Obstacles to Landscape-Scale Hazard Reduction

General Discussion
#62

There are other aspects which are also significantly playing into the 2020 Season. Many of these have been discussed in other threads here on the Forum. CalFire, owns, maintains and operates a fairly large fleet of dozers as do most of the 900 Line Contract Counties. The FS has 1 maybe 2 per forest, so they then have to rely upon the utilization of CWN dozers, which the pool has been drastically reduced through the Region 5 procurement changes this year. Historically, the FS has relied heavily on the IHC community for line construction which while very effective, and arguably less impactful to the eco systems, is much slower with a much longer commitment time. CF is seeing a reduced inmate crew availability and is in the process of developing a FF based crew component similar to the Ventura County Crews 11 & 12, who are not inmates as the LA County Crews are. Due to this change in CF direction, the use of dozers is much more common place.

The challenge that the FS faces is not that their policies are intended to be a life safety thread but that they, being a Nationwide agency with Nationwide objectives tends to have a much more limited ability the change with the times and adapt to specific threats within say California as opposed to the Southeast. Additionally, the FS mentality within the upper echelons of the Agency do not view fire suppression in the same manner as does CF or the LG community. Correspondingly, there are fewer and fewer Forest Superintendents with fireline knowledge and experience.

Finally, the FS practice for many years has been to allow naturally occurring fires, typically lightning strike fires to burn their natural course where CF has the mentality to take active suppression measures immediately. The reality is that the August Lightning siege took a very heavy toll on the California landscape and resources were immediately stretched to capacity. Historically, NF fires have taken a lower resource priority including commitment of NF personnel to CF incidents because of the higher threat to life, safety and property. Perhaps some of the lessons learned from this year is that some or all of these need to be revisited.

And above all, NONE of what I just wrote is meant to disparage one organization or another. There are very fine firefighters and personnel in both organizations. There are differences between the two agencies that are good and some that need improving in both.

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#63

I have spent the last 6 months turning your pic into the one below. Clearing the lots of owners who are not coming back around us. This was 2 years of growth. The scotch broom was 6 feet tall with downed limbs and burned trees. The owner retired has left the area and is not rebuilding. With occasional help from neighbors and a with a friend with a skid loader I have done the 11 lots around me and several others in the area. I think there is a possibility of fire starting within the town borders. With all the lots like you pictured all the owners trying to clear lots during red flag warnings , PGe crews , home construction going on and all the blasted wind events… So I started clearing the mess around me. I do not know how many other people we have gone and helped clear their property. But I think we are the exception not the rule. I do not know how many lots have been cleared. We will be generous and say half. That means there are 7000 uncleared lots, and I think that number is very low. I think more than a few people are holding on to their properties till the PGE lawsuit is finished then will abandon or sell them so why clear anything. Habitat for Humanity/nature conservatory has offered to take lots people cannot deal with any more or do not want at all and take them. clear them and use them as green space. Town fines 100 for not clearing your lot for the first failed re inspection ,200 for second violation and 500 for every one after. they re-inspect at 30 day intervals. Clearing a normal lot is 300 to 500 I have heard (we do not charge as we did not ask…and they are neighbors mostly). I wanted more defensible space than I had and living in a scotch broom jungle was not going to work. Think globally act locally right?

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#64

@Dozer_Keith

I can only speak to the differences between CDF and USFS from back 35 years ago, But I agree there was a difference in mentality and how they look at fire. I worked for both for a time. CDF was much more aggressive and dealing with fire toe to toe . My Capt. was always barking “Lets put the dam@#$ thing out and go the hel@ home” . USFS was more trying to control and manage fire . CDF was an amry. USFS contracted for one. A lot of the time they fight different fires. Cal Fire is everywhere. USFS mostly plays in its own backyard so to speak. Just two different beasts. Different drives, goals and theologies . Go crazy comparing them. I think I was more at home with the CDF and identify more with it. USFS lets things get away from them on occasion in my humble opinion with the let in burn stuff. Passive suppression seems to increase risk of unintended results . Both fought fire valiantly to the end. But USFS had so many rules and regs to deal with and CDF didn’t seem to .
There just different. Like brothers can be.

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#65

I spent 35 years in the business. First on the Angeles and later with LAC. In those years both the FS and LAC worked together and put the darn things out. This was before wilderness areas and National Monuments. Things today are much more restricted due to environmental and other concerns. Fires were hit fast and hard. Maybe not so much now.

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#66

We did too . We crossed paths a lot with each other in those days. Mutual Aid was easy then. Put out a lot of fire together. Brothers in the cause, regardless of who bought the truck or the patch on your sleeve . But like any two brothers… not always the same underneath . But when it counts… we all come. I think things were different and less regulated 35-40 years ago . Fire fighting Theory and Practice sounds like it has changed some since those days. We were cowboys by today’s standards. Better or worse I will leave for others to decide. But I bet we had more fun

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#67

https://youtu.be/N-xvc2o4ezk

worth a 5 minute look

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#68

Anything that pokes fun at Gavin is worth a look . But after watching it a couple of times I am not sure what I think of this. Sort of quirky logic to me. It takes some truths and draws conclusions I think may be a little questionable

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#69

STRONG WORK!
You’re right on. We’ve got to take responsibility for work in our own neighborhoods. Waiting for other people to write grants, do environmental reviews, hire a forester, hire a contractor, hire a biologist to monitor the contractor, and then finally accomplish a thinning project (often with minimal prospects for maintenance) hasn’t kept us out of the mess we are in.

I can see the non-profit, grant-supported model being useful if we ever get to doing landscape-scale projects, but for working piecemeal in the WUI it seems really ineffective. I appreciate the education, chipper programs, and senior and disabled projects the fire safe councils do, but for the most part, I don’t think you could think up a much more inefficient way to spend money cutting brush.

As you pointed out, treating individual lots, or even whole neighborhoods, wasn’t going to stop the Camp Fire. The best we can hope for is to build a big-enough footprint of reduced hazard to save individual homes, and give people a reasonable chance of not dying in their cars.

We get caught up complaining about environmental laws being the bottleneck, but CEQA and NEPA are only required if you are asking the public to pay to cut someone else’s brush. Way to take responsibility and make it happen!

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#70

If memory serves correctly, the Panorama Fire was 1980.
Turkey dinner in fire camp at Thanksgiving.

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#72

Yes it was

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#73

We were blessed with 2 delicious turkey dinners at various places on the Panorama fire. But the turkey loaf served in fire camp didn’t quite cut it.

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#74

So glad to hear that Paradise has decided to install a town siren warning system. We’ve found in these fast moving fire situations the reverse 911 system is not very effective…especially when the cell towers burn. IShingletown and Nevada City should look into it. I don’t know if it would have been effective in Berry Creek, I’ll ask that question to those who know that country better than me.

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#75

I agree, keep it simple. Though power outages can complicate even the ‘simplest’ systems…

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#76

There was an online survey we could respond to. In the survey they found that people not only want a siren sound but also verbal instructions and they are looking at how to customize the siren system to fit the community’s expectations.
Once the design is approved by council, the town will use the design to apply for FEMA funding through their Mitigation Grant Program for money to construct the system. The town would have to receive that funding before construction. So we have a ways to go. But we decided it was a good idea for the town to pursue. Without all the trees the sound should travel. But the wind events create a lot of noise… I am not sure how they will deal with PGe outages as it is not off the drawing table yet. They bought a truckload of generators to run the traffic lights during PSPS maybe they can hook what ever they come up with.

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#77

The administrative red tape you describe is not so much a product of CEWA or NEPA, which, for all
of their downsides, have still protected much of California from outright industrial abuse. The inefficiency is built into the system precisely because it’s not mandated by a more centralized and specialized agency, and because the projects are not given the funds they’re needed despite the obvious economic savings of multi-billion dollar firefighting seasons.

It’s an Industrial Disaster Complex. Cut the private profit motive and start subsidizing domestic programs which actually help Americans, help rural communities, help locally sourced jobs. If we’re looking for funding sources let’s start with the near-Trillionaires who wouldn’t exist in a 1950s/1960s top marginal tax rate.

The ‘War on Wildfire’ is out of hand.

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#78

A siren alert system would have helped during the Carr Fire. In Old Shasta CHP and SO were required to go door knocking at 5AM…same with the community of Keswick.

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#79

Peninsula Fire in Lake Almanor, has installed a new siren alert system. It is tested every month and some local evacuation drills have been organized. People have seen what has happened in Paradise and recognize that it can happen here!!!

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#80

San Juan NF in SW Colorado been open logging again. Old mill in Dolores opened up early 2020, now making structural plywood sheets. Sheets being sent by rail to West Coast mills.

Local Mill reopened:

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#81

Yet in some cases, the public is engaged and extremely vocal about fire safety, but then the local Planning Commissioners and Planners for some reason(s) just completely ignore the public and instead rush to develop the WUI by ignoring those same fire safety concerns, putting the WUI community into further risk. It’s not just Paradise. The system is broken.

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#82

If those areas were properly managed around that WUI environment we wouldnt be having this discussion. The Camp fire had a dense, continuous fuel bed from the Feather River through Paradise, The Kincaide fire had a dense fuel bed, the Creek had continuous tree stands and a dense fuel bed of beetle kill and manzanita. When you have thousands and thousands of acres of overstocked fuel in the thousands of tons of available fuel to burn there isnt a whole lot anyone can do, WUI or not. You throw a wind event on top of it and I dont care if you are in the interface area or 10 blocks into a city, the energy being released by these fires due to the amount of fuel being consumed at once is astronomical. I saw what the Creek fire did, I was there, it was maybe 70 degrees, at night with very little diurnal winds over the fire. If anything it ran upslope against the normal wind pattern. The Jose Basin has been packed so full of brush for years locals have discussed how bad it will be to run fire through it for years, this area had no fire history, outside a few small ones, then you add in it is in one of the hardest hit areas for the pine bark beetle and most of the trees had died and suddenly half the fuels were ready to burn instantly, what live fuel was left didnt stand a chance, it burned with it and the result was an 8-10 mile run out of the drainage over the ridge and highway and fuel breaks and areas that were not as dense. We need logging, and brushing so we can properly introduce fire to the landscape. That will change the conversation, the game and the interface environment.

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