Wildfire Effects

While in Yosemite this past week, I got my first look at the area where Park Service fire people lost their controlled burn project within an hour of starting it. They were late getting started and the winds turned from downslope to upslope during the morning of a near-record high temperature summer day. The embers flew out of the fires they set and landed in the snags left over from the 1989 A-Rock Fire, which I was involved with salvaging dead timber on. Since this part of the fire is in Yosemite National Park, no post-fire salvaging could be done and all of the old growth that perished in the first fire became fuel for the next fire 20 years down the road.

As you can clearly see, the re-burn incinerated everything that had grown back in 20 years time. In many spots in this picture, ALL organic matter in the soils has been vaporized. The tremendous heat, estimated at up to 1342 degrees F, depletes the soil of nutrients up to three feet down. This fire burned 17,000 acres (26 square miles!) and cost $15,000,000 to put out. The original acreage of the controlled burn was supposed to be 90 acres. Take a look at this "moonscape".

A view of the upper slopes also shows the utter devastation from an intense wildfire burning in concentrated dry fuels. This used to be an old growth pine stand, with trees that had survived countless wildfires in the last 500 years, or more!

There are those in this country who would have you believe that these fires are "natural and beneficial", or "an integral part of our forest ecosystems". These ideas are a part of a failing paradigm that thinks our forests evolved without human influence and "management". There is amazing evidence that Indians had major impacts over their environment, enhancing their survival and prosperity. They burned vast areas to promote their favorite "crops", like acorns, berries and corn. Historical accounts and even sketches prove that much of the coastal mountains of Oregon were devoid of conifer trees, and that the oak savannas created by Indians burning were the dominant features of the landscape. Today, almost all of those areas have turned back to conifers, and the big forest fires that follow them, like the Biscuit Fire.

Today's high-intensity wildfires are far from being "natural and beneficial", especially when they destroy forests, causing catastrophic erosion, and reach private property. The costs of fire suppression is very high but, the post-fire impacts cost up to ten times more than the original fire. You've seen the mudslides in Los Angeles from the Station Fire. Those will continue to happen for many years into the future because the soils are "melted", with a layer of hydrophobicity, which doesn't allow water to penetrate in the ground.

I'm currently battling several "preservationists", who embrace these kinds of fires. Posting these pictures here will allow me to show others the actual impacts of high intensity wildfires.