Understanding Our New Wildfire Crisis: Can We Tame The Blazing Beast
Chris Ineich
Mendocino College and Sonoma State University
1 Since 2015, our region has been hit harder than any other by wildfire…
• And it’s reshaping our world and reputation!
vividmaps.com 2 An unprecedented fire year
• >4 million acres burned1 -more than 4% of total land area in state
• 5 of the 6 largest fires in California history occurred in 20202 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_California_wildfires#/medi a/File:2020_California_wildfires.png 1 https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2020/ 2https://www.fire.ca.gov/media/11416/top20_acres.pdf 3 4.0
3.5
3.0
2.5
2.0 Acres Burned in California Wildfires
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/10/briefing/california-wildfires-bob-woodward-coronavirus-your-thursday-briefing.html 3 of the 5 largest fires in California history have affected some combo of Mendocino, Lake, Sonoma or Napa Counties #1: August Complex (2020)-1,032,648 acres #2: Ranch Fire (2018)-410,203 acres #5: LNU Complex Fires (2020)-363,220 acres
Regional wildfire toll since 2015 -More than 2.3 million acres burned -More than 15,000 buildings destroyed -52 lives lost Redding Pieces of a 6-year burn Red Bluff scar puzzle August Complex Fire (2020) • Contiguous burn scar covers more than 2-million acres Ukiah Ranch Fire -70 times the size of San (2018) Rocky & Francisco Valley, Kinkade, Jerusalem Tubbs, Nuns, Fires (2015) Atlas, Glass Fires • N-S extent spans entire length of (2015-20) LNU Complex (2020) Inner North Coast Ranges Santa -Equivalent to distance from Rosa Fairfield Fairfield to just south of Redding • roughly 160 miles! 6 Contiguous burn area includes…
• Nearly all of Mendocino National Forest -And Berryessa-Snow Mountain National Monument • Entire viewshed of Lake Berryessa
Fires burned all or part of: • 3 national forests, 4 state wildlife areas, 7 federal wilderness areas, 3 University of California field stations, 5 state parks or forests, 9 regional or county parks and about a dozen public or private nature preserves
7 Smoky Got It Wrong
• Suppressing natural fires for all those years allowed fuel to build up to a point where fires became uncontrollable
8 Wildfires can produce many ecological benefits
• Recycle nutrients and detritus • Control pests and diseases • Reduce competition between plants, allowing the survivors to be more robust and healthy • Reduce fuels for more destructive fires in the future • Create a diversity of habitats, benefiting wildlife and increasing biodiversity • Stimulate growth and reproduction of fire-dependent plants
9 Plant adaptations to fire: Fire-induced Reproduction
Serotinous cones require calflora Bryant Baker fire to open up and Fire Followers require release seeds fire to germinate -e.g. Knobcone and Bishop -e.g. Whispering Pines, Giant Sequoia Bells 10 Plant adaptations to fire: Sprouting
http://sonomavegmap.org/firestory/index.html
Trunk sprouting in Coast Redwood Pacific Madrone 1-yr after fire Pacific Madrone 8-yrs after fire 11 Plant adaptations to fire: Thick Bark
Thick, insulating bark protects internal tissues
-True of many needleleaf conifers (e.g. Redwood, Douglas-fir, Ponderosa Pine) and savanna oaks (e.g. Blue Oak, Valley Oak)
12 Burned landscapes can be more resilient than you might think
13 Burned landscapes can be more resilient than you might think
14 Postfire recovery can be swift
alltrails.com alltrails.com
Wilson Valley overlook; Cache Creek Same site in 2019, 4-years after Rocky Fire Wilderness 2013 15 California is a fire-adapted ecosystem
• Summer-dry Mediterranean climate makes region susceptible to fire
• Ignitions have long been provided by lightning and humans -63,000 lightning strikes per year across California1 -Native Californians once intentionally set thousands of fires every year as part of traditional land management practices
Van Wagtendonk & Cayan. 2008. Temporal and spatial distribution of lightning strikes in California in relation to large-scale weather patterns. Fire Ecology (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254921807_Temporal_and_Spatial_Distribution_of_Lightning_Strikes_in_Calif ornia_in_Relation_To_Large-scale_Weather_Patterns) 16 Before European settlement, indigenous Californians used fire as a management tool “Fire was the most significant, effective, efficient, and widely employed vegetation management tool of California Indian tribes…Deliberate burning increased the abundance and density of edible tubers, greens, fruits, seeds, and mushrooms; enhanced feed for wildlife; controlled the insects and diseases that could damage wild foods and basketry material; increased the quantity and quality of material used for basketry and cordage; and encouraged the sprouts used for making household items, granaries, fish weirs, clothing, games, hunting and fishing traps, and weapons. It also removed dead material and promoted growth through the recycling of nutrients, decreased plant competition, and maintained specific plant community types ”1 Professor M. Kat Anderson, UC Davis
1Anderson. 2005. Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California’s Natural Resources. UC Press. p. 136 17 Certain California plant communities probably owe their existence to indigenous burning
Without fire or grazing, coastal prairies transition to scrub community 18 Father Juan Crespi described the Central Coast while it was still under indigenous management
We “went over some pretty high hills with nothing but soil and grass, but the grass all burnt off by the heathens…and (we) shortly descried from the height a large arm of the sea (San Francisco Bay).”1 Nov 4, 1769; traveling over Sweeney Ridge (San Mateo County) (1)Recounted in: J. Paddison. 1999. A World Impenetrable coastal scrub covers Sweeney Transformed: Firsthand Accounts of California Before the Gold Rush; p. 16. Heyday Books. Ridge today 19 Native Californians used prescribed fire to maintain prairies and oak woodlands in forested regions
20 Douglas-fir invasion…
21 Fir eventually overtops oaks
If there are enough of them, may kill oaks by depriving them of sunlight
22 Many mountain meadows are the product of indigenous burning
1899 1994 George Gruell. 2001. Fire in Sierra Nevada Forests: A Photographic Interpretation of Ecological Change Since 1849. Mountain Press. 23 Yosemite’s former caretakers comment on the change “Some native people, displaced during Euro-American settlement…returned to their homelands years after relocation only to find them overgrown and untended. Maria Labrado Ydrte, granddaughter of Chief Tenaya of the Southern Sierra Miwok…returned to her beloved Yosemite after seventy- eight years. She shook her head and said, “Too dirty, too much bushy.”” Her great-grandson James Rust elaborated: “In the old days, there used to be a lot more game-deer, quail, grey squirrels, rabbits. They burned to keep down the brush. The fires wouldn’t get away from you. It wouldn’t take all the timber like it would now…I remember Yosemite when I was a kid. You could see from one end of the Valley to the other. Now you can’t even see off the road.”
1Recounted in Anderson. 2005. Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California’s Natural Resources. UC Press. pp. 156-157
24 Reconstructing pre-settlement fire regimes
Tom Swetnam
Fire scars leave a dateable record of past fire in tree rings 25 Reconstructing pre-settlement fire regimes
Redwood Forest: 15 yrs Douglas-fir-Mixed Hardwood Oak Woodlands: 12 yrs Forest: 13 yrs
Median Fire Return Intervals
Van de Water and Stafford. 2011. A summary of fire frequency estimates for California vegetation prior to Euro-American settlement. Fire Ecology Vol 7, Issue 3, pp 26-58 (https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs/rmrs_gtr292/2011_vandewater.pdf) 26 2020 burn acreage isn’t so unusual
California-Average Annual Wildfire Acres
In the context of the pre- settlement fire regime, 2020 was an average fire year! 1950-99 2000-09 2010-19 2020 Pre-1800 Estimate
Stephens et al. 2007. Prehistoric fire area and emissions from California’s forests, woodlands, shrublands and grasslands. Forest Ecology and Management: Vol 251, Issue 3; pp 205-216. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378112707004379) 27 The nature of fire has changed
Fires intentionally set by Fires started accidentally and Native Californians under burning under extreme mild weather conditions weather conditions
Fire intensity limited by Fire intensity amplified by sparse fuels oversupply of fuels
28 Fire suppression allowed fuels to accumulate Feather River Canyon, Plumas County
1890 1993
George Gruell. 2001. Fire in Sierra Nevada Forests: A Photographic Interpretation of Ecological Change Since 1849. Mountain Press. 29 Our forests now have too many ladders…
Surface Fire Crown Fire
30 Non-sprouting tree species aren’t adapted to crown fire
Douglas-fir forest after a healthy Douglas-fir forest after a stand- surface fire destroying crown fire 31 Local forest/woodland communities destroyed by crown fire
Mixed Conifer Forest after 2015 Valley Fire and post- fire salvage logging on Cobb Mountain
Blue Oak Shasta fir forest in the Snow Woodland in Mountain Wilderness Area Cache Creek destroyed by 2018 Ranch Fire Wildlife Area destroyed by 2015 Rocky Fire
Photos from alltrails.com 32 Modern fires pose an increasing threat to people and infrastructure
The Los Angeles Times
33 California has racked up a huge wildfire debt -The bill has come due and were paying it back in interest
David McNew Northern Arizona University
34 Luckily, there’s a way we can work off some of that debt…
The Nature Conservancy
35 Luckily, there’s a way we can work off some of that debt…
The Nature Conservancy The good news: Calfire, the U.S. Forest Service, California State Parks, some local tribes and local prescribed burn associations already have prescribed burn programs 36 The anatomy of a successful forest fuel treatment
Large diameter trees are retained to shade the understory -But they are limbed up to minimize laddering Taller understory fuels are mechanically thinned U.S. Forest Service
Forest is underburned to remove slash and excess litter 37 Oak Woodland Fuel Treatments
Burn off grass thatch and invading conifers, brush, etc.
38 Fuel management is an investment…
That will: • Increase the amount of fire while lessening its aggregate threat to people and nature -Restoring a more beautiful, fire-resistant and wildlife-friendly landscape • Shift spending from fire suppression to fuels and landscape management -Total spending increases in the short run, but falls later • Create good jobs in exactly the places that most need them • Reconnect people to nature
39 Make Our Landscape Great Again
40 The Critical Role of Heat and Drought
• Summers that are both HOT and DRY tend to have the worst fires
41 Dr. Robert Rohde; Lead Scientist, Berkeley Earth https://www. pnas.org/con tent/113/42/ 11770 But Haven’t We Always Had Droughts and Hot Summers?
43 Temperatures are rapidly warming across California
44 The effects of warming had been offset by gradually increasing rainfall • 9 of the last 13 years Average Annual Precipitation have brought below Ukiah, CA average rain
• 2013 was the driest calendar year on record -2020 could be drier yet
45 A drought comparison
The last time Ukiah had as little rain as the 2019-20 wet season was 1976-77
Water Year Rainfall (Inches) May-Aug Average Temp (°F) Ukiah, CA Ukiah, CA
72.6
14.20 14.87
F
° inches 68.8
1976-77 2019-20 1977 2020 46 How much worse has climate warming made the early 21st Century drought?
2020 study combined tree ring analysis to compare recent drought (2000-2018) to those of last 1200 years -Used climate modeling to assess severity of current drought with and without human-caused warming Conclusion: Climate warming accounts for 47% of the severity of the 2000-2018 drought -Turning what would have been the 11th worst drought in 1200 yrs into the 2nd worst
P. Williams, et al. 2020. Large contribution of global warming to an emerging North American megadrought. Science Vol 368 Issue 6488. pp 314-318 (https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6488/314)
47 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6488/314 48 • Additional (scary!) findings -The 20th Century was the wettest in the 1200 yr record -Megadroughts of the past have lasted up to 90 yrs!!!
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6488/314 49 • Climate change predicted to shift more of our annual rainfall to the winter months -making the spring and fall months drier
• We are likely to see more years with extreme fire weather conditions in the fall
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-020-02882-4 Where do we want to set the dials?
200-years ago
+ =
Fire Severity Today Wildfire Fuels Temperature Meter
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Status Quo Pathway + =
Aggressive Fuels Fire Severity Wildfire Fuels Temperature Management & Meter Emissions Cuts
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Non-violent activism is a proven driver of political change David Whamond
No political movement has ever failed once it mobilized at least 3.5% of the general population!1
1Harvard Prof. Erica Chenoweth (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJSehRlU34w) An interesting geographic pattern in fire behavior
• Large recent fires have mostly occurred east of Highway-101 An interesting local Cloverdale Summer Fires geographic pattern
Summer Fires • All fires east and north of the Santa Rosa red line occurred in summer Autumn Fires • Nearly all fires west of the Petaluma axis burned in Autumn
Vallejo -And during major offshore wind events
sfchronicle.com 59 Dividing Line 96° Average Corresponds To High 87° Inland Extent 90° 96° Temp. July Of Summer 2020 96° Nighttime 83° 83° Marine Air
Alexander Valley Satellite View of Summer Morning Fog Sonoma Valley
60 July Average High Temperature Trend Potter Valley/Markley ChartCove Title Vs. Calistoga/Sacramento 96
95
94
93
92
91
90 1961-90 1971-00 1981-10 2001-20
Potter Valley/Markley Cove Calistoga/Sacramento 61 Autumn Fires Map Out On Zones Most Affected By Offshore Winds
62 Mitigating Autumn Fire Risk
• Risk is highly concentrated in time • Autumn fires are virtually all human-caused -Best strategy may be to reduce potential ignition sources during expected extreme wind events
• PSPSs • Public education campaigns regarding ignition sources • Trail and campground closures • Public warnings when Red Flag Conditions are expected -Advisories to forgo use of power equipment, etc. Mitigating Summer Fire Risk
• Much less concentrated in time than autumn fires • Human ignitions dominate, but lightning can also be a factor -A multipronged strategy is best • Education campaigns to reduce ignitions • Massively scale up of fuel treatment projects • Make aggressive efforts to curb greenhouse emissions and limit climate warming A lot more people live in wildfire-prone areas
• 1870 Great Fire, 1964 Hanly Fire and 2017 Tubbs Fire burned same area northeast of Santa Rosa
Damages According to Newspaper Reports
1870 1964 Hanly Fire • 4 Ranch complexes (home & • About 100 structures outbuildings) completely destroyed destroyed • No human lives lost • Several additional ranches suffered losses to fences or barns • 400 sheep reportedly killed • No human lives lost
65 2017 Tubbs Fire
Keeley and Syphard. 2019. Twenty-first century California, U.S.A. wildfires: fuel-dominated vs. wind-dominated fires. Fire Ecology, Vol 15, Issue 24
• 5643 structures destroyed
• 22 lives lost
http://sonomavegmap.org/firestory/index.html 66 Perverse Incentives
• Local governments usually have sole authority to regulate development, including in wildfire zones -Reap the benefits of property and sales tax
• State and federal government picks up tab for wildfire and fuels management
• Wildfire-zone homeowners benefit disproportionately from fire suppression and fuels management efforts, but don’t pay proportionately more of the costs
67