Restore the Mendo

Rancher's editorial about controlled burns right on target

by Rich Fairbanks

Bill Burrows makes some excellent points about controlled burning in the editorial he wrote in this weekend's Redding Record Searchlight.  The coalition he is working with includes a number of former fire management workers.  I personally worked on Forest Service fire crews and overhead teams for 20 years.  I came away from that experience firmly convinced that for certain forest types, low severity fire prevents high severity fire. 

One of the forest types that benefits most from low severity fire is the mixed conifer forest that is so common in the mountains of Northern California.  The Mendocino National Forest contains 337,000 acres of mixed conifer.  That is one of the reasons our coalition is trying to persuade Congress to ramp up the budget for controlled burning in the Mendocino National Forest.  For all the folks in Northern California and Southern Oregon who sat in the haze for a couple of months last summer, controlled burning is part of the solution. 

We don't have to tolerate months-long smoke inversions, massive stand replacing fires and escalating suppression costs.  Part of the answer to these problems is the ancient practice of under burning.  We can reduce wildfire rate of spread, resistance to control and fire severity by controlled burning in winter and spring.

They're doing it in Oregon

by Rich Fairbanks

Nearly 4,000 acres of controlled burns are scheduled for this spring on the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's Medford District and the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest in southern Oregon. Some 2,450 acres will be burned on the Medford District while about 1,376 acres will be burned on the national forest.

The agencies largely will employ understory burning intended to mimic a low-intensity wildfire by burning the ground fuels without harming most mature trees. The burning improves forest health by reducing crowding of trees and therefore the risk of insect and disease outbreaks. It also reduces the severity and sometimes the spread rate of wildfires near the urban-wildland interface.

"We are actively committed to reducing fuels across the landscape to protect lives, property and resources," Tom Murphy, fire management officer for the BLM's Medford District, told the Mail Tribune. "It is essential that we manage our forests to reduce the potential for a large uncontrolled wildfire."

The controlled burns are allowed only on days when conditions will let the fire burn safely while blowing smoke away from populated areas. The land resource agencies work with the Oregon Smoke Management Office, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, the Oregon Department of Forestry and the National Weather Service.

It is especially gratifying to see underburning in the Siskiyous. In parts of these  mountains the dry mixed conifer forests have responded to logging and fire control by producing the infamous "doghair" stand conditions where thousands of small trees slowly choke the mature conifers.  "Too many straws in the coconut", as one silviculturist put it.

Should CA keep eye on Montana wildfire initiatives?

The Montana legislature is about to address the subject of wildfire, and the dialog it's about to embrace might be one that California and federal legislators ought to monitor. According to a guest editorial by The Wilderness Society senior scientist Thomas DeLuca in the Great Falls Tribune, Montana should consider a number of ideas to help reduce the risk wildfires pose to communities. One of them, naturally, is the use of controlled burns:

"That said, targeted thinning and prescribed fire use in specific forest types can reduce the risk of catastrophic fire and restore the natural resilience of some forest types to fire," DeLuca wrote in the Jan. 12 editorial. "However, restoration efforts cannot be done under emergency conditions and should be performed only with long-term objectives."

Read more about other ideas for tackling wildfire issues by clicking on the link above.

LA Times gets it right

by Rich Fairbanks
Once again, veteran LA Times reporter Bettina Boxall nails an aspect of the fire issue.

The subhead to this Dec. 31, 2008 story kind of tells it all:  "About 1.4 million acres burned in 2008 in one of the worst fire seasons in the state's history. But no meaningful reforms are enacted at the state or federal level."

In fiscal 2008, half of the $1.4 billion that the U.S. Forest Service spent nationally on wildfire suppression was spent in California alone. State fire expenditures topped $1 billion.  So we spent 1.7 billion on fire suppression in California.  Remember, due to fire borrowing, much of the money the feds spent on suppression came out of their regular project budget, thus halting the very fuels reduction work (such as controlled burning) that would eventually reduce the number and extent of wildfires.  Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face!

A number of excellent bills were introduced at the state level but only one passed -- and it was vetoed.

 
A bill written by Assemblyman Dave Jones (D-Sacramento) would have required that new subdivisions in high fire-risk areas have two access roads to ensure that residents could get out and fire engines could get in during an emergency. Developers also would have had to show that they had adequate water pressure and fire protection.

The proposal, supported by firefighter associations, was listed as a "job killer" by the state chamber of commerce, which argued that it could virtually shut down suburban development in certain parts of the state. (Actually I think George Bush already did that with his economic policies, but that is another blog altogether.) The bill was passed by the Legislature but vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The feds fared no better. U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) helped push through an appropriations bill that provided $910 million in emergency funds for federal firefighting and fuel-reduction efforts.
But her proposal to give incentives to communities around the country to adopt a model fire-safe ordinance dealing with building codes and defensible space fizzled. So, we continue to spend megabucks for suppression, but give short shrift to any fire management solution that might inconvenience the developers, the chamber of commerce, etc.

Red Bluff Daily News

Red Bluff Daily News reporter Ashley Gebb published a story on the Restore the Mendo campaign's effort to increase the use of controlled burns in the Mendocino National Forest. She took note of both the values of conducting such burns and the challenges that have been limiting their use.

She reports early in her article that: "Among other benefits, controlled burns reduce threats by removing debris that can cause larger fires, restore forest ecosystems and allow for greater control of smoke irritation said Rich Fairbanks, fire program associate for the California-Nevada region of The Wilderness Society."

She then rightly relays the Restore the Mendo coalition's contention that Congress needs to appropriate more funding for controlled burns and that Congressman Mike Thompson and Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein could be instrumental in making that happen.

Again quoting Fairbanks, this time to put the picture of controlled burns into perspective: "The public needs to recognize that this is something that is part of nature," he said. "Humans have deliberately burned for thousands of years in the West."
 

California Fire News, Firefighter Blog, turn eyes to Mendocino

Several more bloggers turned their attention to the Restore the Mendo campaign this week. California Fire News posted a piece on its site dedicated to providing insight on all things California wildfire.

Meanwhile, Firefighter Blog posted an article on its site that serves the brave men and women who are on the front lines of firefighting. The US Firefighters  blog did the same with a post today. We're actively reaching out to firefighting audiences because the controlled burns play a vital role in reducing the threat of uncontrolled fires that can put fire crews in danger.

The coalition organizing the Restore the Mendo campaign is looking for more blogs that might be interested in what we're trying to do. We could use your help.

Though we are reaching out to the mainstream press and blogs that cover wildfire issues, we would like to find more community-oriented bloggers who live in the cities surrounding the Mendocino National Forest. Do you know any grassroots bloggers who write about any of the following communities?:

Anderson, Arcata, Bayside, Bella Vista, Blue Lake, Carlotta, Corning, Cottonwood, Eureka, Ferndale, Fortuna, Hydesville, Loleta, Redding, Rio Dell, Samoa, Scotia, Shasta Lake, Trinidad, and Weott.

Drop us a lineif you know of blogs, bloggers or other organizations that we should contact. The more people who find out how important controlled burns are in protecting communities and restoring forests, the better job we can do gaining support to increase their use.

Wildfire Today features Restore the Mendo campaign

A comprehensive blog covering wildfire news, Wildfire Today, has posted a piece that explores the need to increase the use of controlled burns on the Mendocino National Forest. 

Publisher Bill Gabbert's conclusion?

"Forests are going to burn eventually. It is not a question of IF, but WHEN. We can control that burning in prescribed fires and do it on our own terms, or we can elect to do nothing and let nature (and careless fire-starting humans) do it for us with unplanned ignitions ... sometimes with catastrophic consequences and/or massive amounts of smoke."

TV commercial kicks off campaign to restore Mendocino National Forest

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Nov. 21, 2008

Contact: Chris Lancette, TWS communications director

TV commercial kicks off campaign to restore Mendocino National Forest
Local rancher Bill Burrows stars in TV ad about value of controlled burns

Mendocino County, CA -- A new television commercial that begins airing today marked the launch of an educational campaign aimed at increasing support for the Forest Service to conduct more controlled burns in California’s Mendocino National Forest. The “Restore the Mendo” campaign seeks to boost awareness of the role such burns play in restoring forest ecosystems, protecting people and property, and saving taxpayer dollars.

“People from many different backgrounds are working together to get away from the timber-war mentality and start managing our forests better,” says Rich Fairbanks, a fire specialist with the California-Nevada region of The Wilderness Society. “The science is pretty unanimous and so is the common sense about the value of using controlled burns on our forests: A series of small disturbances now can prevent a very large disturbance later.”

The campaign includes the TV ad featuring local rancher Bill Burrows (pictured above) airing in cities such as Arcata, Eureka and Redding, media outreach, speaking engagements, and a blog that explores the subject of controlled burns in detail.

“Here I am a redneck rancher sitting down with environmentalists and working together because I agree that we need more controlled burning on the Mendocino,” says Burrows, owner of a multifaceted Tehama County ranch that’s home to enterprises including 150 cattle, hunting trips, and a reservoir providing fresh fish to local restaurants. “Low-intensity burns refurbish vegetation for wildlife and livestock and they’re a must for environmental enhancement.”

The growing coalition of campaign supporters already involves:

• Ranchers like Burrows
• Homeowners
• Mendocino County Board of Supervisors
• California Wilderness Coalition
• Environmental Protection Information Center
• Forest Guild
• The Wilderness Society
• Tehama County Resource Conservation District
• Tehama County Fish and Game Commission

Controlled burns are fires ignited by teams of fire scientists and firefighters in a designated area so that they can accomplish a number of important goals. Among other benefits, controlled burns:

• reduce threats to people (homeowners and firefighters) and communities by removing the debris that can lead to larger fires later
• restore forest ecosystems
• allow for greater control of smoke irritation than uncontrolled, large-scale fires
• save taxpayer dollars by burning in conditions favorable to firefighters rather than fighting fires during hot, dry summers

“Controlled burning, planned and implemented by professional fire managers, works,” says Jesse Jones – a registered professional forester who supports the Restore the Mendo campaign. “It protects natural resources, human lives and property in a cost efficient manner. It’s time to support our natural resource managers so they can get to work  protecting forests and communities from wildfire.”

--End--

 

Poll shows changing attitudes toward wildfire

By Christopher Lancette

It’s one of the most difficult environmental concepts to understand, yet the word is starting to get out: some fires are good things. A look at a recent poll conducted by a coalition headed by The Wilderness Society and The Nature Conservancy revealed that the American public better understands that fire, under the right conditions, helps restore forests and protect communities and firefighters alike.

• Three-fourths of people agree that “some fires in natural areas are beneficial.”
• Two-thirds of people understand that “putting out all fires in natural areas can create conditions that will make later fires burn faster, hotter and more out of control.”

The poll was conducted by the team of Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin & Associates and Public Opinion Strategies. Read the full story by clicking here. 

GAO makes recommendations on fire management

By Rich Fairbanks

(Photo of Robin Nazzaro) The nonpartisan congressional watchdog Government Accounting Office has weighed in on wildfire management issues facing the new congress and administration –- laying out a number of solutions that apply as much to the Mendocino as they do forests across the country.

The statement from the GAO’s Robin Nazzaro, director of the natural resources and environment division, makes several key suggestions:

• Forest Service and Department of the Interior agencies, need to complete a cohesive national strategy that identifies long-term options and associated funding needs for responding to wildland fire issues.
• The Forest Service could take several steps to ensure that fuel (brush, small trees, and other vegetation) reduction funds are allocated to effectively reduce risk. Specifically, when allocating funds and selecting projects, the Forest Service could improve its processes by consistently assessing all elements of wildland fire risk and developing and using measures of the effectiveness for fuel reduction treatments.

Rich Fairbanks is the fire program associate for the California Nevada Region of The Wilderness Society. He can be reached at (415) 398-1111 ext 115.