Dead Trees Adding to California Firefighters’ Battle

[Night Watchman]

Source: Climate Central

Published: June 22nd, 2016
By John Upton

With drought and climate change conspiring to push California’s summer wildfire season into premature overdrive, the state’s lead wildfire agency has acquired a multimillion dollar arsenal to help it cope with unprecedented numbers of dying trees.

California recently bought $6 million worth of chippers, mobile sawmills, portable incinerators and other equipment to help its firefighters remove some of the nearly 30 million trees that now stand dead across the state, killed by drought and insects.



The equipment is being used as parched southern California landscapes explode in the types of summertime flames that wouldn’t normally be expected until August. Grasses that fattened up following winter storms in central and northern California are expected to fuel major blazes in the weeks ahead.

“The more time that goes by, the dryer the fuels are going to become,” said Tom Rolinski, a U.S. Forest Service meteorologist who forecasts fire conditions in southern California. “As this summer unfolds and we get into the August and September timeframes, the fuels are going to be that much dryer, and we’re probably going to see more intense fires.”

Read more: http://www.climatecentral.org/news/california-firefighters-wrangling-with-dead-trees-20471

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I live in San Diego. Thus, I beg your indulgence for posting threads about this issue, which is ultimately a national---indeed, global---one.

[RexDart]

1. Cal Fire says 66 million dead trees on FB page

And millions dying. I fear the next few years are going to be bad for wildfires.

[DemMomma4Sanders]

2. Its seems like removing these, getting the carbon locked under the soil would have been a priority

in a zone where wildfires are an annual occurence.

[Hekate]

3. These are not street trees. They are whole forests of trees, often inaccessible.

It may help to understand that part of the problem of wildfires in the West is decades of manmade fire suppression and urban encroachment. Remember Smokey the Bear? He was the public relations face of that campaign, which has now been abandoned afaik.

California literally evolved to burn. There are seeds that will not even germinate until they have passed through fire. Amazing, huh?

Based on local experience, I thought the natural burn cycle was every 20 to 30 years, but recently the fire chief said it was every 1 (one) to 30 years. Ack-- that'll keep you guessing.

We have a lot of chaparral in areas that are not forested. That's the dry-land brushy stuff. The area near me that just burned off nearly 8,000 acres had not burned in over 60 years -- that's a huge buildup of fuel, so it could have been an awful lot worse. The firefighters concentrate on containment and on protection of manmade structures. People and their horses were evacuated. A major campground by the ocean was evacuated and saved. The fire tried to jump the freeway twice.

The thing that's killed so many forest trees is a combination of drought and the pine beetle. The beetle might be an introduced pest, but I'm not sure. Several years ago the Zaca Fire destroyed a quarter of a million acres. Firefighters were able to protect dwellings, towns, and people, but the damn thing was not amenable to much. They decided to pretty much let it burn itself out in the back country. It took weeks and weeks of continuous work, the air was bad, and every soul in our region was nerve-wracked.

Sigh. Best case scenario is always away from people. The Painted Cave Fire in 1990 started in a dried out grassy field in the mountains and took out everything in its path as it roared toward the ocean with a natural hot wind at its back, creating its own superheated wind as it went. Hundreds of homes were lost. One woman died trying to outrun it. It was terrifying.

Sorry. In this season, any Californian's mind will turn to fire...

[DemMomma4Sanders]

4. Exactly, controlled burning. Thats what I had in mind.

It nourishes the earth, allows the areas to survive with less water(charcoal) and its prevents these crazy preventable wildfires from becoming the behemoths they do.

Aside from controlled burning....mulch from dead trees on the periphery of highly populated areas could be used on farms to lower water usage, lock carbon into the earth and generally build up soil fertility and biodiversity.........and bring a small profit!