Forest Management for Fire – Nov. 2018 FB thread
Jeannine Menger:
Forest management. T Gray Shaw do you mind commenting on what we could do to manage forests to mitigate and control what seems like a growing issue in the west?
Kim Hunter Richards Yes please do! I learned soooo much from you when I was staying the weekend in Humbolt.
T. Gray Shaw:
We need to manually remove fuel until either we can start doing controlled burns or the fire comes on its own. Fuel continuity between the ground and tree canopies (fire ladders) must be broken. The goal of this "fire mimicry" is to reduce the debris and pyrophytic plants like Douglas-fir to what would have existed if fire suppression had not been done. When a fire inevitably comes through, it will be relatively cool and beneficial; canopies and soil life remain largely intact.
The first places to do this are around flammable buildings and along access roads. These are not only the most important for safety, obviously, but also the most accessible to work on.
The material generated by this work can be utilized for heating fuel, light building materials like poles, animal fodder, wood chips, and biochar. This will defray the cost of maintenance. Currently U.S. culture has not integrated these resource streams very well, but there are viable examples. (I am developing one around biochar.)
Buildings are the primary source of fuel once the fire reaches a settlement, not vegetation. Wood-framed structures are inherently flammable; duh. They are usually ignited by wind-driven embers or radiant heat from adjacent burning structures, not ground fire. Stucco helps; plastered straw-bale and earth-sheltered homes are fairly safe. Gutters are a major vector. Barricade fire gel, sprayed on buildings and decks, protects for 8 hours and can be rehydrated by the fire brigade, but you have to be there to apply it.
European settlers created this problem, and we pay into it with taxes. Fire suppression derives from the narrow view of timber interests, who exacerbate the problem with even-aged replanting (think beetles and low diversity) and so-called "salvage logging" of burned trunks on fragile burned-over soil that should be left alone. Reform is needed, with the goal of selective and reduced logging, along with alternatives to timber for building materials and other fiber. Examples of that exist also, e.g., industrial hemp.
We live in a fire-adapted landscape that existed with fire from time immemorial. As long as we suppress fire and extend housing into the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI), destruction and death will continue to happen. But fire is not the villain.
Jeannine Menger:
Wow - just what I asked for thank you. So what kind of scope in dollars and over what period of time could we do this in just say California? Maybe like a 15 year plan to baseline the forests and outlying areas and reduce costs .... as you say start with the roads and developments. Qs: should we actively include Redwoods in the reshaping of the landscape back to what it was? Can we make it in any way viable as a product to clear out the Douglas-fir and the fire canopy? What role and how can we manage back burning proactively? In emergencies I have visions of setting backfires in all developed areas in the path of the flames and along all roads to kill the fuel for the wildfire. Maybe this is naive. I am curious your comments on controlled fires. Q: can we make the insurance companies a partner in this venture?
T Gray Shaw:
While fuel reduction is far cheaper than reforestation and rebuilding, not to mention mudslides, insurance companies view the problem in terms of excluding coverage, not addressing the underlying cause. If there were a profit in helping people lessen their risk, the private sector would be all over it. Where the market fails to address human needs, the public sector is supposed to pick up the slack. Politics being what they are, I do not imagine the public coffers to open much further for fuel reduction.
We subsidized removal of ground fuels in the three acres around our cabin with a FLASH grant in 2011. I've continued this work on my own. I also belong to a prescribed burning council and participated in my first burn this year. But all fuel reduction does is protect the forest from canopy loss, soil destruction, and erosion — not wood-framed structures, really, because of embers. IMO architecture will have to begin accommodating wildfires, but I wouldn't expect a lower insurance rate for a rammed-earth home.
Douglas-firs are killed cheaply by girdling, which also creates habitat, although the snags become a hazard to firefighters in a wildfire. Redwoods only inhabit foggy areas. IMO we can eventually create any mix of species we want, as long as we understand and accept the consequences.
Please don't imagine that you can run out with a torch and backfire your neighborhood to save your home from a wildfire. That takes training and teamwork, along with experience. You need an evacuation plan, which can include applying Barricade gel as a last step.
https://humboldtgov.org/.../FLASH2014InfoHandoutPressQuality
Lynn Wilde:
Thank you so much for this information. I hope you are sending it in "Letters to the Editor" of newspapers/ web sites, to the Governor and Legislature of California. Have you started a web site on this information? Make a YouTube video. How about a "Ted Talk". People need to know that we are paying for bad policy. I'd also like to see all wild areas closed when we have these predictable off shore winds/low humidity/large fire load conditions. Someone has been setting some of these fires. Lock them out.
T. Gray Shaw:
Lynn Wilde Thanks, I already saved this thread as text for that purpose, or some other like it. Fire, forestry, water, soil, and energy all relate intimately to charcoal, my area of study and practice.
Jeannine Menger:
This FLASH plan is fascinating. It helps a lot to see how arboreal it still looks after doing the prescribed program. This is not getting rid if the forest, just managing it.
Lynn Wilde:
I wish we could use goats for more than just brush and grass clearing. Good organic poop.
T Gray Shaw:
Livestock is an important factor, both domestic and wild. This is not my specialty, but in general you want your design elements to serve more than one purpose, and for each purpose to be served by more than one element. So with goats the purposes can be control of ground fuel, land clearing, milk, poop, and meat — all purposes that can be fulfilled by more than just goats.
Phillip Muller:
What’s this, an intelligent conversation on FB with minimal invective? OMG!
If we accept that wildfire will only get worse until we do something about, everyone will clearly benefit from correcting our misguided fire suppression practices. By golly, we needs us a business case! 🤔
Jeannine Menger:
That is some of what I am driving for Phil
T Gray Shaw:
The best and most informed local speaker on fire that I know of is Will Harling. He presents no business opportunities, only ways to bring people together. Too bad the screen isn't shown, but his narration provides many good references. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhwrkwHuvb4
Jeannine Menger:
Richard Chamberlain this could be very relevant in the Squaw Valley area. What do you think?
Richard Chamberlain:
In 2016 and 2017 we did a significant amount of clearing to reduce debris on the ground and clear branches from tree trunks up to 10-feet above the ground to reduce the fire ladder effect. In 2018, I wasn't available to supervise work parties and very little was done.
Jeannine Menger:
I sat on your porch and actually noticed a lack of messy stuff under the trees on the property. Good to hear this was on purpose
T Gray Shaw:
If mature pyrophytic trees have been decimated along with clearing the understory and limbing up the remaining trees, that's the best you can do IMO. Richard Chamberlain, IDK the current or pre-suppression species composition of Squaw Valley, but those are your parameters, along with simple thinning. I suspect you already know.
Fire suppression can change the composition of the canopy in only a decade or two. If pyrophytes have grown up, limbing them and clearing the understory will not help; the canopy will still burn in a wildfire. Where we are in S. Humboldt, I've seen limbing-up of solid Douglas-fir stands on private land, without thinning—a futile endeavor IMO that you might as well not do. The fire front will already be in the canopy when it reaches you, and it will simply continue that way.
Where we are, the pre-suppression spp. are primarily oak (3 spp.), madrone and tanoak. Originally, Douglas-fir was a tiny percentage of the forest and is now behaving like an invasive species. In the areas I've restored, the fire front can be expected to drop to the ground and the benefit of ground clearing, limbing-up and structure protection will be realized. I hope I never have to find out.
Jeannine Menger:
https://www.forestsandrangelands.gov/strategy/
National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy
T Gray Shaw:
IMO we need to set aside the lens of the capitalist to solve the problems we have with fire. Here is a Native American perspective as told by a permaculture teacher: https://www.linkedin.com/.../fires-return-avoid.../
The Fires Will Return, Avoid Catastrophe Through Right…
Jeannine Menger:
A few years back I saw this amazing analysis of how fires in Northern Baja, Ca, Mexico that overlapped US fires were of a very different nature. This was after "The Cedar Fire" in San Diego 2003. It burned across border but in the US it was an inferno that ravaged landscapes and created tornadoes of flames. In Baja it was a low level, ground burn that blew up and down some hills for some days and dissipated. Mexico does not have the money to fight fires so they do not. Result is the hills burn regularly and unchecked. I saw a map of the burn areas. It was frequent and small and spanned many year. In the US it was large, episodic and a disaster. This LINKEDIN article Gray just shared is another perspective on the same analysis.
Jeannine Menger:
I will be posting on water rights in a new post soon - stay tuned. Doesn't it feel good not to be talking about you-know-who and all the damage we suffered for 2 years? ahhhhhhh like a cleansing fire or a good bath after a hike
Kim Hunter Richards:
Jeannine Menger yes!!!