Out of the Vault - Roger Jaegel
By: Roger Jaegel
Date: August 24, 2024
Source: Record Searchlight
Read: North state needs to fix forest fuels
Read: Catastrophic “reburns” threaten forest towns
On August 24 2004 I submitted this Op-ed to the Record Searchlight reguarding the lack of fuels management on National Forests in Trinity County, California. Since that time, Environmental zealots shut down most logging and needed fuels mitigation. The influence of the Endangered Species Act and many court decisions favoring preservation and halting land management made cleaning up the massive fuel loads after fire, and insect and disease outbreaks near impossible.
We now have approximately half our National Forest (100 million acres) in a condition that is ready to burn. Multiple fires on the same landscapes are converting our once prime forests to brush and invasive weedy vegetation.
It is estimated this is now costing the American public over one trillion dollars per year as fuel conditions on our public lands continue to worsen. As we continue to pay large non-profit environmental organizations under the Equal Access to Justice Act to sue the Federal Government, fuels management work on public lands is still not near the pace and scale needed to protect our rural communities and the surrounding National Forests.
WHEN THE PUBLIC DEBATES TURNS TO “SALVAGE” AND THE ACCUSATION FLY, PLEASE REMEMBER TO ASK ABOUT THE FIRE NEXT TIME.
Published in the Redding Record Searchlight, Speak Your Piece, 2004
Catastrophic “reburns” threaten forest towns
It is time to redefine the political debate about salvage” of fire-killed trees. The fighting is about doing the economically responsible action,” i.e., using fire-killed saw timber and recovering economic value or leaving the land alone and letting it naturally recover. Nothing is natural about the current fire threat to Western families left with the remains of a forest fire on the edge of their community. The threat is very real and not just a debating point.
The debate, currently masquerading as environmentalists versus forest industry, and focusing on the commercial use of killed trees, ignores hard realities. It prevents more important dialogue and the opportunity to discover common ground. We must elevate the dialogue and get some help solving a huge fire threat in the Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains of Northern California and southern Oregon—the fire next time.
When fire-killed trees are not removed and the area is not replanted, fuel loads of up to 150 tons per acre (over 50 tons is considered a fire risk) stand at the edge of our town. Over the years the brush grows up around the standing dead, dying and drying trees.
When the fire burns through the next time, the results are terrifying. The fire is extremely hot. Dead trees burst into flames 20 yards from the flame front. Brush 20 feet high blocks firefighters’ access. Retardant slurry is totally ineffective against the snags that have no branches to catch it. The fires are extremely resistant to control and an extreme danger to firefighters.
We experienced this during the Prairie Fire in 2002, which was a reburn on an untreated portion of the Flume Fire of 1987. The fire reburned so hot the ground looked like a moonscape.
In the past six years we have seen big, stand-destroying fires burn to the edges of our town. The Big Bar Complex in 1998, the Journey Fire above Ruth and Ruth Lake in 2000, The Hyampom Fire next to Hayfork in 2001, the Loma and Reys Fires next to Del Loma and Hyampom in 2003, and the recent Sims Mountain Fire.
Most fire-killed trees are still standing and the brush is coming up. The reasons for the lack of reforestation are varied: environmental lawsuits, lack of planning dollars, deterioration of the commercially usable trees, etc.
The scary part of this increased risk is that it will last for 50 years and end in a raging fire. This happening at a time when the volunteer fire departments are short on manpower and resources. Add to that the hard reality that our fires generally start late in the season, when there are fires in other parts of California. Four times since 1987, large fires in different areas of the West have overwhelmed suppression resources. The agencies moved into “triage,” and high- population areas have priority. They do not come to Trinity County.
When burned areas next to our towns are not cleaned up and replanted, our risk exceeds the tolerable limit. We have five towns in this condition now.
If we do not move very quickly to recover the value from the fire-killed trees, then we have not money to clean up the damage and replant the forest. We all need to ask the Forest Service and our neighbors to quickly deal with this danger.
When the public debates turn to “salvage” and the accusations fly, please remember to ask about the fire next time. Roger Jaegel is a director of the Hayfork Fire Protection District and lives in Hayfork.
Download: North state needs to fix forest fuels
