Home Again; Fire Op Eds

The Antiplanner is back home after a tiring road trip, so today’s post will be brief. But it is worth noting a couple of op eds that appeared about the southern California wildfires.

First, Richard Halsey, of the California Chaparral Institute, has an opinion piece in the San Diego Tribune. Second, the Orange County Register published an article by the Antiplanner.

There are a number of parallels between the two articles, which is not surprising as Halsey’s work has influenced the Antiplanner.

  • Both agree that there is no “one-size-fits-all solution” to the fire issues.
  • Both agree that “scientific research does not support” the idea that there is an “unnatural fuel build up due to past fire suppression practices.”
  • Both agree that the solution lies not in thinnings (or, as Halsey puts it, “grinding up native wildlands in a quixotic attempt to control nature”) but in retrofitting homes and other structures to be firewise and to meet shelter-in-place or stay-and-defend standards.
  • For what it is worth, both also agree that there were a lot of fires in previous decades, so the recent fires are not evidence of global warming (a point also made by anti-junk-scientist Steve Milloy.

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Halsey knows more about chaparral ecosystems than the Antiplanner, so he some other interesting points. First, he says that the problem in chaparral forests is too much fire, not too little (which is often claimed to be the case for other western forests). Repeated burnings of the same acres within a few years of one another can reduce the resiliency of the forests.

Second, Halsey argues that, “because folks retire and people forget,” it would be a good idea to codify shelter-in-place standards into a county ordinance. While the Antiplanner resists such government intrusions, Halsey makes a good case.

My priority is in fixing the Forest Service’s blank check that currently reduces the incentives for homeowners to follow firewise principles. I also strongly oppose any efforts to restrict home construction in fire-prone areas. County codes, rather than simple advice, may or may not be needed, but I would rather have those codes than restrictions such as the ones advocated by CBS News.

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About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

3 Responses to Home Again; Fire Op Eds

  1. Dan says:

    Halsey knows more about chaparral ecosystems than the Antiplanner, so he some other interesting points. First, he says that the problem in chaparral forests is too much fire, not too little (which is often claimed to be the case for other western forests). Repeated burnings of the same acres within a few years of one another can reduce the resiliency of the forests.

    Randal, you are confusing your ecosystems.

    The chaparral of coastal southern CA, by definition, is fire-prone as it is located in Mediterranean ecosystems that have little or no summer precipitation. There is no “too much” fire in these ecosystems, unless you want to build there.

    And, as chaparral is not a forest but rather shrubland, comparisons to forests for whatever purpose are not germane. Fires in chaparral are a dominant feature of that environment, thus chaparral loses its resilience in the absence of fire, not in the presence of fire (unless fire occurs every year for a number of years). The chaparral ecosystem is supremely adapted to particular fire regimes and to the flush of N that occurs after fire.

    The USFS has minimal impact in chaparral, coastal scrub, coastal grassland, and most CA coastal lands except in the far north. The USFS has worked closely with landowners in particular areas – as I pointed out before, there were various firewise programs in place around Tahoe (one of your commenters even tried erroneously to state that environmentalists opposed firewise programs).

    DS

  2. CHAPARRAL says:

    DS, you wrote:

    “chaparral loses its resilience in the absence of fire”

    This is incorrect. There is no scientific evidence to support this notion. In fact, there is strong evidence that the longer between fires, the greater the success of germinating chaparral shrub species.

    Yes, there is TOO MUCH fire in southern California shrublands. The fire return interval before humans arrived (including Native Americans) was probably between 50-200 years in some areas (shorter at higher elevation, longer at lower elevations). Now return intervals between 4-15 years are common. The system can not handle that much fire. This is why much of the lower elevation areas of the four southern California National Forests are now weedlots.

    Speaking about blank checks, the Antiplanner is right. The bottomless budget for fire suppression does lead to the feeling that fire protection is an entitlement. This is why the development of community based “fire watch” groups (where a volunteer group of residents train to deal with wildland fire) can begin to give back some control to individual citizens.

  3. Dan says:

    First, you’ll note that I parenthesized the fact that frequent fires cause chaparral to lose resilience.

    You’ll also note that – due to the heterogeneity of chaparral, I didn’t state particular FRIs, as that is hard to do unless you specify a particular location. That is: whether the FRI you state is that long depends upon the community composition type, aspect, etc. Certainly the standard references (I have two on my shelf, by the author whom I studied under) state that the mosaic pattern makes such sweeping assumptions problematic.

    Next, you should consider another aspect of community composition when discussing reseeeding: whether a spp is an obligate seeder or resprouter, and obligate seeders (Ericaceae, Rhamnaceae) being dominant spp depends upon many factors. Thus, where these families are dominant spp, absence of fire allows plants to complete their life histories. But obligate resprouters coexist in all areas, and this mosaic adds resilience to chaparral. ALL spp. benefit from the flush of N post-fire.

    And I’d caution you about your statements about FRIs in Pondo forests in S CA, as depending upon aspect and drought regime, they are more on the order of 15-45 years. But overall, your statements about too much fire in chaparral today are correct. Now, whether it is wise to think that we should continue to suppress fire in these fire-prone forests, well, if the homes weren’t there we would allow them to return to some semblance if a real FRI.

    DS

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