Preparing for Wildfire Disaster
This essay appeared in the Riverside Press Enterprise on July 13.
The annual cycle of destruction from wildfires has begun to plague Californians again in 2005. More than 1,000 counselors and children at summer camps in the San Bernardino Mountains east of Los Angeles were evacuated July 5th as a wildfire approached their cabins.
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We know where wildfires will burn. We know why fires become catastrophic. We even know how to prevent them from hurting our children and communities. What we lack is the will to do what's right and necessary.
This is the 21st century, yet we haven't advanced beyond the Middle Ages when people thought they were defenseless against mythical fire-breathing dragons. Like then, today many people believe catastrophic wildfires are unstoppable monsters. The myth is that all we can do is prepare for disaster by conducting evacuation and firefighting drills.
A few weeks ago, the Riverside Mountain Area Safety Taskforce and cooperating agencies held a military-style evacuation drill in Idyllwild, Calif. About 400 firefighters, law officers, animal rescue experts, and utility representatives took part. It was a massive effort that frightened local residents because it emphasized the fire danger.
Idyllwild sits half way up Mt. San Jacinto in Southern California. The community is filled with dead trees and heavy brush surrounded by thousands of acres of half-dead forest that is ten times thicker than natural. It is the tip of a torch that only needs lighting. An automobile accident, unattended outdoor grill, dry lightning, or someone with a grudge could set it off and destroy everything.
Evacuation and fire drills are helpful, but real disasters often become confusing nightmares. If a wildfire starts, there are only three narrow winding roads for people to get out of Idyllwild and they must do so while dodging hundreds of firefighting vehicles trying to get in.
In 2003, the Old Fire that rushed up nearby mountains toward Lake Arrowhead is a story of bravery by firefighters and a warning for Idyllwild. Many people know that firefighters risked their lives to save Lake Arrowhead by spreading along Highway 18 and setting back fires to stop the flames. We should praise their courage.
However, that is not the whole story. The front of the fire was too wide for a handful of firefighters to stop. They could only block the center of the blaze, so it swept around them and passed by the east and west sides of Lake Arrowhead.
The east side of the Old Fire destroyed much of the LA Council of Boy Scouts camp and 300 homes in Cedar Glen. Then it curved westward and headed back toward Lake Arrowhead. The only thing that kept it from destroying Lake Arrowhead was a cold front and drizzling rain. I was there on a Congressional fact-finding assignment and saw what happened.
The narrow escape at Lake Arrowhead should be a warning for people living in Idyllwild. Unless it rains, a wildfire could destroy Idyllwild no matter how brave the firefighters.
Even fuel breaks, which often fail, and clearing brush around homes, however important, are not enough. The real threat is the overgrown forest outside the community. Current efforts to cut just dead trees killed by bark beetles in narrow strips along roads and communities will not thin the forest enough to make Idyllwild safe from wildfires.
The solution to annual wildfire disasters is as simple as it is obvious. Just look for the thickest forest or the oldest chaparral and that is where a catastrophic fire will burn. Reduce fuel within the forest as well as around communities and you reduce the threat.
We must be willing to spend the money necessary to restore our forests to their natural condition rather than just waiting for them to go up in flames. While leaders talk of commitment when a fire rages, it must continue after a fire is forgotten.
Unbiased science and a century of experience show that most of today's wildfires are neither natural nor inevitable. We know how to stop the cycle of death and destruction from wildfires. Children in summer camp in southern California or anywhere else in America should not have to fear for their lives. All we have to do is restore our forests and brushlands to their historic grandeur, biological diversity, and resistance to high-intensity fires. This will provide effective and reliable fire protection. It only takes the will to do it.
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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).