sixties most of the forests of this region were cut, with devastating consequences to fish and forest (see photo page 11). A lot of this heavily logged over-land was later subdivided and sold to new people moving into the area. The 300 acres of forest and meadow land where we live on Elk Ridge north of Briceland was logged early in the fifties when Douglas fir wasn't worth much. Consequently the loggers left all the old fir trees with large lower limbs that edge our meadows. So our fire hazard situation, while not great, is better than a lot of this region. Let me explain a little of what we've done over the years to lower our fire hazard and then make a few observations of where I think we should heading.

In this 1966 aerial photograph (about 2 miles wide) the land where the Eastwood's live is roughly circled. Notice that this area, which was logged in the early 1950's, has all of the meadow boarders intact, including old growth Douglas-fir and hardwoods. In contrast the rest of the Blue Slide area to the left was logged much more intensely in the 1960's, creating a very high concentration of fire hazardous tanoak. As a side note, Blue Slide Creek was used as a skid trail for logging destroying fish habitat. Photo: Air Data Systems

My wife Gail and I started doing fire hazard reduction work on our land 33 years ago in 1975, primarily making shaded fuelbreaks along our roads and around our house. Shaded fuelbreak construction involves reducing ground fuel, removing dead and suppressed trees, and limbing trees to make a "fuel ladder" gap between the ground and the base of the canopy. We started off slowly, figuring out tools and cutting strategies as we went.

About that same time I first heard about prescribed burning. I had the good fortune to cross paths with a maverick forester who recognized the importance of fire in forest management and was working diligently to promote it. Harold Biswell was a professor of forestry at U.C. Berkeley who, in the fifties, started several controversial forest research projects to examine the effects of understory burning in various types of forests, including Ponderosa pine, mixed conifers, and giant sequoias. He went on to become a leading voice in California against the fire exclusion policy. Almost by accident I signed up for a U.C. Davis extension course on fire ecology and prescribed burning. The course was taught by Biswell as a way to continue spreading his fire message after his retirement from teaching at Berkeley. Little did I know that I was about to be converted by a master burner missionary. I ended up taking three of his courses: burning in chaparral, pine, and giant sequoias.

It also turned out that John Barbour, the Garberville CDF Battalion Chief, was also a prescribed burning enthusiast, and in 1980 and 1982 we did two small understory burns on our land (see photos pages 7 & 8). This spring we did another well attended understory burn adjacent to the 1982 prescribed burn.

We are also working on a 200 foot wide fuelbreak on our two access roads, as well as a project to cut out hazardous fir encroachments into our meadows. Both of these projects are partially funded by Natural Resource Conservation Service. Eleven acres of burn prep work was also completed this year using a cost share grant from CDF. When all of this work is finished in 2009 we will have completed a total of 43 acres of fire hazard reduction work. For the 29 acres completed so far I totaled up all our expenses and estimated work hours (many of which were unpaid). Using a wage of $20/hour the total comes to $31,970 or $1,102/acre. This is in the ball park for this type of work, with the range being from about $500 to $2,000/acre, with $1,500 being about average.

So, What Have We Learned From All This Work?

* First, that it sure looks good. Shaded fuelbreaks as wide as 100 feet on each side of the road have a spacious, open quality that leads the eye deep into the forest.
* The work is rewarding to do and worth spending money on. One thousand dollars worth of work by a professional can accomplish a spectacular amount of work, especially if you do a lot of the slash burning or chipping.
* The longer I do this work the clearer it is that eventually our land will be tested by a wildfire. Harold Biswell had a wildfire burn through his pine understory burn plots at Clear Lake with no harm to the forest. That's what I want.
* View this work as mimicking and promoting the fire resistant characteristics of old-growth forests. In young stands be extra diligent to lessen ground fuels and keep the trees pruned up.
* The initial work is the hard part. More mature forests are in general easier to do fire hazard reduction work in. Private forest landowners who aren't interested in logging will eventually end up with a more fire resistant forest. The trend is in the right direction but we still need to do our part.
* Maintenance of shaded fuelbreaks by understory burning or pile-and-burning is easy. However, stump sprouts can cause serious problems if not kept cut back.
* Pressurized water is very useful when burning slash during fuelbreak construction. This is especially true in the spring as conditions dry out. I have a water line extended into the woods below our house and have built a 100 gallon slip-in pumper unit for my pickup truck.
* Four-wheel-drive access to fuelbreaks away from roads is very helpful. These projects usually generate a lot of firewood. Motivation to do the work is greater if you can utilize this wood.
* Prescribed burns that are large enough to need fire protection help are difficult to organize. You are often better off to do pile-and-burn methods for the initial work and plan to do understory burns later when restrictions have hopefully eased and the collective skill level
is higher.
* Prioritize the work to begin around homes and access roads and then break your forest into compartments by constructing additional fuelbreaks along key ridges and other natural features. This makes wildfire control easier and eventually can lead to understory burning of the compartments.
* Perseverance furthers. Chipping away at fire hazard reduction over the years can gradually accomplish a surprising amount of work. Friends, neighbors, and children often pitch in to help speed up the process. I find fire hazard reduction work on our land to be very satisfying, a little like weeding an overgrown garden.

One hundred foot wide shaded fuelbreak on Bill and Gail Eastwood's driveway.

We can no longer deal with fire on our terms as the Native Americans did. Rather, surrounded by huge accumulations of fuel, we are at the mercy of whatever terms the next fire gives us. This means that there is an incredible range of knowledge and preparedness needed to deal with the wide spectrum of possibilities. While fire hazard reduction work is very costly and time consuming, I see no other way out of this mess short of the head-in-the-sand-until-you-get-burned-out approach. As a culture we are slowly waking up from the one hundred year failed fire exclusion experiment. Our public policies need to face the necessity of dealing with this legacy. Right now we still aren't spending much tax money on fuels reduction, especially when compared to fire suppression costs. Meanwhile, with minimal support from the government in dealing with this problem created by ignorance and greed, and maintained by public policy, it's pretty much up to each landowner to do his or her own work or hire it done. Careful prioritization and coordination of fuel reduction grants and cost share money by local fire safe councils and other organizations is also essential.

If you have any questions about our fire hazard reduction work give me a call at (707)923-9109.

References

Anderson, M. Kat, 2005, Tending the Wild, Native American Knowledge and the Management of California's Natural Resources, University of California Press, 526 pages

Biswell, Harold H., 1989, Prescribed Burning In California Wildlands Vegetation Management, University of California Press, 255 pages

Westerling, Anthony and Benjamin Bryant. 2006. Climate Change And Wildfire In And Around California: Fire Modeling And Loss Modeling. A Report From: California Climate Change Center February 2006, CEC-500-2006-190-SF


This article can be found online at www.treesfoundation.org/publications/article-325

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