Guest essay Larry Hamlin
The L. A. Times ran an editorial denying the need for wildfire actions recommended by Cal Fire and authorized by Governor Newsom for immediate implementation facilitated by waving California’s onerous, time consuming and costly environmental regulations.
The Times editorial claims that the Cal Fire actions regarding prioritizing and immediately beginning the of thinning of decades long forest overgrowth in selected forests areas are ineffective, costly and unnecessary. Instead the editorial claims that other measures including hardening of structures, increasing greater clearance distances around structures, etc. would be more effective.
The Cal Fire report containing recommended actions for improving the decades long deteriorated conditions of California forests is a comprehensive report involving the efforts of 40 agencies and organizations that addresses both immediate and longer term needs regarding the state’s wildfire debacle.
The agencies included in the development of the report are noted below.
The report addresses the most immediate and urgent actions required that include finally taking long overdue efforts to begin dealing with the failure to maintain healthy forests by properly thinning, clearing excessive undergrowth, etc. Portions of the Cal Fire report addressing these immediate actions are presented below:
“Recognizing the need for urgent action, Governor Gavin Newsom issued Executive Order N-05-19 on January 9, 2019. The Executive Order directs the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE), in consultation with other state agencies and departments, to recommend immediate, medium and long-term actions to help prevent destructive wildfires.
With an emphasis on taking necessary actions to protect vulnerable populations, and recognizing a backlog in fuels management work combined with finite resources, the Governor placed an emphasis on pursuing a strategic approach where necessary actions are focused on California’s most vulnerable communities as a prescriptive and deliberative endeavor to realize the greatest returns on reducing risk to life and property.
Using locally developed and vetted fire plans prepared by CAL FIRE Units as a starting point, CAL FIRE identified priority fuel reduction projects that can be implemented almost immediately to protect communities vulnerable to wildfire. It then considered socioeconomic characteristics of the communities that would be protected, including data on poverty levels, residents with disabilities, language barriers, residents over 65 or under five years of age, and households without a car.
In total, CAL FIRE identified 35 priority projects that can be implemented immediately to help reduce public safety risk for over 200 communities. Project examples include removal of hazardous dead trees, vegetation clearing, creation of fuel breaks and community defensible spaces, and creation of ingress and egress corridors. These projects can be implemented immediately if recommendations in this report are taken to enable the work. Details on the projects and CAL FIRE’s analysis can be found online which will remain updated in the coming months. The list of projects is attached to this report as Appendix C.
CAL FIRE has also worked with over 40 entities including government and nongovernment stakeholders to identify administrative, regulatory and policy actions that can be taken in the next 12 months to begin systematically addressing community vulnerability and wildfire fuel buildup through rapid deployment of resources. Implementing several of these recommended actions is necessary to execute the priority fuel reduction projects referenced above.
Other recommendations are intended to put the state on a path toward long-term community protection, wildfire prevention, and forest health.
The recommendations in this report, while significant, are only part of the solution. Additional efforts around protecting lives and property through home hardening and other measures must be vigorously pursued by government and stakeholders at all levels concurrently with the pursuit of the recommendations in this report. California must adopt an “all of the above” approach to protecting public safety and maintaining the health of our forest ecosystems.
It is important to note that California faces a massive backlog of forest management work. Millions of acres are in need of treatment, and this work— once completed—must be repeated over the years. Also, while fuels treatment such as forest thinning and creation of fire breaks can help reduce fire severity, wind-driven wildfire events that destroy lives and property will very likely still occur.
This report’s recommendations on priority fuel reduction projects and administrative, regulatory, and policy changes can protect our most vulnerable communities in the short term and place California on a trajectory away from increasingly destructive fires and toward more a moderate and manageable fire regime.”
Also addressed in the Cal Fire report is the need to deal with longer-term issues that could not be effectively defined and completed within a year long time period. Many of the issues addressed in the Times editorial are included in this section of the report as noted in the material presented below:
“Longer-term Actions: These actions are designed to begin quickly, but likely require more than a year to complete.
15.Certify the California Vegetation Treatment Program Environmental Impact Report.
Beyond the priority fuels treatment projects that CAL FIRE will implement in 2019, CAL FIRE and other land managers must increase the pace and scale of vegetation treatment throughout California. To that end, CAL FIRE and the Board of Forestry are preparing the California Vegetation Treatment Program Environmental Impact Report (CalVTP EIR) to identify and minimize environmental impacts associated with vegetation treatment. Once completed, CAL FIRE and other agencies will be able to rely on that document to streamline the environmental review process for future treatment projects.
To maximize the streamlining value of the CalVTP EIR, other agencies with regulatory authority over vegetation treatment activities should be directed to engage in its development. CAL FIRE and the Board of Forestry should invite agencies within the California Natural Resources Agency and California Environmental Protection Agency to:
a. In the immediate term, identify subsequent permitting processes that may apply to vegetation treatment projects.
b. In the mid-term, develop streamlined permitting recommendations if it is determined that environmental compliance not covered by the CalVTP EIR will preclude projects from timely completion.
16.Develop a scientific research plan for wildfire management and mitigation, with funding recommendations.
The Forest Management Task Force should develop a research plan with funding prioritization. Topics that should be considered include:
a. Leverage the Governor’s Request for Innovative Ideas (RFI2).
b. Best management practices in the face of a changing climate and our understanding of forest health and resilience.
c. Use of LiDAR, satellite and other imagery and elevation data collection, processing and analysis for incorporation into state management plans and emergency response.
d. Funding for collaborative research to address the full range of wildfire related topics. Important research investments could include both basic and applied research as well as social science to better understand social vulnerability, human behavior, land use, and policies that support resilience in communities that coexist with fire and mitigate impacts on life and property.
e. Research and development on new WUI building test standards in future research programs including the use of damage inspection reports from recent fires.
17.Provide technical assistance to local governments to enhance or enable fire hazard planning. With the expansion of urban development into wildland areas, firefighting becomes more dangerous and costly, and the consequences of wildfires to lives and property become more severe. Local governments control land use decisions that can minimize those dangers. CAL FIRE and other state agencies have information and expertise that can support local governments in making safer choices. To enable land use planning that minimizes fire risks:
a. Assist the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research in identifying specific land use strategies to reduce fire risk to buildings, infrastructure, and communities and in updating the “Fire Hazard Planning, General Plan Technical Advice Series,” as provided in Assembly Bill 2911 (Friedman, Chapter 641, Statutes of 2018).
b. Work with Cal OES and the Standardized Emergency Management System Advisory Committee to develop robust local evacuation planning models for high or very high Fire Hazard Severity Zones based upon best practices from within California.
c. Provide technical assistance to support land use planning efforts to limit development in high fire hazard areas, as well as technical assistance to support mitigation activities that minimize risk to existing communities, with specific attention to vulnerable communities.
18.CAL FIRE should update codes governing defensible space and forest and rangeland protection.
a. Review the penalty for non-compliance with defensible space code, establishing a fixed compliance date in lieu of three-inspection process. Include vacant land provisions.
b. Review enforcement the full 100 feet of defensible space around a structure when the structure is closer than 100 feet from the parcel line.
c. Consider the home and the first 0-5 feet as the most critical and hardened aspect of home hardening and defensible space. Consider requiring ignition resistant building material, only allow bark and hardscape, not trees or shrubs in this area.
d. Consider science-based regulation of wood piles and wood fences.
19.Request the Board of Forestry and Fire Protection review the Forest Practice Act and Rules and make recommendations on changes needed to protect public safety and restore forest health. The Forest Practice Act, and regulations that implement it, currently contain rules that limit fuel hazard reduction activities. The rules could be updated to facilitate non-commercial fuel reduction projects. The Board should consider where existing exemptions could be expanded further to prevent and mitigate wildfires with an emphasis on environmental sustainability and protection of public health.”
“CAL FIRE has also worked with over 40 entities including government and nongovernment stakeholders to identify administrative, regulatory and policy actions that can be taken in the next 12 months to begin systematically addressing community vulnerability and wildfire fuel buildup through rapid deployment of resources. Implementing several of these recommended actions is necessary to execute the priority fuel reduction projects referenced above. Other recommendations are intended to put the state on a path toward long-term community protection, wildfire prevention, and forest health.
The recommendations in this report, while significant, are only part of the solution. Additional efforts around protecting lives and property through home hardening and other measures must be vigorously pursued by government and stakeholders at all levels concurrently with the pursuit of the recommendations in this report. California must adopt an “all of the above” approach to protecting public safety and maintaining the health of our forest ecosystems.”
The Times editorial fails to properly present the full scope of the Cal Fire report and the time period necessities driving the reports immediate and long term recommendations. Also the Times editorial fails to present the extensive number of agencies involved in the reports findings and recommendations.
The L A Times has never acknowledged the failure of the state of California agencies that created the states wildfire debacle as fully document in the April 2018 report by the Legislative Analyst Office that is unaddressed by the Times.
Additionally the Times has attempted to falsely blame “climate change” as creating this debacle with this claim unsupported by scientific data. This Times editorial is just a continuation of the papers failure to properly address the states responsibility in creating the wildfire debacle.
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Selective cut logging, followed by private citizens making firewood from the slash, stumps, diseased trees, and rejected logs, is and always has been an effective method of thinning forests and reducing fuel load. Economically valuable lumber and winter firewood fuel is produced, while forest health is enhanced and fire hazard reduced. To the rational environmentalist, this is a ‘Win-Win’ partnership solution.
Rememem-remememember… President Trump presented the common sense solutions and the globalist governor had to comply or lose Federal $. But he totally backs the crazy-like-a-fox ‘solutions’ the globalist LA Times laid out. If it quacks like a fake debate to slow real solutions that derail the Agenda to burn, scare & regulate the middle & working classes out of CA, the elites’ paradise…. The article makes Screwsom seem like the good guy and takes the heat off him, so to speak, when he’s actually California citizens’ Public Enemy #1 who literally wants to burn them out of their homes. bwa ha ha
Re-legalize wood stoves. CA rural residents are generally poor and would gather every scrap of dead wood.
The modern day environmentalist views and management of the natural world as wrong, even evil. They are opposed to forestry, wildlife manager (particularly hunting), dams, etc., etc. They are lunatics, but they now number in the tens of millions in North America. Few politicians will risk offending these crazies, mostly because there are so many of them. It’s a travesty.
CACF. Catastrophic Anthropomorphic California Fires.
Nothing to do with “Climate Change”.
It does have to do with decades long “California Dreamin'” regulations to “protect” nature.
They look good on paper. Now the paper is burning.
“the editorial claims that other measures including hardening of structures, increasing greater clearance distances around structures, etc. would be more effective.” Maybe the LAT needs to come to northern CA to see what is on the ground before they make such a asinine statement. Hardening structures- like putting metal roofs on all buildings? Cinderbox buildings? Really? Increasing clearance? Meaning we tear down existing structures. Right! Do they realize that ashes from a forest fire can traverse the Sacramento River? How much distance do you need? Hardening structures, greater distances is not the solution. Thinning out the trees and underbrush, allowing greater clearing around electrical lines, removing dead trees, that is what is needed. The envirnomental restrictions need to go. They are the enemy of fixing the problem.
“The Times editorial claims that the Cal Fire actions regarding prioritizing and immediately beginning the of thinning of decades long forest overgrowth in selected forests areas are ineffective, costly and unnecessary.”
NO IT DOESN’T. It talks a lot about fire breaks, and evidence that they are not always effective. It also talks some about thinning: “Consider the case of Paradise. Officials there spent years doing exactly what Cal Fire contractors have been doing this summer — thinning vegetation along roads and near development where firefighters can take a stand.” How effective was that? But nowhere do the authors say that any treatment is unnecessary. The authors don’t give their own opinion, they report the opinions of others. This is an editorial? Are you sure???
Everyone here seems to think they know what to do, as if they were experts.
Forest management for fires control takes lots and lots of money. I see a lot of people here blaming liberals for the lack of management, but are they the ones most likely to cut funding for state and national forestry? Some people have an idea, I think, that money made from timber leases goes to Forestry, but that’s not true – most of it goes to the federal or state treasury.
57% of the forested land in California is owned by the federal gov’t, 40% by individuals, companies and Native Americans. So why is it that everyone here wants to blame California?
I wonder how many of you have read the “editorial.” I think it makes some good points. People can’t expect to live near forest and be protected, even if it’s thinned – and thinning takes millions of dollars. Who is responsible for paying for it? Those who live in the middle of cities?
Some argue that harvesting more would help. The Paradise fire moved across large areas that had been harvested. There was no forest there. After a harvest comes grass, weeds and woody regrowth, which is inherently close to the ground. Fire moves across that, too. Thinning and brush removal from mature forest can help if the fire is close to the ground, but a hot, wind-driven fire in dry forest can get into the canopy even if it’s thinned.
“Cal Fire director Thom Porter nonetheless defends the state’s fuel break projects, saying they can be helpful even in wind-driven fires. He pointed to thinning that reduced the Camp fire’s intensity as it burned along the lower portion of Skyway, Paradise’s main evacuation route.
“’It did save lives,’ Porter said.
“The fast-moving front of a fire that spews embers across the landscape is just one part of a blaze, he added. When a fire’s flanks and heel hit a fuel break, they will slow — “and that is why we continue to do them,” Porter said. ‘They help us get people out of the way.’”’
That’s good use of fire breaks. They can slow a fire. They can allow firefighters a “fighting chance.” That doesn’t mean they will stop it, though, and they have to be in position to do so. The article talks about research done on fire breaks, and they are not always effective. It also mentions a spot fire than happened 5 miles from the main front, and that often it’s wind-born embers that burn a home, not contact with fire.
There’s only so much that can be done in terms of forest management, especially when multiple stakeholders are involved. Homeowners, too, need to take some responsibility for making their homes less susceptible to fire. That may mean not living on the forest edge, but there are building materials that are less combustible, too. A hot ember on a steel roof is less likely to burn the house down than if it lands on a cedar shake roof.
“”Vegetation clearance is an expensive proposition and it needs to be addressed often times on an annual basis,” [John Todd, deputy chief for prevention in the L.A. county fire department] said. “You can change a vent and protect an attic space for 30 years instead of clearing miles of weeds [every summer].”
“But home hardening is not the state’s current priority. Vegetation management is. The $32 million earmarked for the Cal Fire projects is part of $1 billion — primarily from the proceeds of California’s cap-and-trade greenhouse gas program — which the state plans to mostly spend on fuel reduction projects over the next five years.
“Meanwhile, the Legislature this year stripped the funding from a proposal to establish a $1 billion low-interest loan and rebate program that would help homeowners pay for fire-resistant retrofits.”
Anyway, I read the editorial, and I think it makes some valid points. I genuinely don’t understand why the OP has a problem with it, unless it’s just an excuse to bash the LAT or blame California for forest fires. The article says nothing about AGW, and there is no indication in it that environmentalists have been fighting forest management, although one person does point out that creating firebreaks can disrupt wildlife habitat, lead to erosion and facilitate spread of invasive plants, some of which exacerbate fire problems.
To be clear, I’m not at all against forest harvesting or management, but it has to be done wisely. Limited funds have to be spent where they are going to be most useful for the sustainability of the resource and protection of people and their homes. There is an ongoing cost to forest management, while “hardening” communities is an investment. Both deserve consideration.
Kristi Silber – Thank you so much for your intelligent reasonable and well-explained comment. I would suggest though, that increasing clearance distances around structures should be the #1 objective. A fire cannot burn where there is no fuel. Criticisms based on the expense of maintaining a cleared area are misguided. If it is grassed over, for example, keeping it mown is pretty low cost – even cheaper if you can get the mowing done by animals. After the horrendous bush fires that destroyed many houses in Canberra, they cleared the forest well back from the housing and planted an arboretum of fire-retardant trees, then put in a visitor centre so (a) the idea is publicised, (b) it pays for itself. Not everyone can put in an arboretum of course, but the message should be clear – permanently remove the fuel.
After clearing away the fire hazard, the next and still vital step is to make the structures more fire-protected (“hardened”). The houses will still come under ember attack, but this is now all the the house needs to be protected from. Exactly how you do it depends on circumstances, and although water is not the only answer the more access you have to reliable water the easier it is.
Mike Ionas,
Thank you for that perspective and your comments. Your reference to fire-retardant trees was especially intriguing, as I have considered the same idea, but don’t know a lot about it.
Cleared areas are good at retarding fire, but part of the problem is that people want to build near forest edge, and want trees on their property. Changing people’s mindset is half the battle, it seems. Plus, in California maintaining a large lawn is not ecologically or economically sound because of the water needed, although perhaps native grasses could be used – but the size of clearing required and the time to mow it becomes an issue. The Santa Ana winds are something that Canberra doesn’t have to deal with; the topography plays a role, too. But you are right that we can learn a lot from other people’s experience, and what has been effective, adapting it to the environment of California. To me it seems like more emphasis should be placed on hardening structures, including retrofitting and adopting new building codes.
Hmmm. Fire retardant trees. Something to learn more about! Thanks!
Let it burn, the government won’t save you, government action is always a fraud, people need to take action themselves, get off their lazy asses, stop watching TV, buy some saws and loppers and get out there and defend their homes. Manual labor will be good for them.
Leftilibral Activism in BASIC
10 Print “Claim a fake problem.”
20 Print “Demand fake solutions that exacerbate the real problem.”
30 Print “Weaponize regulatory agencies to sabotage real solutions.”
40 Print “Blame the fake problem for persistence of the real problem.”
50 Goto 20
As a firefighter, I cringe reading this misleading and incorrect kine of thinking. Fuels management programs used to be an annual event. That was back when we didnt have catastrophic wildfires twice every year. Liberals caused the cessation of those programs and the results, to those in the profession, have been undeniable. This fool may as well criticize a brain surgeons choice of techniques. Totally unqualified.
Richard,
Ach! How do you know liberals are the problem? Maybe conservatives cut funding. It’s so easy to blame someone else.
Kristi Silber,
It has been 20 years since CA had a conservative governor, and I don’t know how long since conservatives had any form of voice in the state houses. Richard Perry is correct. Do you live in the State?
Wow –
“The recommendations in this report, while significant, are only part of the solution. Additional efforts around protecting lives and property through home hardening and other measures must be vigorously pursued by government and stakeholders at all levels concurrently with the pursuit of the recommendations in this report.”
– lots of work ahead / lots of thinking done.
RLu October 15, 2019 at 8:46 am
“Do they want misery, death and destruction? Well?”
Yes.
The Socialist worker revolution will never ignite in a prosperous and free society.
–
The capitalism’s reign attracts Mara Salva Trucha.
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