Posted on 01/11/2025 9:48:17 PM PST by TigerClaws
Prescribed fire is one of the best tools California has to prevent forest fires from exploding out of control. While the use of controlled burns to reduce vegetation and wildfire risk has increased in recent years, experts say much more needs to be done across California.
In October, KQED reported on the U.S. Forest Service’s decision to halt prescribed burns in California, a directive officials said was meant to preserve staff and equipment to fight wildfires. The pause occurred during the crucial fall window for controlled burns, raising concerns that it could increase long-term fire risks.
The story has been circulating on the internet this week.
The fires in Los Angeles have been politicized online as people search for politicians and policies to blame — and for evidence to reinforce personal beliefs.
Even if the U.S. Forest Service had continued to allow burning, it would not have prevented this week’s devastation from deadly fires that have destroyed thousands of homes. The fires we’re seeing are primarily spreading through urban neighborhoods, with the possible exception of the Eaton Fire, which is burning, in part, on federal forest lands.
Given the wind, weather and location of the fires, it’s unlikely a controlled burn would have stopped the disaster. The houses and surrounding vegetation are fuels in communities that were not designed for fire resilience when they were planned decades ago.
“There’s vegetation all around homes and trees overlapping, and [residents] love the beauty and the look of that,” said Michael Gollner, a researcher and fire expert at UC Berkeley. “But when a fire comes through, it has a clear path to just keep propagating through the community.”
So what would have helped? Living in communities prepared for fire. How to prepare isn’t a mystery. It just takes convincing residents to get their communities involved.
“I hope that emerging from this [disaster] can be a much more serious conversation around fuels and community design,” said Michael Wara, a climate and energy expert at Stanford University.
California and the federal government have poured a lot of money into fire resilience, but there is room for much more, Wara said. For example, the state has taken steps to ramp up prescribed fire, but there have not been many burns next to communities.
There has been more investment in fuels management crews, but less investment in enforcing tough, defensible space codes, like having a five-foot buffer of non-combustible material around a house, what experts call “Zone 0.”
When an area rebuilds after a fire, adopting stringent requirements — such as using fire-resistant materials and requiring 30 feet between buildings — helps neighborhoods prepare for the next fire.
What’s needed is community support for fire resilience. Some communities oppose vegetation removal or defensible space inspections or prescribed fire near homes. Some areas that have rebuilt chose to waive certain requirements, including parts of Santa Rosa that burned in 2017.
While adopting new fire safety codes can be expensive and inconvenient, according to Gollner, he hopes the impacted Los Angeles communities will embrace them “so that if there’s a future fire in this area, we no longer would see such a destructive event.”
“If we’re going to have available, affordable insurance in California — not just now, but in 10 years as climate change gets worse — we need to do that stuff now,” Wara said, adding that there is only so much politicians can do.
“I don’t blame the politicians for that at all. It is about the people in communities,” he continued. “It is about community consensus and community solidarity, people taking responsibility for doing the work and for helping their neighbors to do the work.”
Fires that ignited in the San Bernardino National Forest last year were successfully fought, in part, because of prescribed burns by the U.S. Forest Service. The Line Fire threatened the Angelus Oaks community in early September 2024, but it slowed, and firefighters were able to control and redirect it when it entered a burn scar from the previous June.
“They saved that community using prescribed fire,” Wara said. “We need more of that. And the real barrier there is not the money, it’s not the agency, it’s the community acceptance.” In California, Restoring Our Relationship With Fire Is Possible
In the Los Angeles area, Malibu fires have become notorious. The despair and folly of continually rebuilding what continually gets burned is captured in The Case for Letting Malibu Burn, the provocative 1995 essay by Mike Davis, former writer and professor at UC Riverside.
“This has occurred across this state at different times throughout history and will keep happening if we’re not prepared for it,” Gollner said.
Stringent codes guiding construction and landscaping can prevent the vast majority of ignition spread and give firefighters a much better chance of saving communities.
“If we prevent 95% of the ignitions — it doesn’t have to be perfect — then firefighters will do a great job catching the few [ignitions] that slip through,” Gollner said. “But we have to help them. When there’s hundreds or thousands of structures igniting, they cannot handle it.”
No fire lines.
No dikes but plenty of dykes.
I have lived in the west San Fernando Valley of California for 57 years. The fires started getting more destructive as soon as they prohibited the use of cattle and goats along the 101 and 405 days, to keep the brush down. There is more to this then meets the eye. You can take that to the bank! Infuriating!
They "forgot" grazing and browsing. Guess they don't want to remind people that those conservative ranchers the greenies and bureaucrats got rid of were at least partly right.
Ya think?
Well, yes, sure, but...
You can not do a controlled burn in an urban area.
Bulldoze that perverted state into the Pacific.
It’s a debate.
Maybe they should just let some wild free roaming goats go around and clean up.
The idea of using the word preparedness in relation to anything in Kalifornia, except stuffing ballot boxes, is ridiculous.
Not much of a debate to be had. Every other state uses forest management techniques to reduce the amount of fuel on the forest floor on publicly owned property, including controlled burns. Private timber companies are not over regulated so they can thin the forests to reduce the amount
of fuel on the forest floor. These programs seem to work well for every other state.
Our power company has routine non-stop clearing near power lines from one end of the county and back to the other. They come by my driveway about twice a year and the company even has their own lock on my gate should they need to follow the line onto my property to trim any trees.
About 10 days ago, we had two days of 25 to 35 mile per hour winds (with gusts up to 40) in Georgia. I haven’t heard of any forest fires occurring during those 2 days.
RENEWED DEBATE? #$@#!@#@#$#$###
Soon the left will pretend that they were for prescribed burns and brush clearing all along and the right was on the wrong side because the parties switched sides or whatever. Just like they claim about slavery and everything else.
Article:
“as climate change gets worse”
Wild speculation based on zero evidence.
This is the state of “journalism” today and why they cannot be trusted.
The Sierra will never give their permission to do burns again, they spent millions getting them stopped and keeping the Forests in their natural state without human intervention. They Will NOT give that up for any reason.
Sierra Club, sometimes I get ahead of myself,oops
“Debate”? There’s some debate somewhere over the wisdom and efficacy of clearing fire breaks, keeping a little extra water around, doing preventative burns and clearing brush? Where is this “debate” and are these debaters fecking stupid?
Qui bono suggests we may have been seeing a massive set of “prescribed burns” in LA County.
LA locals complained about “the smell” from burns, so I hear. Plus, “air quality” issues.
Also, all the regulations as to emissions and ‘green’... how much CO2 is generated by the wildfires? They kinda blew it there.
Here’s a handy map today for those tracking the fires. HEAVY winds. Palisades fire has 11% “containment” and is near Brentwood, Encino, and not far from West Hollywood.
Beverly Hills would be after West Hollywood but there’s a lot of cement to get to Beverly Hills.
If they have to ground the air battle... heavy winds... gonna be a long day!
Link:
https://www.frontlinewildfire.com/california-wildfire-map/
I watched the Weather Channel report last night on the fires. they had several on who said the problem was “CLIMATE CHANGE! CLIMATE CHANGE! CLIMATE CHANGE!”
No mention of the incompetence of the mayor, governor or failure of the fire suppression system.
California is known for wildfires. Here is one from the 1830s. With all the fires there in my lifetime you would think they had learned preparedness by now.
http://www.authorama.com/two-years-before-the-mast-12.html
In the middle of this crescent, directly opposite the anchoring ground, lie the mission and town of Santa Barbara, on a low, flat plain, but little above the level of the sea,........
The town is certainly finely situated, with a bay in front, and an amphitheatre of hills behind. The only thing which diminishes its beauty is, that the hills have no large trees upon them, they having been all burnt by a great fire which swept them off about a dozen years before, and they had not yet grown up again. The fire was described to me by an inhabitant, as having been a very terrible and magnificent sight. The air of the whole valley was so heated that the people were obliged to leave the town and take up their quarters for several days upon the beach.
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