Guest Columnist
Fifty-some years ago, a popular singing group "The Mamas and Papas" jumped to the front of the hit parade with their iconic song "California Dreaming." An updated version a half-century later might be ‘California Burning.' For the last month, the nightly news programs have featured a segment on the massive wildfires burning across the Golden State. This isn't a new phenomenon – a year ago the same programs were talking about the massive fire in the Napa wine country.
In checking back through the archives of this column, I wrote about wildfires in 2013 and again last year. Do I have anything to add to warrant another stab at this topic? I think so.
You recall that a fire takes three ingredients to begin and spread: spark, oxygen and fuel. The real variable here is fuel; if man can control the fuel load, then the danger from wildfires will diminish. On the other hand, if the fuel load is not lowered, Mother Nature will take over and establish its own control over the fuel through fire. High winds make the situation worse, but don't forget, fire creates its own wind as it sucks air and oxygen into the center to accelerate the flames.
In June, I was vacationing in the Mammoth Lakes region of East Central California. This is California's premier ski resort on the east side of Yosemite National Park. We were at about eight thousand feet above sea level and I was amazed by the amount of standing dead timber, large 100 plus foot Ponderosa and Lodge Pole pines – thousands of large dead trees. It will take many years in this dry climate for these trees to weaken sufficiently to fall and no longer stand as nature's lightning rod for passing thunderstorms. As if on cue, a lightning-induced wildfire broke out about 30 miles southwest; the smoke and ash over several days drove us out of the resort.
Why do these trees (the US Forest Service estimates there are 130 million dead standing trees in California) die? The answer is largely drought and bark beetles, but eventually, they'll die from old age. California (and other western states) has been in an extended period of drought the last ten years. When this happens, older, weaker trees draw their sap into the heart of the tree in an effort to survive. Lower sap pressure is a signal for bark beetles to attack. The combination of drought and beetles has proven devastating to the state's forests.
Note: In North Florida, we currently have an outbreak of the devastating Southern Pine Beetle (SPB). The government has stepped in to incentivize forest landowners to adopt practices that will limit SPD, including species planted, thinning and controlled burning.
Has California faced this threat before and if so, why were they successful at control then but today seem powerless? History tells us this isn't new and in the past, controlling the fuel load was generally practiced, first by Native Americans and more recently, a robust lumber industry, but these controls have largely disappeared. The logging industry in the west, where most of the forests are owned by the federal government, has largely been dismantled and destroyed. So there are no thinnings and harvests to speak of and the fuel loads continue to build, waiting for the next cleansing wildfire.
It is a sad state of affairs. What is different in our region of the country? Three things come to mind. First, we get more rainfall, probably four times as much than the arid west in an average year. Second, most of our forests (70 percent versus 30 percent out west) are in the hands of private landowners who practice better forestry than the government. And third, we have an active logging industry in the southeast which can rightly claim to be the ‘world's wood basket.'
Case in point: in April 2017, I became aware of a bark beetle infestation on a timber tract belonging to my family in neighboring Suwannee County. Damage to our 19-year-old stand of unthinned slash pines was limited to about an acre and killed a few hundred trees. Immediately, I put the stand under contract to be harvested and we carefully watched for reemergence of the beetles – they did not. In August, the loggers moved in and cut the entire tract of 100 acres, sending all timber to market. Since then, we've cleaned, burned and treated the track with herbicide and are under contract to replant this October.
Back to the situation in California: many blame this problem on climate change, global warming or whatever. For those who support this theory, it is a matter of faith and I'd rather not try to challenge their belief. But I would suggest that when politicians use this argument, it is a classic example of bait-and-switch to get you to focus on some other answer than their policies. Plus, they're taking a lot of money from the people who support their position; they have a vested interest.
Do not be surprised when you continue to see stories about out-of-control wildfires in the arid west. "The chickens have come home to roost."