One thing is certain, the Mineral Fire will open up a lot of wild pig habitat. Should be some good hunting territory for the next several years in that area.
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‘Throwing rocks’ is one way to hear it. But it is possible to work outside of an agency and still understand the limitations. My career (as a fuels planner and hazard reduction contractor) has coincided with the decline of the VMP program. It’s a different view, but we have both watched the same revolving door spit VMP coordinators up and out to more rewarding positions every year or two. There have probably been at least a dozen VMP Coordinators at NorthOps in the last 20 years, and the pre-fire engineers doing fuels planning at the Unit-level often promote out in less than 2 years.
Your point on hotter and drier weather and shrinking burn windows is spot on, but we also have a lot of land we could be burning in peak fire season (TGU did thousands of acres of summer rangeland burning in the 1980s). I agree that from an administrative perspective, VMP and indirect attack are two completely different animals. The biggest difference, though, is that we are actually really good at indirect attack.
Everyone likes to blame CEQA and greenies for our failure to scale up and actually implement big projects, but CAL FIRE just hasn’t made VMP a priority. If they had staffed the program with non fire-retirement foresters over the past 20 years and been willing to spend a fraction of what we spend in a single season putting fires out in the hinterlands, we have might have made some progress.
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And who was going to pay for that staffing? When we have fires that are burning down homes and killing people, you have to put the money into suppression. I am not sure that you can use historical fire progression as a benchmark for how things are now. Totally different environment…
Cost per acre of suppression is double to 10x that of VMP. The fact remains, the agencys have been reactionary the last 10+yr as opposed to anything resembling proactive. It just not VMP/Wildland. Look at what Denver FD has been able to do/save being proactive with Strength/excersis/hygiene and lowering their W-C costs/claims by having a certified Strength & conditioning employee.
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Regarding costs, like I said, it’s a matter of priorities. We are going to throw a thousand people and many millions of dollars at the Mineral Fire over the next few days. Those people and resources could be burning star thistle in Bidwell Park, cutting brush in Shingletown, doing 10,000 4291 inspections, or buying 100,000 firesafe attic vents tomorrow if they weren’t headed to FKU to save of a bunch of chamise, ticks, and poison oak.
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It really comes down to politics. There is plenty of money for suppression but little to no money for fuel reduction which has been proven time and time again to reduce the damage from a major fire in all aspects of things related to a highly destructive fire. As a State, we keep doing the same thing hoping for a different outcome but when it comes to actually making the conscious decision to enable responsible VMP burns, we cannot seem achieve that.
We expect homeowners to provide adequate clearance under 4291 but that where is stops. Whether we perform VMP burns in a controlled environment or we spend much more time, money, manpower and much higher safety risks when a wildfire occurs which also has a much higher impact to the ecosystems, it will burn at one point or another.
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Your opinions are not based in reality. You have to be more pragmatic than that when you have the absolute responsibility to do a job. Sitting on the sidelines and cherry picking solutions that have no nexus to on the ground conditions is nothing more than an exercise in debating 101.
The facts are simple- the fires and fire environment have precluded any large scale fuel management over the last 10 years. We are barely able to turn the equipment over for annual maintenance.
You cannot apply a simple solution to a complex problem. Over simplifying the magnitude of the problem and attempting to reduce it to some simple solution that calls for more fuel reduction ignores a huge majority of the issue- the part where peoples lives, their property and their livelihoods are threatened. Fuel reduction will never keep up with growth or with our changing climate. It grows back after it is removed…
If you allow fires to burn in the current conditions, the fuels that replace it may most likely be worse… There has been a lot of recent research that points to the severity of the fires dramatically altering the forest landscape. This is not just simply a fuel issue- and looking at it that way ignores the impact of climate and weather.
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My opinions are rooted in what I have seen in my career. I think the complexity of our fire control system in California paralyses us, making us think every solution has to be as complex as our mutual aid system. Your agency tells you to keep 95% of all fires under 10 acres, even though we have the resources and information make much more nuanced decisions. To borrow your phrase, a program of full suppression “oversimplifies the magnitude of the problem and attempts to reduce it to some simple solution”.
The VMP program was designed to help ranchers burn brush to improve their pasture conditions. It was never meant to be a fire-use program, and we muddy the waters when we cross the two terms. That said, the idea we can use in-season wildfire to achieve resource benefits is very much a reality.
I disagree with your premise that fires and the fire environment have precluded any large-scale fuels management in the past decade. It’s just in how you define ‘managing fuels’. I have worked on wildfires on the Klamath, Six Rivers, Shasta-T, Lassen, Plumas, Modoc, Tahoe, LP, and Mendocino NF that achieved MAJOR fuels reduction and forest health benefits DURING FIRE SEASON.
More than 70% of the acres burned in the 2015 Shasta-T lightning bust (175,000 acres+) and 2014 Happy Camp Complex (134,000 acres) were low or moderate severity. The 2008 Cub Fire cleaned up a roadless area in Deer Creek Canyon we would never have been able to get burned or thinned otherwise. Even the (SRA) Mendocino Complex, Carr, Camp, and King Fires had large areas of indirect attack where the burning operations had beneficial effects on thousands of acres of forests and fuels. We have a lot of leeway to get good work done with indirect tactics.
It is true too much high-severity fire can cause problems with weeds and type-conversion to annuals in some systems, and I’m definitely not saying we should let everything in the backcountry burn all the time, but we’ve got literally millions of acres of SRA in California where we could use more indirect attack or in-season prescribed fire. We shouldn’t let the complexity of the current system blind us to that. We are currently successful at suppressing fires under incredibly-challenging conditions. Think of what we could pull off in prescribed fire with the level of support we put into suppression! Imagine being able to use heavy airtankers and type 1 helicopters on prescribed burns. Change is possible. Don’t take no for an answer.
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This discussion has turned into an argument between an apple and an orange. Federal agencies manage both VMP and wildfire on Federal Land. State and Local Govt fight wildfire on private land. It is totally different. Right or wrong the law defines a wildfire as a public nuisance and CF is required to suppress fires in the SRA. How is it possible for a Govt person to decide to allow private property to burn for the greater good? When in the rare circumstance a property owner expresses an interest in more acres burning for management objectives, that can be considered in making the objectives for a particular incident. The big elephant in the room on allowing wildfire to burn for management objectives is the amount and duration of resource needs, not to mention the escape possibilities.
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Pyro
What you speak in terms of sensibility is correct BUT… first the idea of the State using peak season wildfire as a VMP tool is just pure suicide politically. It sucks up initial attack resources and in most cases commits our cooperators when they could be protecting their own dirt. As a senior Chief Officer when I heard that the USFS, Park Service, or BLM was using a peak season fire for vegetation management purposes I would immediately consult with my superiors and in most cases would require our resources to be released to meet our public protection mission. Another huge issue in allowing fire to burn in peak season is timber/veg mortality and type conversion. Low intensity spring and fall burning in a planned environment is much more healthy for the landscape, as you know. Who decides when there are 5 fires in the state gets to allow their fire to eat a few more thousand acres to reach VMP goals while committing fire resources and further exposing them to injury and fatigue?
The analogy of the Carr, Camp and other fires is silver lining thinking in a true California tragedy. There was nothing that could be done from a suppression standpoint on those fires so some benefit occurred?, well of course, but not beneficial in the grand scheme of things.
I will say that the State has made some vast improvements in the last 2 years in terms of vegetation managment and fire mitigation by dedicating fuels crews, making fuel treatment goals accountable, and most importantly by executive order streamlining the CEQA process and environmental hoops, much to the chagrin of the environmental extremists.
I always advocated VMP and maintaining long used and planned fuel modifications, had some success, but it is a constant push.
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Chief, I don’t disagree with much of what you wrote about the politics or complexity of managing wildfires, it’s just that we seem to be too busy training to burn in the spring, and our fall windows have been whittled down to nothing, so what are we left with?
I’m not advocating sitting back and letting private timberlands burn, but I don’t see the harm in letting some of our big backcountry areas of Chamise, gray pine, and other brush burn in-season - it is when they have naturally burned in the past, and we often can’t meet our fuel-reduction targets burning in the shoulder-season, anyway. The goal would be to free up resources and reduce the fatigue and exposure of the crews we need for dealing with our real problem, the WUI.
I know the CF mission isn’t to manage fire, but why not? Just because we’ve always done things the same way doesn’t make it right, or mean we shouldn’t try new approaches. Laws can be changed, programs can evolve. Fire couldn’t care less about where SRA changes to FRA.
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Good points
Remember that CALFIRE is charged with protecting private tax paying property. We do not and rightfully should not have the authority to choose who’s property will or will not burn. I would hate to tell a rancher that you are going to lose 1000 acres of graze and rangeland because we need this to meet our VMP goals. That boomerang would travel at light speed and be in the Governor’s office before you could walk 20 yards and smack you in the back of the head. Can laws be changed? Sure, but in the extreme left political world California lives in, I don’t see laws being lightened or eliminated, but rather more laws being created…
I see change currently taking place with our land management practices, lets give it a couple years to see. You cant undo years of being behind in one year.
I am just a retired guy looking in, but I see some great VMP policy change in the last 2 years.
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Thanks for your work, Chief. I am hopeful too about progress in getting more VMP work done, though worried COVID will steal all the $$$. I do think the major institutional problems like revolving doors in the key positions, and a lack of burn windows will keep hampering major progress.
Regarding deciding whose property will burn, I think there are a lot more wildland owners that appreciate the resource benefits of wildfire than some might think. I haven’t met many ranchers who didn’t think fire had a place on their land, and there are a lot of conservation owners like The Nature Conservancy (they manage over 100,000 acres in Tehama County, alone) that’d be thrilled to have more fire on their land.
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Indeed, Covid and the related budget politics will affect it in some way.
I have experienced the landowner strife I spoke of, it is a delicate dance.
We need people like you to continue the push. I was always a huge supporter of VMP until I retired.
As long as people on this site and out in the world understand the distinct differences in mission and priorities between State/Local and Federal agencies, we can all reach our expected goals.
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Why don’t those ranchers and THC submit an LE-7 application and burn their own land? I can tell you, I am far to busy all winter on project work and conducting VMP’s on fuel breaks that hold significant value for fire suppression, to be out improving some ranchers rangeland when they are capable of doing that work on their own land. There are numerous prescribed fire group and UC extension programs they can attend to gain the knowledge.
This goes back to similar issues we have with PRC4291, not many people in this state ever want to take personal responsibility for what is theirs, they want someone else to do the heavy lifting for them.
The state is stretched thin with resources as it is, with more and more responsibilities continually added. It’s a nice thought to think that all that project work you mentioned would be getting done if resources weren’t on this fire. But that just isn’t the reality with CAL FIRE, with the station to run, crews to train, medical aids, vehicle accidents, structure fires, wildland fire and the list goes on. We are not the forest service and we never will be, project work is not our primary job. We as CAL FIRE need our equipment at the ready for IA fires, we cover much more populated areas with a lot more starts. At the end of the day we can not forget our mission. “ The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection serves and safeguards the people and protects the property and resources of California.” It is pretty clear from our mission statement what our main job is and will always be, suppress fires to serve and safeguard people, property and resources.
Just as an example for one of the project you mentioned. PRC4291 inspections. Their are around 12,200,000 residential structures in CA. We have 356 engines. 12,200,000/356= 34,269/365= 94 inspections per engine per day, 365 days a year. And that doesn’t take into account any reinspections… How it that feasible? When do you expect me to do these VMP’s you speak of? Or train my crew? Or run calls? Or eat meals for that matter?
You can disagree with it all you like, CAL FIRE is and will always be a fire suppression agency not a land management agency. Why? Because CAL FIRE doesn’t have land to manage we protect PRIVATE property. Not FED land that a majority a tax payers could careless about because it doesn’t effect their lives. Do you think that most people care when 150,000 fire burns in a national forest they have never seen? Negative. Do you think they care when 150,000 fire burns down Paradise? You bet you ass they do.
As norcal74 said it’s easy for you to sit here and come up with all these great ideas for your ideal situations and solutions when you have no practical knowledge about what your talking about. Yeah, you have experience in fuel planning and hazard reduction contracting. Please tell me how much practice knowledge you have of running a fire station and the time management that comes with that? Please tell me about all your practical knowledge actually working for a government agency where you were responsible for planning, coordinating and executing VMP’s? Please tell me the forms you need to submit to be approved for live fire use?
As you can see there is a lot to all of this that you will never understand looking in for the outside.
Citizen here. Guess what? I’m learning. I’m being exposed to both sides. I’m understanding each other’s side and seeing which side benefits me and my neighbor. And the best part? I vote and pay taxes and can call my representatives to start making changes. Take me and multiply me a few factors of 10 and suddenly big change can happen. Funding sources in Sac, grants for fuel breaks/management, and better public buy-in, understanding and acceptance of GOOD fire.
I fight for GOOD fire all the time up here in NorCal, easing people’s minds on our community social media outlets whenever TGU and SHU decide to torch something off “in the middle of fire season” or "aren’t we in a red flag day omigosh Newsom’s fire dept sucks." I just looked, total membership of 123,042 facebook accounts alone I have direct access to in BTU, TGU and SHU. I’m trusted as an authoritative voice for fire intel on those groups. And that’s just me, alone. How many other me’s are out there you can reach?
Some may view this as infighting. It’s actually some great dialog and discussion happening and hashing things out. Each has great and valid points. Please keep it going.
Also, nearly annual VMP’s on private land in the MNF above Stonyford kept the forest healthy on some plots of land up there, and saved a very neat log cabin that is in our family from the Ranch fire. Pine needle soot marks on the back deck, fire singed the front half-log step. But nothing close could get hot enough or crown above to threaten the cabin. It was unbelievable it survived, but absolutely a combination of fire hardening, veg management, and keeping things thin. It baked and scorched earth in the draw just below. It’s a whole new eye-opener seeing how the forest there survived, trees are getting through their battle wounds, green brush flowering bringing back butterflies, birds starting to come back, bats out earlier to catch the few remaining flying insects, evidence of a bear tromping through…
As for the state, and wildfires in areas like the Mineral fire that could go into a more indirect fight, not sure why we can’t support a program that identifies these landowners and sets up pre-games like cities do for larger commercial buildings. IF a fire comes onto my land, and IF it isn’t red flag conditions, and IF the region isn’t in draw down, THEN cut your line at X (heck, I can keep the lines sort of maintained in the winter that you just have to improve) and let the fire burn up to X. Fire off the line even. There would still be a good IA presence sure, but it could be a lot less pressure on the incident as a whole, fewer humans on direct line, and agency aircraft temporarily freed up for other starts. Tehama County has some landowners and The Nature Conservancy that has plans sort of like this established. They try. Making a state wildfire into a VMP almost happened up here last year in November. They were definitely discussing it but it was politically a bad taste I think for some. It would have doubled the fire size, and not all the players were on board. If everyone had been on that same playbook instead of the “SRA suppress suppress suppress” playbook it would have been successful and mitigated a lot of risk in the area for future seasons.
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No matter the politics, this country is rugged, remote, the land values are low for grazing or much more, most of this is BLM land, putting crews at risk is huge concern, along with costs for low value area, New Idria, Clear Creek and this area are classic areas where modified tactics should be addressed, Im getting the impression that Cal-Fire is also not putting crews deep into this country at this point also and looking at a much larger box due to crew resources
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Everyone needs to understand there is a BIG difference between utilizing indirect attack where it is effective and “letting her rip” or “VMP mode”.
I’m all about utilizing indirect attack and firing as a suppression tactic but not to increase the size of the fire just because of some convoluted ideology of the greater good.
Treating an uncontrolled wildland fire during declared fire season as a VMP is not only irresponsible, it is unsafe. The tactics that people here are advocating would result in extended resource commitment time on incidents and less resources available for initial attack. The longer a resources is committed to an incident the higher the probability for an injury, simple statistics. Also once you let her rip you still have to go put line around it and mop it up, remember you guys are talking about a state fire so there will be no dry mopping and cold trailing. That type of suppression doesn’t fly for cal fire, it will have completed line and be mopped up 300-500 feet in. It would require extensive commit times.
California is a state of 40 million people and over 12,000,000 housing units. This is not the state where you can just let a fire burn without causing impact to either people, property or infrastructure. That might work in Montana or Idaho but not in California.
Let’s not forget about the past, does everyone remember Lewiston 1999? This is what happens when you do a VMP during fire season… I’m sure the residents of the 23 homes that burned down were super happy that the rancher got rid of some weeds.
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That was the incident where BLM got a new meaning. Burn Lewiston by Midnight.
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Two key issues that greatly hamper RX burns on private lands: liability and permitting particularly air quality permits. "Range Management burns used to enjoy exemption from liability as good as that sounds it is unfair policy to anyone who looses property or livelihood because of an escape RX. The other is the permitting process and air quality restrictions make planning and conducting RX when scheduled nearly impossible. Some type of an insurance pool is needed for RX and further streamlining of the permitting must occur before you will see meaningful RX acreages.
The Lowden Ranch escape RX was not a bad plan (although the plan was a cut and past document) It was poor execution. Because of the desire to conduct the burn in large part to get a qualification, they completely ignored the perimeters contained in the plan. The test burn far exceeded the maximum fire behavior allowed at any time much less than first thing in the morning. The FB increased throughout the day and spot fires had occurred prior to the lunch break. After lunch conditions heightened and spots took hold soon after operations began in the afternoon. A harsh lesson to illustrate what we should all know, Rx operations we stick to the plan and don’t adjust on the fly, but because we are more used to wildfire operations where we must adjust the plan on the fly, mistakes like this can happen.
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