By Tim Holt Special to the Record Searchlight

Redding.com

• Posted May 11, 2013 at 6 p.m.

In 2002, under unusually dry conditions, a forest fire swept through an experimental forest maintained by the Forest Service just north of Lassen National Park. Researchers had created a variety of forest environments at this Blacks Mountain Experimental Forest over the years, with young trees mixed in with old growth, and varying densities of undergrowth.

The unexpected fire provided a real-world test for forest fire suppression treatments already put in place at the 10,000-acre experimental forest. These forest floor “treatments” included removal of tinder-box debris like leaves and pine needles, and removal of brush and smaller trees. Now, with an actual fire, researchers had documentation, facts and figures, on the effectiveness of these techniques, how much they’d slowed the spread of the fire to help firefighters contain it, limited the intensity of the fire and the acreage it covered. Only 2,000 acres out of 10,000 were scorched, and the researchers estimated that without the use of their fire suppression techniques a total of 8,000 acres would have burned.

MORE:

http://www.redding.com/news/2013/may/11/forest-researcher-looks-to-past-to-show-how-to/?partner=newsletter_headlines

According to experts we are currently trending 2 months ahead of normal season of curing of fuels and other large fire development parameters.

Here’s a few links to products that reveal where we are headed this summer. ERC’s currently running well above maximums for northern CA.

http://gacc.nifc.gov/oncc/predictive/outlooks/Seasonal%20Outlook.pdf

http://www.predictiveservices.nifc.gov/outlooks/month2_outlook.png

http://www.predictiveservices.nifc.gov/outlooks/extended_outlook.png

Ray A. Haupt

CA. Consulting Forester

PNP comment: Looks like the fires are going to be a REAL problem this year. — Editor Liz Bowen

Published May 04, 2013

 Associated Press

LOS ANGELES –  It seemed that each time wind-driven embers sparked new blazes or a wall of fire leaped a Southern California hillside and came charging toward hundreds of homes, an army of firefighters was right there to either douse or direct the flames away from humanity.

As a result, the fire that broke out Thursday quickly moved through the Camarillo Springs area without destroying a single home.

Firefighters were hoping for the same success on Friday, as the fire raged out of control miles away near the coast.

Fifteen structures in the area 50 miles northwest of Los Angeles sustained some damage, and other homes in a wooded area were being threatened Friday by the blaze that had roared across 43 square miles. Some 900 firefighters using engines, aircraft, bulldozers and other equipment had it just 20 percent contained. Since daybreak, the fire has nearly tripled in size.

“That’s the way this fire has behaved, it has been a very fast-moving, feisty fire,” said Ventura County Fire Department spokesman Bill Nash.

To the north of the fire, parts of the Newbury Park community of Thousand Oaks are under mandatory and voluntary evacuations, Nash said.

Overnight, Nash said firefighters plan to stockpile resources along a road that lies between the fire and Malibu, protecting homes on the fire’s eastern front.

Of the thousands of homes threatened by flames, 15 have been damaged.

The good fortune of the Camarillo Springs area wasn’t the result of luck or clairvoyance by firefighters. It came after years of planning and knowing that sooner or later just such a conflagration was going to strike.

“When developers want to go into an area that is wild-land, it’s going to present a unique fire problem,” county fire spokesman Tom Kruschke said. “And you have to be prepared for that.”

Camarillo Springs, which was nothing more than rugged backcountry when homes began to go up there 30 years ago, was well prepared.

Its homes were built with sprinkler systems and fireproof exteriors from the roofs to the foundations. Residents are required to clear brush and other combustible materials to within 100 feet of the dwellings, and developers had to make sure the cul-de-sacs that fill the area’s canyons were built wide enough to accommodate the emergency vehicles seen on TV racing in to battle the flames.

“All of our rooftops are concrete tile and all of the exteriors are stucco,” said Neal Blaney, a board member of The Springs Homeowners Association and a 15-year resident. “There’s no wood, so there’s almost no place for a flying ember to land and ignite something.”

When the blaze broke out, Blaney said, volunteer emergency officers in the neighborhood gave the first alert to residents. As a result, when the flames got close, residents were ready to get out of the way of firefighters.

Residents in the area are also particularly vigilant about clearing brush from the hillsides next to their yards, Kruschke said. Normally, firefighters remind people in such areas to do that every June, but in Camarillo Springs people do it every few months. The work paid off this week.

The type of blaze that hit the area usually doesn’t strike Southern California wild-land until September or October, after the summer has dried out hillside vegetation. But the state has seen a severe drought during the past year, with the water content of California’s snowpack only 17 percent of normal.

Read more:  http://www.foxnews.com/weather/2013/05/04/wildfire-churns-across-southern-california-on-10-mile-path-to-pacific-homes/#ixzz2SIRMOFqV

May 1, 2013

 Capital Press.com

HEALDSBURG, Calif. (AP) — Firefighters are battling two small wildfires fueled by gusty winds in Northern California wine country.

State fire officials say the Yellow Fire in Sonoma County north of Calistoga began around 2 a.m. Wednesday and has burned less than half a square mile. The Silverado Fire near Yountville in Napa County started a couple of hours earlier and has burned less than a tenth of a square mile.

State fire spokesman Daniel Berlant says neither fire is threatening structures. The causes are under investigation.

http://www.capitalpress.com/newsletter/AP-wine-country-fires-050113

The Napa fire is 40 percent contained, with full containment expected later Wednesday morning. There is no time estimate on containment of the Sonoma County blaze.

A fire in the Central Valley county of Madera, meanwhile, that has burned less than half a square mile is 50 percent contained.

In Redding Searchlight >>>>
http://www.redding.com/news/2013/mar/08/forest-service-may-let-more-fires-burn/?partner=newsletter_headlines

 SEE Photo in article link above –

AP Photo/Roswell Daily Record, Mark Wilson, File

In this file photo taken Saturday, June 9, 2012, smoke billows from the Little Bear Fire in southeastern New Mexico near Ruidoso, NM. When lightning sparks a wildfire deep in remote wilderness, U.S. Forest Service firefighters in recent years have been under orders to respond immediately, often trekking miles through steep, dense terrain with heavy gear to extinguish the blaze as quickly as possible. The agency’s policy to snuff all fires, no matter how small or remote, was meant to decrease the threat of a spreading catastrophe in an increasingly parched, drought-stricken Western landscape. But in 2012 the Forest Service spent hundreds of millions over its budget, leading to a new approach to wildfire management in 2013.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — After coming in $400 million over budget following last year’s busy fire season, the Forest Service is altering its approach and may let more fires burn instead of attacking every one.

The move, quietly made in a letter late last month by Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell, brings the agency more in line with the National Parks Service and back to what it had done until last year. It also answers critics who said the agency wasted money and endangered firefighters by battling fires in remote areas that posed little or no danger to property or critical habitat.

Tidwell played down the change, saying it’s simply an “evolution of the science and the expertise” that has led to more emphasis on pre-fire planning and managed burns, which involve purposely setting fires to eliminate dead trees and other fuels that could help a wildfire quickly spread.

“We have to be able to structure (fire management) this way to help all of us,” Tidwell told The Associated Press. “So that we’re thinking about the right things when we make these decisions.”

The more aggressive approach instituted last year was prompted by fears that fires left unchecked would quickly devour large swaths of the drought-stricken West, Tidwell said. New Mexico and Colorado reported record fire seasons in 2012, and with dry conditions remaining in much of the region 2013 could be another bad year in the West.

In all, the agency oversees about 193 million acres in 43 states.

READ more at the above link:

PNP comment: Boy is this a political hornet’s nest. But from a layman’s perspective, I say that fighting fire has become BIG business. Makes big bucks for agencies fighting fires. There is tremendous waste. And, although I believe firefighters deserve a good wage — that is out-of-control as well.

In our area for many decades, the ranchers and then loggers fought the fires. They had the equipment and the know-how. Our forests were typically much less dense than they are now. The over-crowding of trees is way past natural, which creates extremely hot catastrophic fires. I could go on and on.

All I know is that the state Cal-Fire and state legislators and California Governor are trying to fill the state’s General budget and their salaries by creating “Fire Protection Fees” that are nothing but a lie. — Editor Liz Bowen

Associated Press

Redding.com

• Posted February 17, 2013 at 7:18 p.m.

SACRAMENTO — California officials are pushing hard— some say too hard — for money to recover the costs of fighting wildfires, The Sacramento Bee reported Sunday (http://bit.ly/150cEka).

For the last eight years, the state has more aggressively gone after businesses and individuals it blames for starting wildfires, but now some of those targeted are pushing back, the newspaper said.

READ it:

 http://www.redding.com/news/2013/feb/17/california-officials-push-recover-cost-fires/?partner=newsletter_headlines

16 hours ago  •  By ROB CHANEY of the Missoulian

Wildfires and weather share a common problem: We all talk about them, but what can we do about them?

The federal government hopes to answer the wildfire question with a three-year strategy session that’s wrapping up this month. But there’s no guarantee the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy will save an acre of forest. In fact, it might force the nation to decide how much it’s willing to let burn.

“We’ve never done this before, and we’re still trying to work out the details,” former forest supervisor Alan Quan said from his home in Prescott, Ariz. “We’re looking at where are the values we’re protecting? Where are the risks? What would make sense? What areas are best to manage to reduce fire risk to the community? What resources could provide protection?

Quan coordinated the nationwide drafting effort, after Congress’ 2009 FLAME Act got the strategy effort started. On Dec. 15, it enters a last comment period before it becomes a final draft action plan on Feb. 16.

“We’re not down to the level of how many helicopters should we have, but where do we have growth?” Quan said. “Where should these resources be placed?”

The process resembles a city’s efforts to manage its fire department: How many fire stations do we need and where should they be located? Do we need more ladder trucks or haz-mat vehicles? Unfortunately, wildland fire isn’t nearly as well understood as urban fire.

“The scientists aren’t going to say, ‘This is what you need to do,’ ” Quan said. “They’re saying, ‘Tell us what are the questions you want answered.’ And the answers may be so outrageous, it could force another way of thinking.”

The first question: If the country keeps fighting wildfires the way it has been, what will forests look like in 10 or 20 years? The second question: If we don’t like that trend, what would it take to change it?

And the trend looks bad. Last week, Doug Morton of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center released results of a new climate model and its implications for wildfire.

The short version of his findings: Extreme fire seasons will become two to four times more frequent in the next 30 or 40 years. Fire seasons like 2012, where 6.17 million acres burned nationwide, may become normal.

READ it:

 http://missoulian.com/news/local/let-it-burn-federal-agencies-draft-national-wildland-fire-strategy/article_595c8c9c-41bf-11e2-8370-0019bb2963f4.html

By Liz Bowen

In the article below, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack claims rural America is less revelent and farmers are not progressive enough.

Both sentiments couldn’t further from the truth. But then, we know that Obama’s administration constantly tells non-truths. You know, if you tell a lie over and over again, people will believe it.

Wonder what Sec. Vilsack will have to say about the destruction from fires, because the forests are 10 times too thick — way past natural and burns so hot everything is destroyed.

For more on Sec. Vilsack coming to Trinity Co. go to:

http://jeffersonnewsservice.com/?p=920

• By Joe Szydlowski

Redding.com

• Posted November 24, 2012 at 9:56 p.m.

One of the moonscapes left in the Ponderosa Fire’s wake is Bluff Springs, which sits near where the blaze began. It used to be obvious why the spot was nicknamed “Little Hawaii.”

The verdant trees now are blackened husks above a soft layer of gray ash that covers the soil. Water still trickles down the giant boulders and rocks. It flows into a small brook underneath a California bay laurel tree whose roots snake over a gray rock.

But along the stream that bubbles out of Bluff Springs, ferns and other plants have turned the banks green in some spots. Rock Creek also bears flora, creeping back up out of the darkened soil.

The California laurel, which sits at the center of Little Hawaii, has green sprouts.

READ it:

 http://www.redding.com/news/2012/nov/24/restoration-begins/

PNP comment: Hooray for Herger and McClintock — holding their feet to the fire. — Editor Liz Bowen

http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_21845359/congressmen-rip-park-service-huge-calif-blaze

by DON THOMPSON   10/24/2012  Mercury News

SACRAMENTO, Calif.—Two California congressmen blasted the National Park Service on Wednesday for letting a wildfire burn despite extreme conditions last summer, a decision that conflicted with the practices of other state and federal agencies. U.S. Reps. Wally Herger and Tom McClintock, both Republicans from Northern California, criticized Lassen Volcanic National Park officials for decisions that allowed the Reading fire to eventually erupt into an inferno that scorched more than 42 square miles and cost $15 million to suppress.

It destroyed private property, hurt the region’s logging industry and devastated prime tourism destinations in an area known for its remote beauty.

Herger said the officials responsible for allowing the fire to burn during “a terrible fire season” should be removed and changes made to the national policy that uses managed wildfires as a tool to clear out forests and improve wildlife habitat.

McClintock used the hearing to advocate for a resumption of widespread logging. He said clear-cutting can have the same effect as fires that leave behind a “moonscape” of devastation, though he later said he is not advocating clear-cutting. Massive wildfires cause air pollution, environmental damage and threaten people and wildlife, McClintock said.

“Any squirrel fleeing a fire knows this,” he said, “which leads me to the unflattering but inescapable conclusion that today our forest management policy is in the hands of people who lack the simple common sense that God gave a squirrel.” McClintock said the current policy is that “we have to destroy the forest in order to save it,” a notion that he described as “New Age nonsense.”

Bill Kaage, the park service’s Wildland Fire Branch chief, generally defended the decisions but said park officials intend to learn from the fire. Park officials should have done a better job of coordinating with other federal, state and local agencies and area residents, he acknowledged, and other lessons may come from an internal review due to be completed next month.

Though the fire jumped the park’s boundary and blazed out of control, no structures were damaged and there was just one minor injury, said Kaage, the only park official to testify.

“Fire is a very high-risk, high consequence endeavor,” he said. “With that high risk, there are successful outcomes and outcomes that are less than successful.”

Park Service officials’ decision conflicted with the U.S. Forest Service’s practice last summer of quickly putting out fires because of extraordinarily dry conditions across the West, testified Joe Millar, the agency’s Fire and Aviation Management director for the region that covers California. The two federal agencies differ over their approaches to fighting wildfires and have had previous conflicts over the matter throughout the West.

Andy McMurry, deputy director for fire protection for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said the decision to treat the lightning-caused fire as a timber management tool came “at an inopportune time” and ran counter to his agency’s policy of quickly stamping out every fire before it could spread.

Kaage said park officials followed the same federal wildfire policy used by the Forest Service and other federal agencies and stuck to their own fire management plan when they decided to monitor what began as a remote, low level, half-acre fire. The only difference is that the Forest Service makes fire management decisions at the regional level, while the Parks Service leaves those decisions to local officials, he said in supporting that local control.

Similar managed fires burned uneventfully this summer in Yosemite and Rocky Mountain national parks, Kaage said, and even seemingly devastated areas recover in time from fires that are a natural and inescapable part of the Western landscape.

The fire jumped its perimeter a week after it began. At one point it threatened nearly 150 homes and 50 commercial properties.

It burned through part of the Pacific Crest Trail north of Lower Twin Lake, much of the popular 10-mile Twin Lakes Loop Trail, and the less heavily used Nobles Emigrant Trail, said Lassen park spokeswoman Karen Haner. However, none of the park’s popular hydrothermal areas were affected.

Wednesday’s hearing was requested by angry Shasta County supervisors.

The park is surrounded by generally poor communities that used to rely on the timber industry but now survive on the brief summer tourist season, testified Pam Giacomini, a business owner who has been elected to the Shasta County Board of Supervisors. The fire “cost them dearly,” she said, suggesting that park officials be required to compensate local businesses for their economic losses.

Those communities saw no economic benefit from the fire but would from a resurgent timber industry, said Giacomini and others.

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