Posts Tagged: wildfire

$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.

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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.

*Stay, defend, or leave early* wildfire policy has UC advocates

A wildfire policy that has met with some success in Australia - in which trained homeowners stay and defend their own homes in the face of a wildfire - is not popular with California firefighters, but some UC experts believe it has a place in the Golden State.

According to a story in the San Jose Mercury-News today, the California Professional Firefighters have dubbed the program "Stay and Die."

When homeowners refuse to evacuate, firefighters use this scary tactic: "If they stay, we'll gather personal information from them, such as dental records, so we can identify them in the event we find their remains," the story quoted sheriff's department spokesman Sgt. Dan Campos.

But UC fire scientist Scott Stephens said that in populous California, the current system of mandatory evacuation is not sustainable.

"I don't know how you can continually move people out of harm's way and somehow think it's going to be sustainable," Stephens was quoted in the article. "It's just a nutty idea."

Stephens told reporter Bruce Newman that it's easy for homeowners to put out sparks that might land on or near their home.

"Then as the fire gets right on top of you, people go into their houses, and the houses provide very good shelter. When the fire passes, people would come out and patrol their areas and continue to put out those small fires," Stephens said.

Stephens told the reporter that losses in Australia dropped by 70 percent under the plan. "And that includes lives," he said. "In this state, we lose houses, we lose neighborhoods, we lose lives, then we come back, rebuild and do it again."

Newman also spoke to Faith Kearns, the associate director of the UC Berkeley-based fire center. She said that, even under mandatory evacuation, some people will stay.

"When there were 2,000 fires burning across the state last year, a lot of communities felt abandoned because there weren't enough firefighters to go around. Given the reality of what it takes to completely suppress all fires, there are going to be more and more people who want to stay and defend their homes. Because they feel it's not going to happen otherwise," Kearns was quoted.

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In other UC- and fire-related news, the Contra Costa Times reported today that a car was engulfed in an arson fire across the street from UC President Mark Yudof's home in Oakland. A clear link between the car fire and Yudof has not been established, the story said.

UC part of "stay, defend or leave early" debate.

Joshua Trees could vanish in Joshua Tree National Park

Under any of six models of climate change, in 100 years there will be no new trees in Joshua Tree National Park and a significant number of existing trees will be dead, according to a recent Riverside Press-Enterprise story. The climate models, developed by Ken Cole, a biologist and geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Ariz., and plant ecologist Kirsten Ironside of Northern Arizona University, suggest a temperature increase of seven degrees.

Joshua Trees were prolific and widespread 11,000 years ago, Cole told newspaper reporter Janet Zimmerman. Their seeds were carried long distances from Mexico to Nevada in the dung of the Shasta ground sloth. Now, seeds are transported only short distances by rodents.

Climate change is expected to combine with other human impacts to threaten Joshua Trees. Factors mentioned in the Press-Enterprise article include:

• Non-native grass species, such as red brome and cheatgrass, are transported along roads by passing cars.
   
• The non-native grasses are fertilized by nitrate and ammonium deposited in the soil by car emissions. Edith Allen, a UC Riverside professor of plant ecology, has found that the levels of those chemicals in the park are 15 to 30 times higher than those in an undisturbed ecosystem.
   
• Dirt patches that separated native plant species are being replaced with a continuous carpet of non-native grass.
   
• Wildfire is increasing in frequency and intensity as the continuous bed of tinder dry grass carries fire long distances from plant to plant.

A possible bright side: Joshua Trees are taking root in areas to the north, such as Tonapah, Nev., where none existed a century ago because it was too cold.

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