Opinion: Fuel breaks saved lives during the Camp Fire. They can spare California from future devastation
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Using hand tools and chain saws, Firefighters from the Eel River, Dept. of Corrections cut a line through a thick brush to contain the West Fire near Stirling City in 2008. [Photo by Bill Husa, Chico Enterprise-Record]
In the relentless battle against wildfires in California, it’s clear that agencies and landowners must prioritize and implement wildfire prevention measures while continuing to build and maintain firefighting resources.
Fuel breaks have emerged as an effective approach to wildfire suppression, and it’s vital these projects move forward expeditiously on private and public lands. If strategically placed, these areas of reduced vegetation can slow the spread of wildfires, buying wildland firefighters more time to get ahead of rapidly developing wildfires.
Fuel breaks are critical buffers to protect infrastructure such as homes, roads and powerlines. When weather allows, fuel breaks can serve as an effective drop zone for aerial fire retardants. They are also a safe place for firefighters to navigate the landscape.
Fuel breaks have proven their efficacy in several instances, but to those of us who call Stirling City, home, one example is forever seared in our memory. In November 2018, the Camp Fire tragically burned over 150,000 acres, killed 85 people and destroyed over 18,000 structures – a harrowing reminder of how wildfire prevention measures can be the difference between life and death.
As the Camp Fire raged closer to our community, Cal Fire and volunteer firefighters quickly leveraged existing fuel breaks to connect new containment lines, further protecting our community. The U.S. Forest Service, Butte County officials and private landowners had worked together to implement fuel breaks long before the Camp Fire tragedy, and it ultimately saved our community.
Through these proactive measures and combined quick actions, a nearby elementary school, countless homes and lives were likely spared. I personally watched an enormous DC-10 plane drop retardant on the west side of our town, directly on the shaded fuel break built only a couple of years prior by the landowner.
Our neighbors in Paradise had also completed fuel breaks and a community wildland preparedness plan. Unfortunately, due to the incredibly speed of the wildfire, their community faced catastrophic loss.
One success, though, was a fuel break installed east of Paradise Lake. The fire came up from Feather River to the ridge but slowed once it reached that shaded fuel break, making it easier to stop. That fundamental fuel break is credited with saving upper Magalia and beyond.
Paradise continues to rebuild six years later, but we are all still reminded of the urgent and ongoing need for wildfire prevention measures in California. Efforts by a very capable and active Butte Fire Safe Council have helped homeowners better prepare for the possible recurrence of fire on the ridge.
Although fuel breaks may not stop wildfires entirely, they are an essential tool to slow their spread. Fuel breaks also cause wildfires to burn at lower temperatures, preserving soil composition and making regrowth efforts far more successful. Lower burn temperatures maintain the soil’s cohesion, resulting in less debris contamination in our creeks and river systems, too.
For fuel breaks to be most effective, their placement across the landscape must be done in a coordinated, strategic manner. For example, the U.S. Forest Service must work with the state of California and private landowners to not only share information on the location of fuel breaks but also redouble efforts to construct fuel breaks in strategic areas that leverage existing work to protect homes and communities.
Fuel break effectiveness also hinges on continuous management. Over time, vegetation and debris can regrow in these areas where the fuels were removed, so consistent monitoring and maintenance across multiple landowners and agencies is imperative for established fuel breaks to remain viable. Maintenance of fuel breaks is done effectively using herbicide, mechanical mastication and even goat and sheep grazing.
This is another reason for state and federal lawmakers to establish long-term maintenance funding for these projects.
While fuel breaks are a crucial component of our wildfire prevention and suppression strategies, we must view them as one part of a comprehensive approach to wildfire management. Incorporating fuel breaks with fire retardants, prescribed burns and strategic community planning can maximize our ability to prevent future catastrophes.
We must arm ourselves with every potential resource.
Many Californians still remember the Camp Fire like it was yesterday, and we know all too well that tomorrow is never promised. This is why we must do everything we can to plan and implement projects that lower wildfire risks and protect our homes and properties.
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and the result of essentially cancelling logging in the ’80’s. more heavily treed areas, less access roads, more down fuel load. good job Ca.
Increased fire danger is the result of the logging.
Old growth forests are very fire resistant.
Clearcuts grow back with overcrowded pecker poles and burn with much greater intensity.
Well… well heck… yeah… why sure.
Burned out old growth forest, Greyback (above Happy Camp), burned out old growth forest (South Fork Mtn), burned out old growth forest (North Trinity Mtn), burned out old growth forest (Antenna Ridge), burned out old growth forest (Upper South Fork Trinity), burned out old growth forest (Ruth Lake), burned out old growth forest (Grizzly Camp/North Trinity mtn), burned out old growth forest (Scott River), burned out old growth forest (Yolla Bolly)… and the list goes on.
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Have you been to any of them ? I have.
The August complex fire burnt up 120000 acres in 4 hours blew right over the fire lines burnt up old growth like paper. There was flames hundreds of feet over the canopy
I have been to the forests around Ruth, including the blowup that wiped out Three Forks, and believe that was not old growth, but a mix of Doug fir invasion, brought on by the cessation of Indian burning, followed by the postwar logging boom: younger trees growing too close together for fire safety.
One example: The heavy salvage logging in the 1960s-70s from the Penny Glade fire, in the headwaters of the Mad River, was thickly replanted. That was where the blowup took place. The south side of Jones Ridge, in the Yolla Bolly Wilderness, came through with a moderate burn and is recovering well, but virtually all the early mature Doug fir on the north side of Jones Ridge above Three Forks was killed over thousands of acres.
However recovery is underway. Grass and forbs are growing between the dead snags. Shrubs have crown-sprouted; many of them are nitrogen fixers and will replenish scorched soil. Especially given climate change, it may be unrealistic to hope to restore Doug fir forest in places like that. Oak woodland will be more stable and fire resilient in the future.
The image you posted is not of an old growth forest.
In fact, you just seem to be calling forests old-growth without providing any evidence supporting your claims.
Sighs. Hmmm… I doubt you have had ever been there.
Pre-fire.
Bolan Lake… Post-fire
The forest pictured is beautiful but it isn’t an old growth forest
Really ? That’s bloody amazing.
So…. I reckon you have you been there ? Yes ? No ?
Yes. And many of the places you listed are not old growth. You seem very confused about what old growth actually means.
Hmm… lets see… 180′ trees and 5′ through, no stumps around… sighs… it ain’t new growth.
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(Sighs) At any rate, somehow… if it makes you happy.
Map of Old/Mature forests in Orygun.
Not everybody lives in a redwood ecosystem phalocentric w0rld, or within 10 miles of the ocean where things grow similarly all the while surrounded by health food stores.
The meaning of old Growth changes
( in my mind at least) in consideration to the nature and demands of the landscape.
Manzanita deserve their claim and so do the blue oaks.
Does ‘time immemorial’ not mean old growth? Open your eyes to the sociological meaning of old growth .
You are right. It’s at least second growth from Three Forks. Almost everything that blew up in the August fire had been logged at least once already.
Not sure what you mean in your second sentence?
While I agree that old growth DOUGLAS FIR forest are not impervious to wildfire, most of the fires you mentioned spread into old growth FROM brush, regen, or younger unhealthy stands.
Maybe we should clear cut every single tree, then there would never be another fire again…..or habitat, or O2/Co2 exchange, or shade, or…….
Think of all the pulp and toilet paper we could stack!
I agree with bozo. What we’ve seen in the Trinity river area last ten years is plenty of old forests go up. All the wilderness areas, as well as six rivers land up towards Denny. Much of it is old growth. All the green diamond land around redwood creek ? Not even one fire. It’s the lightning storms and the dryer conditions.
The August complex blew right across the fire breaks 120000 acres bunt in four hours it was blowing flames hundreds of feet above the canopy it ate up the old growth like it was paper
that’s what thin and release, brushing and replanting are all about. sustainable logging practices, jobs, and common sense.
If thinning of once-logged land was what timber companies did, that would be fine.
But the vast majority of logging operations are clear cuts.
Yes sir but common sense is not that common in government. Not a lot of private timber lands on fire
You have absolutely zero idea what you are talking about. Like 100% what you stated is completely backwards. As such, your statements are untrue, flawed, and point to somebody with no understanding of forest management, fire science, forest ecology or the natural world in general. As double such, the entire windmill scam only proves my point further. Perhaps discussing the chemistry involved in making a zucchini pancake would be a better fit for your scientific amateur endeavors. Please leave forest and ocean management decisions to the professionals. Political malinformstion from amateurs only muddies the waters and prevents forest fuels reduction work from taking place in a cost effective and timely manner.
“Forest management” often has absolutely nothing to do with what’s best for the forest or the land/inhabitants. It’s often profit-driven based on resource extraction.
Forests wouldn’t need managing if humans weren’t involved. Forests had self-managed fine for hundreds of thousands of years.
North American forests have been heavily influenced by aboriginal burning practices for thousands of years.
Can’t argue with the logic that if the forest is cut down it can’t burn down.
Over logging and a century of absolute fire suppression sure hasn’t helped forest conditions much.
We need to build back toward a culture of holistic, watershed scale, landscape management. It’s going to be a rough transition from our existing isolationist and extraction based culture. But that is the only path toward long term wildfire damage mitigation.
who said ‘overlogging’? sustainable dude
The logging that was happening in the middle of the 20th century was not sustainable.
As far as I’ve seen there are effectively zero examples of sustainable logging happening at scale
A: There’s logging and then there’s logging. A clearcut and a forest stand thinned from below (harvesting the smaller trees and leaving the largest and tallest) are similar only in that they’re both called logging, and affect future fire behavior very differently.
B: There’s fuel breaks and then there’s fuel breaks. Treatment prescriptions and implementation thoroughness vary widely from project to project. Shaded fuel breaks have been shown to be effective, particularly when paired with cleaning up the surface brush and understory.
C: John Hawkins (the article’s author) had a long and illustrious career at CAL FIRE. He was a great incident commander. He knows of what he speaks.
Fuel breaks can help, but we are getting more wind-driven crown fires, where fuel breaks are beside the point. With an impossible backlog of heavy fuels, plus climate change, we should expect more August fires and Dixie fires.
Meagram fire, 1999:
Brush is now 15′ deep… at least a couple years ago.
Next (brush) fire will be a doozy.
I think we should expect a lot more brush (chaparral) in the future, with climate change. Vegetation zones will move uphill and north. Humboldt will look more like Sonoma County, with more oak woodlands and chaparral and less conifer forest. Too hot, too dry.
The good thing about brush, including the Ceanothus in the above photo, is it regrows quickly from the roots and provides cover after a fire, unlike firs which can only restart from seed. And it’s a long way to a seed source in that photo. Photo taken in 2015 after the 1999 Meagram fire; it was six feet tall–believe me, I had to scramble through half a mile of it after losing the trail.
Walked that country in the ‘old days’. Paul Gibson Cave, Lipps Camp, North Trinity Mtn Guard station, Red Cap Lake, Devils Hole, Mill Creek Lake etc. etc.
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Now all gone. Photo is the Orleans Mtn Lookout. (Antenna Ridge)
I’ve hiked to some of those places in the last few years and am not sure what you mean by gone. The Forest Service has neglected the trails to the point where they are disappearing though.
I suppose I mean the ambience is gone… and it may be 100 to 200 years to come back… or that country may just turn into a brush-pile.
Yes, the forest is going to change. Maybe not be a forest. At higher elevations, the brush is likely to be transitional, and can actually help conifers get started again by pioneering and improving damaged soil (adding nitrogen and humus).If trees can get established, they will eventually shade out conifers.
At lower, warmer locations, different brush species may become permanent, replacing conifers long term where hotter, drier conditions don’t allow those trees to grow–such as we see in Southern California.
Again, Sonoma County probably represents our future in Humboldt: redwoods along low elevation creeks and rivers, open oak woodlands and chaparral beyond the fog. Vegetation zones will move uphill to maintain temperature and moisture levels.
Increased co2 will only have a significant impact on temperatures if it causes a big increase in humidity.
Without a big increase in humidity, increasing co2 has minimal impact on temperature because you are only changing the composition of the atmosphere by a couple parts per million per year.
That is a very, very, very tiny change.
If co2 increases humidity a bunch then there will be a greater increase in temps but it will be a more humid atmosphere, not a dryer atmosphere.
Climate models have been way off in their predictions for decades (always running too warm) so their predictions are useless.
If anything, climate models tend to understate the amount of warming we are seeing. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2023GL106909#:~:text
Increased co2 has significantly increased plant growth, including trees, brush, etc. so more wood to burn.
California has virtually no effective wildland fire policies. Newsome is sitting on his hands.
true, and zero actual forest maintenance by the dept. of agricultures ( fed and state) for the last 40 years.
Newsome has given CAL FIRE unprecedented amounts of funding for much needed forest health and wildfire resiliency projects in recent years.
Fire breaks seem like an obviously good idea.
Maybe do strategic logging to create the fire breaks and harvest the wood.
That is happening. Most of what needs to be removed isn’t merchantable. But some is.
They should be using AI to scan real time thermo imaging data and put the small fires out QUICKLY. That’s the smart thing to do. I hope the ‘let it burn’ ideology is over with.
A lot of the coordination and information sharing already exists.
https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/f9d7f7f920494c3db43a23a8dffe4664
So many “experts”, yet so much disinformation.
We need to start clear cutting areas again to provide fire breaks.