Posts Tagged: wildfire

Early wildfire detection may forestall damage

It may seem like a wildfire would be easy to detect, but vast, rugged wilderness can permit a small blaze to develop into a firestorm before firefighters are deployed.

Reeling from the enormous losses sustained by last year's devastating Station Fire in Los Angeles County -- which took two firefighters' lives, destroyed dozens of structures and cost more than $95 million to fight -- Supervisor Mike Antonovich is asking the county to allocate money to study a high-tech early detection system.

"The Station fire graphically spotlights the need to study and identify solutions for establishing an automated early detection system," Antonovich said in his motion to allocate the funding, according to the Los Angeles Times. "The goal of a technology-based system would be to . . . have a programmed airborne response within minutes to suppress the fire before it spreads."

Times reporter Tony Barboza spoke to UC Berkeley fire scientist Max Moritz, who threw water on the idea.

"Does the technology even exist to do this kind of thing?" the story quoted Moritz, who is also co-director of UC Berkeley's Center for Fire Research and Outreach. "I think that's an open question."

Moritz said officials are already able to detect wildfire early under mild conditions.

"But under the conditions we're most worried about -- Santa Ana winds, for instance -- it's not clear that we'd be able to get airborne resources deployed within minutes," Moritz was quoted.

UC Berkeley and UC Cooperative Extension maintain a wide variety of programs aimed at understanding California wildfire and how losses from wildfire can be minimized. Articles, links, and video are available in the online wildfire media kit.

Max Moritz

FEMA changes course on wildfire hazards

Distribution of more than $5 million in federal funds for wildfire hazard abatement in the Oakland Hills has been delayed to allow time for a more intensive environmental impact review, according to an article in the Oakland Tribune.

The news was a setback for UC Berkeley, the city of Oakland and the East Bay Regional Park District, which are relying on the grants to remove eucalyptus, pine and acacia trees from steep, wooded canyons and ridges.

UC Berkeley fire science professor Scott Stephens told reporter Cecily Burt that the university's plans for reducing the fire hazard were "reasonable." He said that native trees and plants eventually take root in areas where eucalyptus are removed, and the proposed work plan leaves eucalyptus intact in less vulnerable areas.

"When the eucalyptus burn under an east wind, they can throw embers a half-mile or more," Stephens was quoted. "From a fire standpoint, what is being done to remove the eucalyptus is in line with what we want to do (to reduce fire hazards)."

A group called the "Hills Conservation Network" challenged the university's methods for reducing fire hazards by clear-cutting trees and leaving layers of wood chips on the ridges.

The delay, however, leaves the fire hazard unabated for another two years while FEMA studies the environmental impact of the plan.

"Inevitably we will get another east wind and we will have another disaster," Stephens was quoted in the story. "When you look at an area that has already been treated versus what hasn't, the risk is 10 percent greater.  The physics haven't changed. We still have east winds, we have the topography, we have the trees. There will be a disaster."

UC Cooperative Extension has posted extensive information on wildfire hazard abatement on the Web.

A NASA photo of 1991 Oakland Hills fire.

$50,000 firebreak successfully halts flames

Just a year after its completion, a 1.5-mile J-shaped swath of cleared land protected John Middlebrook's 428-acres of forested Yuba County from a raging wildfire, according to a story in the The Grass Valley Union.

A $52,000 state grant paid for the firebreak. Compared to $1.5 million per-day cost of fighting a wildfire, it appears the firebreak was a sound investment.

“Even when you know the science, you doubt yourself,” UC Cooperative Extension natural resources advisor Glenn Nader told reporter Ben van der Meer. “You see this, and you know with the right kind of fire, the right kind of wind, this will work.”

Middlebrook said he nearly abandoned the idea of building a firebreak when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service asked that anyone working on it be trained to understand the life cycle of the red-legged frog, which could have habitat in the area. Nader responded to the issue diplomatically.

“I know every agency has the best of intentions, and I work for one,” he was quoted. “But I do not run from the fact (Fish and Wildlife staff) were a hindrance."

Associated Press says Feds didn't prepare for fire

The Associated Press today moved a story on the wire that said federal authorties "failed to follow through" on plans to conduct prescribed burns that would have cleared brush now involved in raging wildfires.

According to the story, the U.S. Forest Service obtained permits to burn more than 1,700 acres of Southern California's Angeles National Forest months ago. But just 193 acres had been cleared by the time the fire broke out.

The Forest Service said weather, wind and environmental rules limit how often they can conduct prescribed burns.

AP reporter Michael Blood turned to the co-director of the UC Berkeley Center for Fire Research and Outreach, Max Moritz, for comment. He said opinions vary about the need to do more prescribed burns to reduce the fire hazard. "You have this difficult needle you have to thread to find the right place, the right conditions, to pull it off," Moritz was quoted.

He believes a different approach should be used to reduce the high cost of fighting wildland fires. The answer, Moritz said, is to stop building homes and cabins in fire-prone areas.

wildfire

Raging wildfires provide UC advisor a teachable moment

When raging wildfires threaten homes in California, UC Cooperative Extension wood durability advisor Steve Quarles commands rapt attention. He reached many thousands of the state's residents with an interview that aired yesterday on All Things Considered and on today's Morning Edition.

Capital Public Radio's Steve Milne produced the spot to examine whether homeowners can live safely in wildland areas and whether creating a “defensible space” around the home is enough.

Quarles told him the design of the home and materials used in construction play a critical role in protecting homes from fire. Non-combustible roof and siding, tempered-glass, multi-paned windows, and vents and crawl spaces that resist flames and embers are factors that may keep a house standing after a fire sweeps through the area.

“We’re learning a lot about the importance of embers in terms of spreading fire. We sort of understood that with regard to forest fires. But we’re also learning that they can result in the ignition of your home," Quarles said.

Watch the video below for more information from Quarles on making a wildland home fire safe:

 

 

Additional UC fire information is the UC ANR wildfire media kit.

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