Part 1 - FOREST FIRES : Recently, I attended a meeting with
region 5 Forest Service officials and northern California counties which was arranged by
RCRC (Regional Council of Rural Counties.) Ed Hollenshead, Director of Fire and Aviation
Management, indicated that there would be a difference this year in how they managed large
fires of long duration. Last year, the federal government spent $1.7 billion fighting
fires. Three quarters of this was spent in California. Seven National Forests in have been
identified as areas where the most money is spent fighting large fires. The Klamath, Six Rivers
and Shasta-Trinity Forests are among those identified. Hollenshead indicated that they
would not “place people to appease the public” in trying to achieve fire
suppression on these very large fires. Jim
Pena, Deputy Regional Forester for Region 5, indicated that when resources are assigned in
a competitive situation, it is unlikely that our area will be first on the list.
Fires will now be
categorized into: (1) planned (“prescription” burns); and (2) unplanned. Because
our area has steep slopes, it is difficult to use mechanical means to manage brush. Fuel
treatments will appropriately thin trees and use planned fire to burn what is on the
ground. Unfortunately, since they can’t burn when it is windy, smoke will be a
necessary by-product. The Forest Service would utilize large unplanned fires that were
beneficially reducing fuels to attain pre-identified objectives. There would be more
monitoring and moving of fire around as a tool to manage for resource benefit under the
Forest Resource Plan or Wildland Fire Decision Support Plan.
When asked about
the appropriateness of putting fire on the ground in areas with a high fuel load, Pena
pointed out that there were 20 million acres of Forest Service land in California. Since
2001, about 1.3 million acres of Forest Service Land have been treated and 383 thousand
acres on other lands. This year 270,000 acres have been targeted for fuel reduction,
(196,000 on USFS land.) The Administration agrees that something needs to be done to
change conditions of the ground, but they have been challenged by litigation and appeals.
More emphasis needs to be placed on Fire Safe Councils to help make our communities more
competitive for grants and to utilize RAC (Secure Schools Act Resource Advisory Council)
grant funding to reduce fuels around communities.
Colusa County
Supervisor Gary Evans stated that a ten year study of the cost of fire suppression had
determined that it cost an average of $1,360 an acre for fire suppression. If they had
taken only two percent of that and used it for fuels treatment over 20 years, they could
treat forty percent of the Forest.
Hollenshead also
indicated that they would be re-drawing their “direct protection area”
boundaries. (Areas in California are divided among local response, federal response and
State response.) The Forest had determined that community wildfire protection is outside
of its mission. Pena indicated that when federal firefighters go off Forest Service Land,
it is not for structural protection. Local fire departments are responsible for structural
protection and it is the responsibility of local communities to adequately fund that
protection. When the Forest Service has to focus on areas off the National Forest, it
takes the focus off their mission. The USFS and CalFire will work with local communities
to “help redeem their responsibility when there isn’t a tax base.” This
does not mean that the Forest Service won’t work cooperatively under a Community
Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) that integrates fuels treatments on federal lands with the
private lands to help protect the community from the advance of a wildfire.
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