Preventing another Fire Season Like 2003
to be done to prevent Southern California and other areas from suffering monster fires.
On October 21, 2003, a fire started at the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base in San Diego County. No one could know this was the beginning of the worst and deadliest fire season in California's history.
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The Grand Prix Fire started in San Bernardino County two hours later and, in just two more hours, the Pass Fire started in Riverside County. Within days, twelve fires were burning in Southern California at the same time.
When the smoke cleared, three quarters of a million acres were turned to ash and charcoal, 24 people were dead, over 3,700 homes were destroyed, and billions of dollars were lost. Wildlife also suffered greatly, their habitat was destroyed, and soil stripped from hillsides left streams and reservoirs clogged with silt and debris.
Such horrifying destruction leaves us with some of the most serious questions facing California and other Western states that endure massive wildfires. Are we willing to allow this to happen again? What have we done during this last year to prevent future disasters?
The answer to the first question may seem obvious. Most of us would say we can't allow this death and destruction to continue. Unfortunately, that is not what officials who are responsible for preventing the next disaster are saying.
The government's official report states, "Similar fire events will happen again." It also states, "The way fires burned in the past is how they will burn in the future." These statements mean officials have thrown up their hands and given up on preventing wildfires. They think all they can do is fight fires and accept the inevitable loss of lives, property, and forests. I can't accept this defeatism. Government lands are the source of the wildfire crisis and government officials must solve it.
California is spending 21 times as much to fight fires today as it did in 1980, yet the area burned is increasing.
There is no question that spending more and more tax dollars each year to fight wildfires has not only failed to solve the wildfire crisis but the crisis has grown worse.
So, what measures have we taken during the last year to prevent future disasters? Not surprisingly, nearly everything focuses on fighting and surviving fires, not preventing them.
The Governor's Blue Ribbon Fire Commission report had the usual list. Better coordination and communication, training, planning, land use and building regulations, brush clearance, fuel breaks, and more equipment and money. Positive steps have been taken to carry out these recommendations. However, the government admits it will not prevent future disasters.
Fuel breaks are especially popular with government agencies, just as they were in the 1960s. They were abandoned because they were ineffective and too expensive to maintain. Now they are back. The same thing will happen this time after we waste tens of millions of tax dollars building fuel breaks.
Most fuel breaks can't stop a 2000 degree wall of flame racing across the landscape. Often wildfires just rush through them or jump over them. Many homes were destroyed in the Southern California fires of 2003 in areas protected by fuel breaks.
The most important recommendation in the Blue Ribbon Fire Commission report, although buried and overlooked, was to create "a safer mix" of age classes "in chaparral" and "fuel types" in forests. Nothing would be more effective for preventing future disasters and saving lives, property, and forests.
Large chaparral fires, which killed most of the people and destroyed most of the homes in 2003, can be prevented. This is easily done by breaking up old highly flammable chaparral, which means 40 years or older, into small patches and surrounding them with young chaparral that doesn't burn easily. Prescribed fire may be the only tool available to do it until we find an economic value for chaparral, such as biomass energy.
The same method works in forests. Reduce the size of patches of old overcrowded forests that burn hot and isolate them from one another with forests that are open and have little fuel. This will keep wildfires contained so that they don't spread across landscapes and destroy whole forests and communities. Unlike chaparral, mechanical methods work best in forests because they pay the cost and they are safer than prescribed fire.
As a fire ecologist and historian of America's forests, the choice seems clear. We can't give up and watch torrents of fire incinerate forests, kill people, and lay waste to communities. We must have the courage to mange our forests and brushlands to protect each other and our environment.
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Thomas M. Bonnicksen, Ph.D., is an historian of North American forests and the originator of "restoration forestry." He is professor emeritus of forest science at Texas A&M University, visiting scholar at The Forest Foundation,and author of "America's Ancient Forests" (John Wiley, 2000).