Controlled burns to prevent forest fires?

[Katy]

Forgive me if this sounds stupid, I’ve mostly lived In Florida and the Midwest, with a few years in New England, Colorado, and Oklahoma thrown in.  I’m still not sure if Oklahoma is the West, South, or Midwest. 

Anyway in the South, especially in areas where Southern Yellow pine trees are farmed, there are (or were) controlled burns to burn out the underbrush before pine trees were harvested.

These days pine straw mulch is collected and sold and there is machinery to grind up palmettos and other underbrush so I’m not sure how much the burns have been reduced as a result.  I have extended family that works in the industry but I never remember to ask.

Anyway Florida still has forest fires whenever there’s a drought.  But they’re not devastating millions of acres when they do happen.  

Over the years I’ve heard conservative family members criticize California every time a major fire breaks out there.  I imagine it’s the same way they balk at news stories about forestry in Oregon.  They assume the trees are farmed on a 15 year cycle like they are in the South, but they aren’t.  It’s a totally different system. 

Anyway, why don’t they do controlled burns in the West?  Did Native Americans used to do them, but they were stopped and never resumed so the underbrush is too tall to responsibly do that now?  Were they never done there and the idea is a regional one?  Is it just that the climate is different so controlled burns aren’t possible?

[HeartString]

23 minutes ago, Katy said:

Forgive me if this sounds stupid, I’ve mostly lived In Florida and the Midwest, with a few years in New England, Colorado, and Oklahoma thrown in.  I’m still not sure if Oklahoma is the West, South, or Midwest. 

Anyway in the South, especially in areas where Southern Yellow pine trees are farmed, there are (or were) controlled burns to burn out the underbrush before pine trees were harvested.

These days pine straw mulch is collected and sold and there is machinery to grind up palmettos and other underbrush so I’m not sure how much the burns have been reduced as a result.  I have extended family that works in the industry but I never remember to ask.

Anyway Florida still has forest fires whenever there’s a drought.  But they’re not devastating millions of acres when they do happen.  

Over the years I’ve heard conservative family members criticize California every time a major fire breaks out there.  I imagine it’s the same way they balk at news stories about forestry in Oregon.  They assume the trees are farmed on a 15 year cycle like they are in the South, but they aren’t.  It’s a totally different system. 

Anyway, why don’t they do controlled burns in the West?  Did Native Americans used to do them, but they were stopped and never resumed so the underbrush is too tall to responsibly do that now?  Were they never done there and the idea is a regional one?  Is it just that the climate is different so controlled burns aren’t possible?

I think it’s the climate. In a situation where the area has been in a drought for a decade it’s just to dry to responsibly try a controlled burn.  It’s too dry to think we could keep it under control.   California is perpetually in some form of drought. 
 

Then add in that there are now housing developments in the middle of the areas that would be burned during a controlled burn and the risk is too high.  If a controlled burn got out of hand and burned down a neighborhood, maybe hurt or killed someone, the headlines would be insane.  

They probably could do the burns if they hadn’t stopped doing them 100 years ago, but that’s not helpful today, you know?  Science was weird 100 years ago. 

Edited May 17, 2021 by HeartString

[ealp2009]

https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295975504/forest-dreams-forest-nightmares/
 

This is a very interesting book about it and in no way conservative.  There are controlled burns but fire suppression has been the over arching policy for a hundred years.    It’s obviously very complicated but I highly recommend that book for a good history and explanation of why we are having this huge fires these days.    

[Arctic Bunny]

Oh, I saw a great show about this.... I will have to ask DS if he remembers who made it. Basically about how putting out the natural fires all the time created an environment where every fire was huge. There was a comparison between fire management at a park (I want to say Lake Tahoe) and constant fire suppression.

[Carrie12345]

I don’t know all of the science or politics behind it, but it seems to me like there’s just too much fuel and it’s too dry to be safe in most of CA.

They do some controlled burns in my area, but we’re a pretty wet climate most of the time.  Also, 99% of our wildfires are deemed to be caused by people and not some random freak act of nature. By people, I mean arson and substantial negligence. We’re apparently not dry enough for some unexpected spark to ignite a major tragedy. Most often, the fires move slowly enough to be controlled before spreading too far. We also have many waterways that create their own barriers.  It’s a completely different climate in a much less densely populated area.

For comparison’s sake, my areas biggest wildfire in the past few years took 8,000 acres and was contained by around 100 mostly volunteer firefighters. Meanwhile, the August Complex fire had *thousands of firefighters with more specialized training and experience and grew to, like, a million acres. To me, that says more about the behavior of fire in a different climate than anything else.

[City Mouse]

I live in an area where controlled burns are done. There is just too much land and too few resources of people and money to do control burns in every possible location. Also, many areas are too remote to reach easily for control burns. 

I think in California there is the additional problem of a large population. Burns can’t be done in populated areas. In those locations it is up to the land owners/residents to prepare defensible space around their buildings. Many people move to the mountains to be in the trees, and they don’t want to clear their lots so that there is the recommended amount of bare space between the trees and their homes.

Controlled burns are only done on public lands (mostly federal here, but I would imagine state owned as well). Private landowners are responsible for management of their own land. After that fire we had a couple of years ago, a very large local land owner is taking on a huge conservation project, but it will take many, many years to do all the work that is planned. 

[prairiewindmomma]

So, forestry management is a thing: https://oregonforests.org/content/fire

A few thoughts:

1. Land planted for lumber harvest is planted more densely than nature typically would allow. These dense plantings don’t allow for a lot of breaks and the forest itself isn’t as naturally suppressive.

2. There are some partnerships here with native tribes for learning controlled burns, but the burn season has gotten shorter with the water season changes due to climate change. We haven’t had appreciable rain here in like six weeks (end of March) and I don’t expect it until November. Normally I could expect rain until mid-June. It’s going to be a bad fire year here. 😞 

3. Housing has been permitted deep into forested areas. Most of the electricity to those houses is above ground, and that creates a fire hazard on high wind days. It also reprioritizes fire management to try to defend those lives and houses when it might otherwise make sense to let it burn. 
 

4. The super fires here last September (sparked by high drying winds and lighting strikes primarily) all conglomerated into super fires. Some of those areas will not have trees grow back. There isn’t enough moisture at lower altitudes for them to survive. They can actually look at winter snow maps and tell you where land can naturally recover and where it can’t. This is climate change, made visible. 

[Katy]

@prairiewindmomma

Thanks!  Why are the trees planted more densely than natural forest?  In the Southeast it’s the opposite.  Is it the type of tree, or an effort to make them grow more straight?

[prairiewindmomma]

Greed? This is true where timber companies have rights and have planted too densely to try to maximize profit per acre.

Lack of management? Where timber hasn’t burned on the regular, other trees have grown into places that normally would have burned and remained grass.
 

a few more articles of interest:

https://www.google.com/amp/ktvl.com/amp/news/local/repeated-droughts-to-blame-for-loss-of-southern-oregon-forests

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.opb.org/news/article/snowpack-trees-logging-impact-willamette-research/%3foutputType=amp

https://www.deschuteslandtrust.org/news/blog/2018-blog-posts/east-cascade-dry-forests

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.oregonlive.com/environment/2019/10/failing-forestry-oregons-forestry-department-is-on-an-unsustainable-path.html%3foutputType=amp

 

 

[AbcdeDooDah]

I'm in CA and they do controlled burns in my area. They are smaller scale but they do happen.

[Happy2BaMom]

The Nature Conservancy is partnering with the Yurok tribe in CA and a few other organizations to bring back the skills necessary for controlled burns, so there are efforts underway to use more of this critical tool (controlled fires are also great for tick control, and I wish it was more common in the Midwest & East). The state of MN also regularly uses the practice, and I think the overall movement has some traction.

However, as others have noted, we've vastly complicated the situation with over-everything (growth, harvesting, damaged landscapes, private home placement, population pressure, etc), all of which make it more difficult to use fire effectively.

 

[Lori D.]

Agreeing with previous posters, esp. what @prairiewindmomma laid out.

DS#2 is a wildland firefighter (NOT in CA, which is its own thing) and says that for about the past decade, forest management strategies have moved to lots of control burns (where they can). But we are getting (and will continue to get) super-fire events, due to the management strategy of suppression of the previous 50 years or more. That strategy of stamping out every fire allowed forests to grow extremely dense with much understory growth, which leads to such a huge fuel load that you get fire storm types of fires. They are so hot they incinerate everything (making re-growth extremely slow and difficult). And super-fires are so huge and fast-moving that you can't stop them, but only try and get ahead fast enough to lay fire line to try and contain them. Also, these fires often jump fire line because fire that fierce causes trees to explode, sending burning material up into the air, where it can be carried up to a mile away -- and start new fires.

Previous to the heavy control policies of the second half of the 20th century, natural fires came through every so often and burned out the understory growth before it was so thick, and many trees survived these more moderate fires, so you didn't get such a complete devastation.

Another bad aspect of super fires is that because they burn out all the plant material, you no longer have plants and trees soaking up rain or holding soil in place, so rains lead to erosion and mud slides, as well as choking out streams with all the ash and fire debris as well as soil washing away. Which, of course, makes it that much harder for new plant growth...

DS#2 says we're in for at least another decade of super fires before a lot of the dense growth gets thinned or burned down. 

Also, the current climate change contributes: hotter, drier summers in the Southwest, West Coast, and Pacific Northwest lead to longer and more intense fire seasons. CA used to have a definable fire season. Now that state burns almost year-round, but with most intensity for during the summer and autumn, and into winter.


ETA -- And yes, a good part of DS#2's job is doing control burns. He started his season at the very end of March, and by the 3rd week of April, he had been on 2 control burn projects AND 2 small fires already...

Edited May 17, 2021 by Lori D.

[prairiewindmomma]

I finally found the article I was looking for...this is on tribes pairing with forestry management. The bureaucratic tape around everything is pretty overwhelming.

https://www.wweek.com/news/2020/10/07/oregons-indigenous-communities-know-how-to-stop-megafires-will-the-state-let-them/

[Lori D.]

re: control burns
Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Montana, and Idaho all do control burns . And they all still get super fires -- you just can't un-do 50 years of suppressing fires in a decade. Nationally, there are only about 15,000 wildland firefighters (not including CA, which, again, is its own thing) and they are on a 6-month season of work. We're talking *millions* of acres compared to that small handful of people. And many areas are just too remote to get to and would not be safe in which to try and do control-burns.

Last summer, I watched the mountain range north of my city literally burn from one end to the other, and all they could do was frantically try and get ahead of it. That was a lightning strike started fire, in a very difficult to reach area. It was low enough that the hope was that it wouldn't get up to the pine tree elevation and burn up the forest, but we had so much invasive species grass (weeds) that had grown up in the area and then dried out in the summer heat that it was fuel to keep that fire going until it hit the trees. The fire also was burning down into canyons and threatened some neighborhoods, so they were scrambling to put line in to protect people and property, but also trying to get ahead of the fire to prevent it spreading up to the forest. Extremely hot temperatures and high winds took out the ability to use helicopters and aircraft to dump water and retardant, and even with hundreds of firefighters scrambling to put in line, the winds just pushed the fire too fast to be able to contain it.

And yes, our mountain range gets control burns every year to try and protect. But the hot, dry, climate and the fuel load of the invasive species grass was too strong of a combo to stop. 

 

Edited May 17, 2021 by Lori D.

[Carol in Cal.]

It’s very complicated.

Here in CA people used to think that the wilderness was unmanaged and that white people screwed that up.  So organizations like the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society would fight for regulations that slowed down development of forested areas to a standstill, and sue to stop development and logging efforts and permits from going through, pretty consistently, for decades.  Additionally, there was one huge wildfire years ago east of here (Utah?  Colorado?  Montana?) that resulted in a bunch of lost lives, and shocked the nation into making absolute forest fire suppression into the default policy in the West.

Logging is complicated here.  We have older trees that are not ‘farmed’  but also are not easily replaceable.  Logging firms want to move into an area and clear cut it, and mostly logging efforts are clear cut or banned—at least historically it’s fairly binary.  So you end up with extremely dense forests or few trees at all, not the in between style that would be safer from fires but still forested.  And, logging has an ancillary benefit that is not usually taken into account but is significant, which is that building dirt roads for transport amounts to building partial fire breaks, and when logging is banned, that does not happen.

Grazing is also complex here.  Guardia pervades a lot of clear, mountain streams, because cattle eating willow shoots poop right into the water.  When I was a kid, we drank out of streams routinely, just checking upstream a ways to make sure that no dead animals were present. Now almost everyone carries expensive water filters when they go backpacking.  Those same societies rail against allowing cattle in these areas, but banning or reducing them increases bushy growth that makes fires hotter and faster spreading.  Don’t imagine cattle as dense and eating grass here in the mountains.  There are no herds or flocks.  Rather, in steep, wooded, granite terrain there might be 10 cows over a 3 mile area, chewing bushes.

In more recent years people have returned to accounts from early explorers alluding to a clear path between trees, suitable for 2-3 horseback riders next to each other, and concluded from that and from some Native American accounts that had not been expanded upon very much that the CA Indians used to routinely burn out underbrush between trees in a large collection of small, local fires.  Since this has not been done for 100-150 years or more, it is too late to use fire to do it without having it burn much hotter than in those times, and kill the trees rather than preserving them.  Also, there is a lot of question as to whether tree seeds would be consumed in such fires now.  Everyone has learned that redwood seeds need fire to germinate, but too much fire can burn them up to the point where they are dead.  There is a balance, and increasingly a feeling that we have tipped too far away to get back.

There are some small local efforts to grub out bushes and thin but not clear cut trees here in CA, particularly on USFS lands near homeowners, but they are understaffed to the point of being ludicrous, like clearing the ocean with a teaspoon.  And it is difficult, dangerous work, with rattlesnakes pervading the area and very hard to see.

There are a few ‘controlled burns’ here and there but the time of year when those are relatively safe is quite limited.  The air here is dry even when it is raining, and there is almost no precipitation at all from May through October.  Also, the state electric utility has switched from proactive to reactive maintenance of their power lines, coincident with deregulation, and so the routine preventative work that fixed fire starting problems before they created tragedies is not done at all.  The fire in Paradise was the most horrendous result of this.  In 2018 downed power transmission lines started a wildfire in a community of mostly retirees and their caregivers that ended up burning the town down almost completely and burning dozens of people to death.  But there were other examples.  The fire in Napa a year or two before was quite similar, for instance.  

Also, there is now a large population of ‘mixed use’ recreating folks who don’t know or won’t follow basic fire safety rules now, people who were never in scouts and whose idea of a vacation is going to the mountains and expecting an experience that is as safe and sanitized as Disneyland, who camp in illegal spots and start fires and don’t necessarily put them out completely, that is another big vector of fire starting along with the power lines and lightning fires that are also common.  The scale of all of these things is increasing at once, which is very dangerous since the population in these areas is also increasing very sharply due to the Baby Boomers’ retirement and due to the increasing availability of working from home options.  
 

It is an extremely complicated problem here.

 

 

[ktgrok]

Ok, so it sounds like the issue is that controlled burns would have helped, but were not done for so long, plus natural fires were surpressed so strictly, that now it isn't safe to do them?

This makes me wonder if introducing herds of say, goats, into areas that are that dense would be a help? To eat the brush? Or is it more dead stuff that goats won't eat that is the problem? (Tallahassee used goats to clear Kudzu, which is what made me think of it)

I'm in Florida, where they are a part of life, but they have been done for a long time. And before that, being the lightening capital of the world meant we had natural burns all the time. We started controlled burns because highways and development and drainage canals and such prevented the lightening caused natural burns from spreading as much as they should. 

So, naturally, there were fires. Our actions to put them out, and to create barriers, caused fewer but hotter fires, so we went to controlled burns. Sounds like a lot of areas of CA had the same issue...but waited too long and now they are not safe to do?

[Lori D.]

40 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

Ok, so it sounds like the issue is that controlled burns would have helped, but were not done for so long, plus natural fires were surpressed so strictly, that now it isn't safe to do them?

This makes me wonder if introducing herds of say, goats, into areas that are that dense would be a help? To eat the brush? Or is it more dead stuff that goats won't eat that is the problem? (Tallahassee used goats to clear Kudzu, which is what made me think of it)...

lol-- I don't quite picture goats eating thick, 100' trees that are jammed together. 😉 (just teasing)

In addition to clearing out understory vegetation -- and BEFORE they can control-burn the understory -- wildland fire fighter DS#2 and his crew go in and use chainsaws to thin out trees, remove leaning trees that would allow fire to jump from one tree top to another and spread past a fire line, and to also take down snags, which are still-standing dead trees that often attract lightning strikes and because the wood is dead/dry, they flame up quickly and spark a fire -- while a strike on a living green tree often does not result in a fire.

(side note: proud mom moment: he just got his B-level Sawyer certificate last week! Which means he can take down bigger and trickier trees than the basic A-level -- C-level is the expert level.)

Edited May 17, 2021 by Lori D.

[ktgrok]

Just now, Lori D. said:

lol-- I don't quite picture goats eating thick, 100' trees that are jammed together. 😉 (just teasing)

In addition to clearing out understory vegetation -- and BEFORE they can control-burn the understory -- wildland fire fighter DS#2 and his crew go in and use chainsaws to thin out trees, remove leaning trees that would allow fire to jump from one tree top to another and spread past a fire line, and to also take down snags, which are still-standing dead trees that often attract lightning strikes and because the wood is dead/dry, they flame up quickly and spark a fire -- while a strike on a living green tree often does not result in a fire.

(side note: proud mom moment: he just got his B-level Sawyer certificate last week! Which means he can take down bigger and trickier trees -- C-level is the expert level.)

Ah!!! Yeah, wasn't even thinking about how the little saplings that would be consumed by fire would be big giant trees after 100 years of fire suppression! Adding in that animals that would normally graze on and eat small plants before they become big plants don't like that dense of trees, so yeah....I see your point. 

Maybe goats in less dense areas? To make it easier for people to go in and take down the trees? My friend from highschool is a biologist for our water management district, but her husband is a biologist for the state (they live in a cabin in a state park I think...or maybe he works for th national park...) and he helps with controlled burns and wildfires...not sure if he's a trained volunteer or if it is part of his job. 

[HeartString]

25 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

Ok, so it sounds like the issue is that controlled burns would have helped, but were not done for so long, plus natural fires were surpressed so strictly, that now it isn't safe to do them?

This makes me wonder if introducing herds of say, goats, into areas that are that dense would be a help? To eat the brush? Or is it more dead stuff that goats won't eat that is the problem? (Tallahassee used goats to clear Kudzu, which is what made me think of it)

I'm in Florida, where they are a part of life, but they have been done for a long time. And before that, being the lightening capital of the world meant we had natural burns all the time. We started controlled burns because highways and development and drainage canals and such prevented the lightening caused natural burns from spreading as much as they should. 

So, naturally, there were fires. Our actions to put them out, and to create barriers, caused fewer but hotter fires, so we went to controlled burns. Sounds like a lot of areas of CA had the same issue...but waited too long and now they are not safe to do?

I think Florida is pretty humid.  CA is just so dry, not just dry as in no rain, but dry as in the air itself doesn’t have much moisture in it.  

[HeartString]

12 minutes ago, Lori D. said:

lol-- I don't quite picture goats eating thick, 100' trees that are jammed together. 😉 (just teasing)

In addition to clearing out understory vegetation -- and BEFORE they can control-burn the understory -- wildland fire fighter DS#2 and his crew go in and use chainsaws to thin out trees, remove leaning trees that would allow fire to jump from one tree top to another and spread past a fire line, and to also take down snags, which are still-standing dead trees that often attract lightning strikes and because the wood is dead/dry, they flame up quickly and spark a fire -- while a strike on a living green tree often does not result in a fire.

(side note: proud mom moment: he just got his B-level Sawyer certificate last week! Which means he can take down bigger and trickier trees -- C-level is the expert level.)

I had no idea they did all that!  Who knew fire fighters were part time lumber jacks?  

[ktgrok]

3 minutes ago, HeartString said:

I had no idea they did all that!  Who knew fire fighters were part time lumber jacks?  

This romance by Nora Roberts was fascinating - it's about a female wildland firefighter. https://amzn.to/3ovz3oL

[Lori D.]

1 minute ago, ktgrok said:

...female wildland firefighter...

DS's current season crew of 11 has 4 women. This year they happen to all be Native Americans. Female firefighters (whether urban or wildland) are much more common now than 25 years ago. 😉 

[Carol in Cal.]

Re. Goats—there are regional goat herds that are trucked around for hire to clear brushy property, usually not all the way up in the mountains.  In mountain and foothill areas, it is typical not to fence yards.  So the goats go after landscaping selectively, particularly ornamental flowers.  So homeowners tend to hate them while ranchers like them.  It’s complicated.

[Katy]

Goats are an interesting thought.  Didn't someone share some articles here in the past year or two that they were used around LA to create fire breaks? I was thinking about that brush cutting forestry equipment and wondering if it was even suitable for California.  The terrain might be too steep in most places.

[Faith-manor]

26 minutes ago, Carol in Cal. said:

Re. Goats—there are regional goat herds that are trucked around for hire to clear brushy property, usually not all the way up in the mountains.  In mountain and foothill areas, it is typical not to fence yards.  So the goats go after landscaping selectively, particularly ornamental flowers.  So homeowners tend to hate them while ranchers like them.  It’s complicated.

I am not a person that likes landscaping. It tends to be not all that great for the environment unless carefully planned, and often landscaping is how invasive species take over areas. In this town, it was autumn olive which was not indigenous, imported by nurseries because it was pretty, and then people began planting them in yards, and voila, now it is killing out all kinds of beneficial, native plants. Go goats!!!

[Carol in Cal.]

9 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

I am not a person that likes landscaping. It tends to be not all that great for the environment unless carefully planned, and often landscaping is how invasive species take over areas. In this town, it was autumn olive which was not indigenous, imported by nurseries because it was pretty, and then people began planting them in yards, and voila, now it is killing out all kinds of beneficial, native plants. Go goats!!!

I don’t love landscaping in the mountains.  I like a natural looking native environment up there, and that’s mostly what we have.  But if someone plants a half barrel of petunias to enjoy, or a row of daffodils along their equally unnatural driveway, I think it’s reasonable to hope that an artificially introduced herd of hungry goats not be inflicted on it.  Local deer, sure.  A neighbor who has hired a bunch of goats to clear brush and weeds but doesn’t contain them not so much.

[frogger]

I think it is more complicated but I am not knowledgeable enough to say much other than, there has been little to no fire suppression in my state (Alaska) over the past century due to the fact it isn't all that populated. We only became a state about 60 years ago and the population was tiny. Basically, they try to protect towns etc but really the super fires come from climate and natural conditions.

 

Fire is a good thing and plays a big part in the ecology here. That being said, our rainy season has shifted dramatically the last 15 years and warmer winters have allowed tree killing insects to have more population booms which creates a lot more natural standing dried dead wood. So at least here at home where I know a little bit more, I'd say climate change is a big factor. I'm not sure that is the case for places closer to the equator.

I would think that natural climate/ecology of California and other Western states is closer to Alaska than southern states which are more humid. I do know California has had more fire suppression than Alaska of course, but I think it is only one piece of a complicated puzzle.

Edited May 17, 2021 by frogger

[Melissa in Australia]

3 hours ago, HeartString said:

I had no idea they did all that!  Who knew fire fighters were part time lumber jacks?  

My remote area fire-fighter son, standing beside a tree that had turned into a chimney tree just moments before cutting it down in the black summer bushfires in 2020

Edited May 17, 2021 by Melissa in Australia

[Katy]

1 hour ago, Carol in Cal. said:

I don’t love landscaping in the mountains.  I like a natural looking native environment up there, and that’s mostly what we have.  But if someone plants a half barrel of petunias to enjoy, or a row of daffodils along their equally unnatural driveway, I think it’s reasonable to hope that an artificially introduced herd of hungry goats not be inflicted on it.  Local deer, sure.  A neighbor who has hired a bunch of goats to clear brush and weeds but doesn’t contain them not so much.

I think I read in the article that even in 1/2 acre backyards for goats to be effective they split up the yard into small areas using electric fences because otherwise the goats will eat the landscaping and ignore the scrub that people want to get rid of.  With a small enough area, they eat everything.

[Carol in Cal.]

44 minutes ago, frogger said:

 

Fire is a good thing and plays a big part in the ecology here. That being said, our rainy season has shifted dramatically the last 15 years and warmer winters have allowed tree killing insects to have more population booms which creates a lot more natural standing dried dead wood. So at least here at home where I know a little bit more, I'd say climate change is a big factor. I'm not sure that is the case for places closer to the equator.

I would think that natural climate/ecology of California and other Western states is closer to Alaska than southern states which are more humid. I do know California has had more fire suppression than Alaska of course, but I think it is only one piece of a complicated puzzle.

Gosh, how did I fail to mention the bark beetles?  

So, toward the end of the last long drought, the great stands of large pine trees that comprise most of the forest of the Sierras were attacked successfully by bark beetles that killed them.  The further south forests were effected the most, with gradual reductions in incidence as you move north.  I’m thinking this was worst around 2015 or so, maybe for about 2-3 years until we had a good rainy year.  Bark beetles are always around, but healthy trees can fight them off with sap secretions.  However, when the trees are dry they can’t do this.  

Sickeningly, by the time you see the red/brown needles that characterize this, the beetles have already killed the trees and moved on.  The tree withers gradually and generally falls eventually, starting 5 years or so from death.

So you can imagine the effect of having all these dead trees pervading the forests, the ultimate torch fuels for wild fires.  Horrendous.  

When we got our cabin in 2013, in the middle of that drought, we decided that there was enough evidence of impending infection in the area that we had the bigger trees treated with a bark beetle repellent.  This is very very unusual for us as we mostly have all organic gardening practices, letting things grow and die without a lot of interference.  Also, we were concerned that our neighbors would resent this, as it would save our trees at their trees’ expense, in perception at least.  But we did it anyway, annually throughout the drought.  We stopped when we had a rainy year (2017 or 2018) and just started again this year.  It’s not cheap, and it’s not certain.  

Obviously, though, the national forests can’t take down all the dead trees on their land, and forestry guys in the USFS office locally have complained to me that they get sued if they actually remove dead trees from the ground, so fuel control is slow and expensive and of questionable legality here, which complicates matters a great deal.  There is a ‘feel’ to things that is, why try at all, it’s too hard, let a fire start and all the rules will fall by the wayside and we can finally do what we knew we should have but couldn’t all along’.  It’s similar in ‘feel’ to that Ayn Rand novel where no one would stop the train full of dynamite from entering the mountain tunnel.

[Carol in Cal.]

14 minutes ago, Katy said:

I think I read in the article that even in 1/2 acre backyards for goats to be effective they split up the yard into small areas using electric fences because otherwise the goats will eat the landscaping and ignore the scrub that people want to get rid of.  With a small enough area, they eat everything.

This is one of the reasons why free grazing cows are better in those environments—they are not as rapacious but they go after underbrush.  

All animals eat their favorite stuff first, a fact that can sometimes be exploited.  For instance, I have a friend who is kind of an urban homesteader who has ducks.  She has a big veggie garden with tall wooden fences (7-8 feet high) around it, and she lets the ducks in briefly several times per week.  She lets them eat until they start going after blossoms and then drives them back out.  This is because the ducks eat insects first, then blossoms, then tender shoots, and then anything else that is around.  So she catches them when the insects are consumed and moves them away.

There is a lengthy description in The Omnivore’s Dilemma of cows at the Polyface Farms eating their favorite greens ahead of the others.  It’s hard to imagine until you see it, reportedly.

Edited May 17, 2021 by Carol in Cal.

[bookbard]

Traditional burning of the land is quite well known in Australia, and is still done. The knowledgable Indigenous burners use a cooler fire (don't let it get too hot or too large), and only do small areas on a specific timeframe. What generally is done in Australia by the fire service is large areas which can get out of control, leading to vast amounts of smoke and loss of animal life. Several fires where I live which lead to loss of houses were caused by poorly managed fires lit by volunteers (and guided by people from the city who didn't know the local lay of the land). 

The other huge issue is climate. The land is so much drier and hotter than it used to be, so you have to be very careful with burning. This is why the recent report on the 2019/2020 fires in Australia said the horrific outcome wasn't because of lack of controlled burns - it was due to the extreme drought which had meant the whole place was dry and ready to burn. IE, due to climate change.

[Random]

4 hours ago, Lori D. said:

lol-- I don't quite picture goats eating thick, 100' trees that are jammed together. 😉 (just teasing)

In addition to clearing out understory vegetation -- and BEFORE they can control-burn the understory -- wildland fire fighter DS#2 and his crew go in and use chainsaws to thin out trees, remove leaning trees that would allow fire to jump from one tree top to another and spread past a fire line, and to also take down snags, which are still-standing dead trees that often attract lightning strikes and because the wood is dead/dry, they flame up quickly and spark a fire -- while a strike on a living green tree often does not result in a fire.

(side note: proud mom moment: he just got his B-level Sawyer certificate last week! Which means he can take down bigger and trickier trees than the basic A-level -- C-level is the expert level.)

This is what is familiar to me, as well.  I grew up in northern arizona, which has and still does massive prescribed burns every year (they are not called controlled burns anymore because they used to routinely get out of control. lol.)  It's a massive undertaking.  The Kaibab National forest is 1.6 million acres that is sparsely populated but heavily used for recreation.  There are several large cattle ranching operations as well.  The Hot Shot crews begin working to clear  underbrush as early as possible, after snow melts and roads are passable.  They burn as much as possible when it's safe.  In October, when the 'fire season' is over, the prescribed burning begins again.  Many of the Hot Shots we know are Native, and the governments work together.  The Apache, Navajo and Hopi tribes, for example, are sovereign nations within the US.  It does seem as though past mismanagement has caused the current problems.  It reminds me of the saying: Today's solutions cause tomorrow's problems.

 

 

[Ausmumof3]

I can’t speak to California but I can say here in Australia one issue is the traditional style of burning was very labour intensive because it was done in very small kind of patchwork arrangements.  Even controlled burns aren’t truly replicating that although they are better than nothing.  Areas where burning is done correctly see wildlife bounce back and do better as well.

[ktgrok]

3 hours ago, Carol in Cal. said:

I don’t love landscaping in the mountains.  I like a natural looking native environment up there, and that’s mostly what we have.  But if someone plants a half barrel of petunias to enjoy, or a row of daffodils along their equally unnatural driveway, I think it’s reasonable to hope that an artificially introduced herd of hungry goats not be inflicted on it.  Local deer, sure.  A neighbor who has hired a bunch of goats to clear brush and weeds but doesn’t contain them not so much.

Yes, when I saw it done in Tallahassee the goats were contained to small areas at a time. 

 

[Carrie12345]

1 hour ago, ktgrok said:

Yes, when I saw it done in Tallahassee the goats were contained to small areas at a time. 

 

I don’t know how one scales goats though.
A nearby 25 acre solar field uses 50 sheep to keep vegetation down, and not year-round. We’re only warm from May-October, give or take a couple of weeks on each end. 
My brain has no idea how to calculate for all the western forest land, even if only accounting for the highest priority areas.

[Faith-manor]

5 hours ago, Katy said:

I think I read in the article that even in 1/2 acre backyards for goats to be effective they split up the yard into small areas using electric fences because otherwise the goats will eat the landscaping and ignore the scrub that people want to get rid of.  With a small enough area, they eat everything.

Yes, you do just use portable fencing (it isn't super expensive or it least it wasn't before the pandemic, who knows now!!!) to steer their grazing. My philosophy is "grandchildren" 😂 hey kids, keep the goats over there. 😁