Long Term Relationship with Fire Needed to Prevent Further Catastrophe Says ISF

Governor Newsom declared a State of Emergency over California’s extreme fire activity these past several years. In response, the Institute of Sustainable Forestry (ISF) are coordinating “Embracing Fire” with CalFire, BLM, the Garberville Rotary, Southern Humboldt Firesafe Council, Six Rivers National Forest, Mendocino National Forest, and others. Embracing Fire will be a day of discussions and activity focused on appropriate fire prevention. The community is invited on May 11, the day before Mother’s Day, tothe Mateel Community Center to learn we can each do to prevent rapacious forest fires from devastating our area. ISF says this will be a family friendly event with kids’ activities included.

Tim Bailey, Director of Watershed Science at the ISF,said one of his goals for Embracing Fire is for the community to come away with shovel ready projects for smaller landowners because California has approved a half billion dollars a year in new funding for fire preparedness to prevent future catastrophic fires.

Bailey says ISF wants to see communities be “shovel ready” to access some of those funds for projects like developing shaded fuel breaks on critical ingress and egress routes into their neighborhoods; identifying and expanding important infrastructure such as water supplies for firefighting, and some communities may want to use the funding for certification programs like the “Firewise Community” planning process which help people and communities develop and implement plans over time for fire preparedness.

He mentioned the reality that California currently has an unknown number of fire refugees. He guessed the number of Californians who cannot return home, and who have to rebuild their lives in another town or possibly in other states to be in the thousands.

Bailey delved into the complexity of appropriate management of wildland fires because the best solutions to them can be somewhat counter-intuitive given the terrifying experience of an uncontrollable fire.

Despite real and reasonable fears, fire is an evolutionary factor in a healthy forest. In fact the Klamath Forest, says Bailey, has evolved in the presence of “extreme fire events.”

Simply suppressing fire is part of what has led us to this phase of extreme fire events.

Furthermore, while a ‘State of emergency’ calls for fast, decisive action, Bailey says, “California needs a long term relationship with fire on the landscape.” He also said, “Fire suppression is not sustainable,” and went on the add, “Lots of studies show ecosystems are being simplified, are losing complexity, because of the lack of fire.”

He points out that modern culture tends to speak of wildfire as “destroying the forest.” Bailey said it’s more accurate to say “fire changes the trajectory of the forest.”

Fire has a number of positive impacts, and the species of the landscape, both flora and fauna, have evolved with fire. Some seeds do not open until a fire happens. Fires open clearing for light to get to the forest floor, and fire knocks big trees into the streams contributing to stream complexity. Furthermore, dead trees have a biological function and that is interrupted by salvage logging operations.

Bailey talked about studies looking at wildland urban interface zones for forest ecosystem integrity. From an ecological standpoint, species need to be able to have holding places where they have the elements they need along the corridor of a bio-region they inhabit. He said important legacy elements of the native forest are in small parcels and would be well served by healthy fire activity.

Tim Bailey said, that though “California has declared an emergency, we still have a long learning curve to know how to deal with fire.”

Not all fires are equal. A cool, slow moving fire is generally seen as productive from a forest management perspective. It clears the understory of fallen branches and other dead wood while it gives nutrients to the soil in the form of biochar and potash and tends to leave trees alive and well.

Fire is a natural part of the landscape, and the long time residents of the region, the native people first, and European ranchers afterward, had a routine of setting fire intentionally when the conditions were right for a controlled healthy fire and to prevent catastrophic fire.

California’s emergency declaration comes with a stated goal of fire fuel reduction on a half million acres a year mostly in federal forests, however, CalFire, BLM and CalTrans are also earmarked in the funding according to Bailey.

Bailey said that owners of small parcels have a harder time getting the attention of the agencies “because there are known challenges just because there are more owners and interest groups.” Landowners of smaller parcels have different management needs and inherently more complex process because each landowner has his or her own needs.

At the same time, “the stewardship potential of the homestead parcels should not be overlooked” he says. And he said, “Small landowners, if self motivated, can make big and important changes to their land’s fire ecology through simple means.”

Embracing Fire Day at the Mateel will feature technical panel discussions and live demonstrations of various technology instrumental in managing fire on the landscape in ways that are healthy for people as well as the forests.

One example includes battery operated equipment that will be on display by David Booth, a former KMUD Environment Show host and longtime ISF member, who uses them for his homestead because they can be charged with alternative energies and because they have less probability of starting a wildland fire.

In the meantime, home and land owners will learn the best skills and technology for preventing combustion of their homes, the difference between fire fuel reduction and harmful actions.

Furthermore, Bill and Gayle Eastwood of the Southern Humboldt Fire Safe Council will be on hand to help small landowners learn about marking and reporting fire water sources on their property, and will tell landowers about available funding for fire fuel reduction and fire prevention infrastructure and how to utilize it.

One key technology on Bailey’s mind is the intersection of soil health for carbon sequestration, fire fuel reduction and bio-char creation. ISF’s Gray Shaw will be showing landowners bio-char kilns in various sizes and explaining how bio char holds moisture in the soil while it sequesters carbon for decades if not centuries.

Don’t forget–the Embracing Fire event runs from 10-6 on the May 11 at the Mateel Community Center.