The politics of forest fires

[SteveB]

The article even mentioned a stoey about one neighbor who had a good defensible space and offered to help his neighbor out.

There was a story on the local news (KRNV) on Tuesday (I think) that had a homeowner saying that she had cleared a space across the street from her house that was Forest Service land, and doing so had saved her home. She admitted that doing so violated the law, but land management policies gave her no other alternative. Her home survived, while those nearby were burned to the foundation.

KRNV also just showed video of the region from helicopter... It's heart-breaking to see the land completely devastated like that, with only skeletons of trees standing. Absolutely heart-breaking.

[Kerstin]

As a homeowner in the Tahoe Basin, I have to speak up about my experiences with creating defensible space around my home and about other concerns:

Five years ago my husband and I purchased the lot behind our home. We were lucky--the man who owned the lot almost gave it to us. This lot was densely forested with plenty of crowded and/or dying trees of various sizes. To get a permit to cut trees all I had to do was make a phone call to the Forest Service. About a week later an employee came out and marked 27 trees, some quite large, on our 1/4 acre lot. We immediately began cutting trees. We have been able to cut more than this since you don't need a permit to cut trees six inches in diameter or smaller.

Our tree-cutting permit expired last year. I made one more phone call and got an immediate two-year extension.

That was all we had to do. I don't know where people get the idea that thinning the forest around your home is illegal. We even live across the street from a large meadow--a "stream environment zone" in the words of the TRPA.

The mulch I've used around our home is decomposed granite gathered from various roadsides. We'd pull up in my truck with several buckets and a shovel and load it up. This granite is bulldozed away every spring anyway so I don't see any problem with collecting it.

I do use pine needles as mulch in certain areas too. With the absence of ladder fuels, I don't see a layer of pine needles as a danger, as long as it's not too thick. I of course don't let pine needles or pine cones build up against the house siding or on the roof.

I am painfully aware that all this work of creating defensible space may not work if there's a fire in our area, but it will increase the odds that our home will survive.

What I have not seen mentioned in all the talk about this fire is how the presence of cedar fences and decks all but guarantee that your house will burn down even if you do everything you can to create defensible space. Our home is surrounded by these on two sides--we are surrounded by cedar "kindling". Unfortunately we didn't install the fences, so we are going to talk to our neighbors about removing these fences and replacing them with wire fences or nothing at all.

It's depressing to drive by homes that have plenty of defensible space but are surrounded by wooden fences that are quite close to the house siding. All it takes is one burning ember to start a chain-reaction.

Another pattern I've noticed has to do with the large trophy homes that are sprouting up all over the basin. These new homes are built so close to the existing smaller homes or so close to each other that it creates a severe fire hazard! We had one of these homes go up next to our forested lot. Their roof is about one foot from our property line! I'm really glad our house isn't back there.

Here's another example: just up the street a property owner bulldozed a beautiful cabin and built not one but two monster homes on his lot. These homes are so close together that you can stand on the deck of one home and almost touch the siding of the other home. On this man's property there is a dog-hair stand of young Jeffery Pines that form a continuous canopy. Instead of thinning them to reduce fire hazard and to reduce competition for the Lupine, Phlox and Mule Ears growing beneath them, he killed the native plants and put in a lawn. He can barely fit a lawn-mower between these trees. It would be almost comical if I wasn't so upset about one more beautiful patch of native plants turning into a useless lawn. If he had built only one home on his lot, he would have plenty of defensible space. But he does not.

I am wondering why building homes inches from each other is allowed in a fire-prone area like this! It only adds to the problem of overgrown forests.


My condolences to the people who lost their homes in this fire!

[huts]

Kerstin, Thank you for posting. You are much nicer and more cool headed than I am going to be. I have noticed that Mountaineer et.al. DO NOT LIVE IN THE TAHOE AREA!

I used to live in Meyers just the other side of the Truckee River from much of the burned area. I helped fight many proposals that were clearcuts only thinly disguised as "fuel reduction". I also was able to remove trees, brush and other flammable materials from our property as well as the adjacent parcel which was owned BY THE FOREST SERVICE in order to create defensible space. We did this under permit and with the encouragement of the Forest Service and the Lake Valley Fire Department.

I AM AN ENVIRONMENTALIST. I DID NOT START NOR OTHERWISE CAUSE THIS FIRE. GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT, STOP READING THE NEWSPAPERS AND FOR GODS SAKES TURN OFF THE CONSERVATIVE TALK SHOW RADIO!

YES, I AM SHOUTING AT YOU!

[huts]

Sorry for raising my voice. I would like to make a few more points.

newspapers, TV news, radio talk shows make money from controversy

the finger pointing and the anti-environment sentiment is quite popular and sells a lot of news now days, there is currency in making oneself out to be a victim of the "whacko greenie liberals"

This is what I saw when I lived in Tahoe:

many people wanted to cut what they wanted when they wanted, did not wish to go through the process of getting the permit and having the Forest Service mark trees,( I heard someone say that it was "inconvenient") this seems to have morphed into the fabulous untruth that cuttting trees to create defensible space was not allowed

many people did not have the time or money or inclination to remove trees and other flammables from their property, I remember one neighbor making the statement that the government should do it for them, I am just guessing but these may be the same kind of folks who are now trying to blame the TRPA, the Sierra Club, their second grade teacher, etc......way to take responsibility for yourselves, eh?

as has been mentioned the Angora fire burned through forest that had been thinned, this type of thinning (as opposed to clearcutting) had the support of the environmental groups I have been involved with (including the Sierra Club) but the work is expensive and slow and funds were nearly non-existent

once again I am just guessing but I am afraid the only thing that would have stopped this fire earlier would have been many miles of bare ground, I hope I am recalling this correctly.....the winter snow had been 29% of "normal", the relative humidity that day was 4%!!!!!!, the winds were fairly steady in the 20+ mph range, some gusts over 30 mph, a firefighter I know said some ridgetop winds were up to 70 mph, the last I heard the Sierra Club, the TRPA, etc., etc., are not able to control the weather

this lyric by Dire Straights comes to mind: "When you point your finger 'cause your plan fell through you got three more fingers pointing back at you"

use some critical thinking when reading, listening to anything about this issue, do your own research, question motivations - try to understand that truth is not in the best interest of some people and they will do their best to divert your attention

I don't know everything, these words come from my experience and my observations and I guess I just don't understand why Mountaineer et.al. feel the need to find a particular group or policy to "blame"

"Stuff" happens but perhaps we can learn from this IF people are willing to put aside their greed and other personal bias and take resposibility for their own choices

I have run from my home in front of a fire, I did not sleep much while the Angora Fire was burning, my heart was hurting for those who were affected

thank you for listening

[huts]

Hi, me again.

I am quite interested in what dave54 had to say about a fire making an end run around a 20 year old clearcut. It does make sense that newer growth could be more juicy, a higher ratio of greenery to wood but I think there are many other variables that could be involved.

I have seen mature stands survive where the neighboring area of dense second growth went up like a roman candle. I have been pondering what the differences between the two experiences may be:

lack of management of second growth leading to a thicket rather than a forest? The dense growth of "toothpick" trees often have very little green on them -

type of tree - one mature Jeffrey Pine forest I am thinking about was very open and park-like while the surrounding area was dense brush with smaller trees, slope aspect has something to do with this, also there are stumps present indicating that some trees were cut at one time and the sheep manure indicates that some four legged brush clearing may have occurred.

I have witnessed juicy green second growth going up in flames just like any other tree - it would appear that the juiciness of second growth can vary greatly.

I recall writing letters to protest some of the large acreage clearcuts that were being proposed as "fuel reduction". I do remember there were no provisions to manage the second growth, mitigation to prevent erosion and run off was vague and I would think I was not the only one who supported the concept of (how it was explained to me) staggered bands of cut areas which could slow progression of a fire.

I am not a forester but I do have a degree in botany and am well acquainted with the scientific process. I believe there are too many uncontrolled variables (wind, humidity both relative and field, terrain etc.) to say for certain that one thing or another would have prevented this disaster - except, of course, if some idiot had not built an illegal campfire. There, Mountaineer, is your "smoking gun".

[dave54]

Hi, me again.

...but I think there are many other variables that could be involved...

Yes, there are. I did not want to create the idea that logging itself reduces fire intensity. Reducing fire intensity requires followup treatments for the slash, managing density, and other actions. Leaving the slash on the ground increases fire risk, even in low thinning operations. Treating the slash reduces the fire risk, regardless of the overall harvest method.

It used to be standard procedure to burn clear cut blocks for planting. The expression was 'whack 'em, stack 'em, and black 'em'. In the late 1980s or so the attitude shifted to start leaving the slash on the ground for nutrient cycling and erosion control. It was nice to the soils, and the slash enhanced regeneration and survival of shade tolerant seedlings (but hampered the regeneration and survival of shade intolerants, so pick your desired species). Unfortunately, the slash made the clearcut extremely flammable. It also made followup treatments like brush control and thinning more difficult and expensive. So now whether to treat the slash or not, or how much to treat, is decided on a case-by-case basis, trying to balance all the pluses and minuses. Harvesting to reduce fire risk means full slash treatment, driving up the cost of the entire project, which in turn feeds the argument that National Forest logging loses money.

In the examples I gave earlier in the Storrie Fire, the blocks that were treated for slash did not burn. A few blocks that did not get treated did burn.

Unmanaged forests are the same way. The most influential factor is surface fuels -- the fallen trees, brush, and young reproduction under the canopy. These can be natural, of course. Even Wilderness Areas that have never seen a chainsaw, bulldozer or cow can still be highly flammable and subject to high intensity stand replacing fires. Other factors are density, size distribution, and to a lesser degree, species mix. Year-to-year variations in weather is a major driver of fuel moisture (juiciness, as you called it). In drought years even the greenest, most careful managed forest can burn. The only way to completely fireproof the Sierra Nevada is to clearcut and pave over with concrete.

So it is all about managing risk and probabilities. Areas adjacent to communities are the priorities, but that is not saying areas 'far from homes' should not be treated ( I haven't looked at a map to measure, but how far from the nearest home did the Angora Fire start? 2 miles?). Fires in backcountry areas and wilderness areas still impact people and can negatively affect the natural resource values. That is why long term plans involve treating the forest as a whole on a mega-scale matrix, not just building defensive 'moats' around communities and letting the rest burn.

You mentioned the concept of scattered series of treatments across the forest reducing fire intensity. That was initially called the 'Finney Effect' after the researcher who first suggested that if approximately 30% of an area is treated, any large fire would have slower spread and lower intensity on a landscape scale. More than 30% has only minor reductions. The theory remained untested for several years, as it would take decades to set up a series of controlled experiments and burning tens of thousands of acres of forest. Then the 2000 and 2002 fire seasons happened and an analytical post mortem of several of the largest fires validated the theory. Experienced firefighters have known this intuitively for decades, with some early papers published in the 1930's discussing the concept, but did not quantify the amount of area that yielded optimum results. Now there are some firm numbers and accepted validations.

[huts]

and now it seems the ambulance chasers (whoops, I mean "members of the bar" [which bar, I ponder]) are already after it - "If your house was burned in the recent Lake Tahoe Fire due to pine needles call us today"

or it could be said: "Step right up to the greatest show on earth, no need to take responsibility for your own actions, find someone to blame and make a million dollars, please stay behind the line, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, yes we will make a hell of a lot more than you off of your tragedy but you will feel so much better when you can point the finger at someone else

excuse me one moment

[dave54]

Yeah, my wife and I both saw that ad on TV (Reno law office advertising for clients on TV with the fire ad). We both started laughing and shaking our heads.

[mikehike]

I own a small slice of heaven on North Uppert truckee on 596 Kiowa Street, the fire missed our cabin by 400 yards.

First and foremost there are "Fires" and then there are "fire storms", this was a "fire storm" driven by 40-50mph winds, all the conservation in the world would not have stopped this fire. The fire spread from tree top to tree top.

2nd plant communites in california are fire-dependent to a certain degree, the giant seqouia requires fire to open the cones and release seeds. As you travel higher in elevation the plants become less dependent on fire to germinate.

The Tahoe basin was logged in the 1800's which gave rise to higher elevation firs(non-fire dependent) to dominate the forest rather than the Jeffrey pines and lodgepole pine (fire-dependent) species. I can walk in my backyard on kiowa and look at a jeffry pine and a fir which are the same height, lets say 40' tall. The Firs lower branches are 1-2' above the pine duff, the Jeffrey's first branches are 20' off the ground. If the pine duff in my yard caught on fire the fir would blaze and catch everthing on fire, if it was all pines the understory would just smolder.

Fir seeds germinate in repsonse to soil disturbance so in an area which is logged there seeds will germinate readily, while Jeffrey's and lodgepoles need the fire to survive. If you drive down Pioneer trail there is stretch of pine forest that is all jeffrey's this is how the forest should look at 6,000 feet, firs begin to dominate at 7,000 feet.

The TRPA has worked in conjuction with the forest service to control burn the area right around North Upper Truckee, in fact the fire started at Seneca pond which is a 1/4 mile walk from my cabin, this whole area had a controlled burn last year. I walked out there 1 day after we were allowed back into the our cabin and it actually looked fine, almost all of the pines survived, the manazanita burned but it will come back and the firs were torched....."Forest Succesion"

The areas on lower angora were torched becuase it still had not been thinned and burned. The cabins that survived were anonmilies, due to wind and the effort of brave fire fighters and (allowed) defensible space thinning and landscaping. I love the trees around my cabin and if the wind blew our direction nothing short of clear cutting would have saved us. I will be pruning up our fir trees and if I remove any trees it will be "Firs only".

The TRPA is doing its best to keep Tahoe Blue, I have done all of my BMP's which consists of gravel beds around the cabins drip line, it wasn't exspensive I did it all myself. The TRPA also buys up vacant lots keeps them as green belts I have two open lots across my street. The TRPA allows for defencible spacing around your property this includes removing tree's and landscaping.

I guess what I am saying here is the TRPA might consider selective species to be cut such as firs, in order to bring the tahoe forest back to a Pine forest which Via Succession would be dominant forest at this altiutde.
The whole worry about Pine needles would not matter because they were meant to burn to open the pine cones and germinate the pine seeds.

Probably boring but thats my 2 cents and I finally get to use my college education in Horticulture and forestry. Its obvious I wasn't an english major HA HA...

[hikerduane]

I don't know about Jeffrey pine needing fire to germinate. Maybe fire clears brush and excess needles allowing seed to take hold in the soil disturbed by rain. I gathered some seed from our dirt road 20 years ago from a neighbors Jeffrey pine tree and planted them one Fall. In the Spring I noticed some shoots coming up here and there then remembered what I had done. Now the trees are up to 10'-12' high and as short as 3'. Part of my reclaiming creek bottom type soil as tree borers loved the hybrid poplars I planted and which I have since killed off sticking with native trees or maples.