Early this week, Oregon governor Kate Brown went on national television to call the Pacific Coast fires a “bellwether for climate change.” As UC Berkeley professor of sustainable development Maximilian Auffhammer writes, “It’s the climate change, stupid.”
This is one of four responses to the Pacific Coast fires. Brown and Auffhammer are warmers, people who believe the earth’s climate is changing and the fires must be due to that change. In the warmers’ minds, the fires themselves then become evidence that we need to change our lifestyles to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions.
A second group are the burners, people who believe that a century of fire suppression has led to a dangerous build-up of fuels in the forests. Oregon Senator Ron Wyden falls into this category. He wants to give the Forest Service and other agencies more money and more freedom to do prescribed burning.
A third group, which is smaller than the other two, are the loggers. They see the increase in fires in the last few years as nature’s response to the decrease in logging on federal lands. (One wonders how the land survived before Europeans came here to log it.) An example is Oregon Congressional Representative Greg Walden, who wants to give the Forest Service more freedom to thin the forests. Thinning, as opposed to burning, means cutting down trees and taking them to a mill.
Note that Brown, Wyden, and Walden aren’t experts; they’re politicians. (Brown and Wyden are lawyers; Walden was a radio broadcaster and radio station owner.) Even Auffhammer isn’t a climatologist; he’s an economist. All of these people are repeating things other people have told them.
But the experts aren’t much better. The warmers’ claims are based on short-term studies that fail to take in account the possibility that recent droughts are just a natural variation in climate. For example, this study looked back just four decades, finding that droughts were worse in 2000-2015 than 1985-1999. Another study also went back only to the 1970s, with the authors claiming that they proved “that human-caused climate change . . . doubled the cumulative forest fire area since 1984.” Both of these studies start out by assuming that humans are causing climate change and then concluding that recent changes in fire must be due to that climate change. With circular reasoning, they further find that increases in fire prove that the climate is changing.
The loggers start with similar assumptions. According to the owner of some sawmills near the Beachie Creek fire, “Ending large-scale logging on federal land has also ended active management, which has only provided more dead trees and created more dense forests that result in more fuel for fires,” he says. But then he adds, “A great deal of our family timberland I think has been hammered.” Wait a minute — if “active management” (which has become the euphemism for logging) protects the forests from fire, how did his family forests, which he presumably actively manages, get “hammered”? In general, the fires last week roared through both public and private forests and only stopped growing when they reached farm lands.
Studies supporting the burners aren’t much better. Many of them begin saying something like, “Most administrators and ecologists agree that reducing the levels of hazardous fuels on forests is essential to restore healthy watersheds and protect adjacent human communities.” There’s no need to prove that statement because “most” agree with it.
Twenty years ago, when I set out to write a report on fire, I also believed that statement. But I didn’t want people to have to take my word for it, so I dug deep into Forest Service fire records that were on file at Oregon State University. I assumed I would find that, after adjusting for levels of drought, the number of acres burned had significantly increased in the last few decades. Instead, I found that fires had been almost perfectly proportional to drought for the previous century. To the extent they were less than perfectly proportional to drought, there were fewer acres burned in recent years that would be expected based on the levels of drought.
This suggested no major changes in on-the-ground conditions had taken place in recent years. This conclusion was supported by a Forest Service report showing that the fire susceptibility of no more than 15 percent of forest lands in the West had been significantly altered by fire suppression.
I also found that, if you look further back than the 1970s, which were an unusually wet and cool decade, there were many droughts in our history as or more severe than the ones we have seen in recent years. As the authors of this paper found, acres burned in western states did not significantly increase over the last 100 years. Instead, they appear to be cyclical, with high periods of drought and burning before 1940 and after 1985 and a low period in-between.
If we go back several hundred years, as this paper did, there is “increasing evidence that there is less fire in the global landscape today than centuries ago.” Specifically in the western United States, the “area burned at high severity has overall declined compared to pre-European settlement,” which is the opposite of what the burners say.
University of Wyoming ecologist William Baker went back a full 2000 years. After scrutinizing fire data in 43 different regions in the western United States, he concluded that “the rate of recent high-severity fire in dry forests is within the range of historical rates, or is too low.”
Variations in fire from decade to decade may reflect climate variations, but if such variations are the result of natural fluctuations, it would be a mistake to call them climate change, much less human-caused climate change. This doesn’t prove that anthropogenic climate change isn’t happening; only that we can’t blame this year’s wildfires on it.
I said there were four groups, and I would call the fourth group the defenders. Fires are going to burn, they say. Fires burned before humans were on the continent; they burned before Europeans started logging; they burned before the era of fire suppression. Instead of proposing some magic prescription that will supposedly stop the fires, the defenders say we need to learn to live with the fires.
Not surprisingly, I don’t know of any politicians who promote this view. Politicians get attention by promising to solve problems, not by saying the problems aren’t going to go away. But the remedies promised by the warmers, the burners, and the loggers aren’t really remedies at all.
The climate activists would have Americans completely change their lifestyles, yet all they can promise is that, if we do, it might influence outcomes several generations from now. That’s not going to help people whose homes and businesses might be in the path of next year’s fires.
The burners want to increase spending on prescribed fire. But the Forest Service is already spending $430 million a year on fuel treatments, and the Department of the Interior spends another $194 million. Given the number of acres they treat each year, I estimate this would have to be tripled to fully manage all federal lands. Even if Wyden could convince Congress to forever spend $1.5 billion a year on prescribed burning, if lightning strikes a tree and then a windstorm blows burning cinders five miles away to land on someone’s cedar-shake roof, as happened last week, that house is going to burn no matter how many acres of prescribed fires were done on the lands between them.
The loggers’ claims are weakened by their obvious self-interest. As forest ecologist Chad Hanson argues, the claim that active management would reduce fire is merely an argument to “plunder the forests,” which are actually left more vulnerable to fire after logging than before. Even climate activists are wary of these arguments.
As a homeowner in the wildland-urban interface, I have my own self-interest, which is to cost-effectively protect homes and other private property from wildfire. Some blame rising fire costs on people like me who live in the wildland-urban interface. But a Forest Service study that compared recent Pacific Northwest fires with the nearby developments “fail to show a relationship between either total housing or housing density and suppression cost.”
I count myself as a defender, along with Jack Cohen, Chad Hanson, perhaps William Baker, and numerous other scientists. I see this debate happen every fire season, so I end up writing about it every year, if only to counter the politicians who grab headlines for being warmers, burners, and loggers.
“…if lightning strikes a tree and then a windstorm blows burning cinders five miles away to land on someone’s cedar-shake roof, as happened last week, that house is going to burn no matter how many acres of prescribed fires were done on the lands between them.”
Perhaps a green roof would fix that. The foliage and the soil would prevent the fire taking hold.
I don’t recall any forest fires in Ohio. Maybe this is why …
“The forests of Ohio have witnessed dramatic changes since European settlement started over 200 years ago. When settlers first came to the Ohio country, the state was predominantly forested. Some have estimated the forest cover was as much as 95 percent.
.
With the dawn of the 19th century, settlement and westward expansion spawned almost 100 years of forest removal. Lands that nurtured excellent tree growth also supported bountiful crop production. Thus started massive forest clearing that continued through the twilight of the century. By the first decade of the 1900s, forest cover had dropped to 10 percent of the state.”
https://ohiodnr.gov/wps/portal/gov/odnr/discover-and-learn/safety-conservation/about-ODNR/forestry/state-forest-management/state-forest-history
Can they grow corn and soybeans in Oregon?
While I agree with the Antiplanner’s logic and position on forest fires, I would caution that therefore this should not be used to deny human caused climate change. Just because the current forest fires do not appear to be unusual compared to the historical record of the last few thousand years doesn’t mean human caused climate change isn’t happening. That climate change is caused by human action is now overwhelming accepted, see: https://www.opr.ca.gov/facts/list-of-scientific-organizations.html
As I have witnessed, those who go into a planning meeting denying human caused climate change will have everything they say ignored. Those who instead point out that any plans to reduce carbon dioxide production without a price per tonne of reduction have a good argument and will be listened to. I encourage support of the carbon fee and dividend
https://clcouncil.org/economists-statement/
as endorsed by thousands of economists. This is the most cost effective way of reducing carbon dioxide production, has bipartisan support and is a winnable argument.
As far as forest fires go, I live on the urban/forest fringe. I am required by the local fire department to have as much area as feasible cut around the house, propane tank, etc, and the fire department does ticket those who are out of compliance. After this years fires my plan is to add 10,000 gallons of water storage and install sprinkles on our wooden decks in case of forest fire. We have joined a local neighborhood fire safety group and bought a portable radio to communicate with them in case of fire. This seems to be the best course of action as present.
Jennifer Marlon, scientist at Yale’s School of Forestry and
Environmental Studies, looked at charcoal accumulation
in sedimentary rock, among other data, to understand the impact of
fires in the West over the past 3,000 years. The “lowest levels” of
Western fires occurred in the 20th century and between 1400 & 1700 AD while prominent peaks in forest fires” took place between 950 and 1250 AD
and during the 1800s. Basically the warming events have more fires the cooling events fewer. The researchers add that the 21st
century rate of burning “is not unusual” based on patterns over the past 3,000 years. based on this data, To sum it up; We’re in a fire
deficit.
Fire’s role in dry land ecology (especially of the US West) is well understood. It substitutes the role normally reserved for soil decomposers (Fungi/bacteria)
– it sweeps away weeds that choke the forest floor
– eliminates competitive weeds/invasives
– reintroduces nutrients (ash) back into the soil
– produces ethylene gas (a natural plant growth booster)
– heat/smoke of the fire heats up cones in conifer trees to open and release their seeds
– triggers plants lying dormant in the soil
Cliff Mass, a well-respected meteorologist in the Pacific Northwest, casts further doubt on the warmers’ theory. He believes strong east winds are a major factor with these Cascade range fires. A warmer climate is associated with a reduction in these winds.
https://mynorthwest.com/2162083/cliff-mass-inslee-climate-change-fires/?
It should be noted that most of Dr. Auffhammer’s post
https://energyathaas.wordpress.com/2020/09/14/its-climate-change-stupid/
has to do with electrical energy supply and is worth reading as he is well qualified in the energy supply issues, especially in a warming climate.
A couple of points.
1. From the perspective of efficient policy defensible space/fire resistant building is likely the most economic. Although I am not a fan of some of their work their fire related stuff is mostly decent: https://headwaterseconomics.org/topic/wildfire/
2. I think there is merit for arguing for more management whether it be logging or prescribed burns. However, its effect is likely going to be limited since the sheer land volume potentially affected is massive. I could see doing something like this is areas close to populated areas etc. Also, I could see the need for management as being a reason to undue some of the illogical drive unimproved road less wilderness areas. One final point on this the idea of harvesting for biomass fuels might fit into this. Granted even then its likely an incomplete solution.
3. The climate change stuff is simply not rational. Even assuming humans are causing a change there is little potential for what is going on to be more than a third order indirect effect. The likely reality of climate change as it is presented here is that it is a emotionally driven irrational belief in an all encompassing evil threatening humanity. As with other beliefs like it there is little rational connect between what is going on and the more nebulous belief in the impending evil. Likely what I see occurring with this belief system is that after multiple doomsday predictions not coming true eventually it will burn out in most people’s mind and be discounted. At the same time the predictions are so vague and long term that it can be exploited for decades before most people will become skeptical. This is particularity true when certain authorities are exploiting the topic to promote their agenda.
The link to Jack Cohen contains what will do the most to solve part of the fire problem …
“No. What you need to do is get rid of the things that firebrands can ignite readily and that is not your wood walls,” Cohen said. “It’s engagement intensive, not necessarily funding intensive. You have to do yearly and sometimes multi-yearly maintenance to remove debris, making sure your cured grass isn’t close enough for flame contact.”
That’s probably a good investment of time, because audience members brought up the fact that insurance companies are beginning to put limits on homeowners policies in wildfire-prone areas. Cohen said the companies didn’t worry about fire claims in the past because they didn’t used to have many. But that’s changing fast. One insurance company in Paradise folded a few months ago because it couldn’t pay all the claims.
“They’re starting to look at their exposure,” Cohen said. “They still don’t have data to know what to charge you for their liability. So they’re looking at how exposed they are to a payout and they’re not renewing policies. That’s been going on for about 10 years now in the western U.S.”
https://missoulacurrent.com/outdoors/2019/04/wildfire-jack-cohen/
Losing your home is bad. Losing your uninsured home is worse. Much worse.
More from Cliff Mass …
Grass Fires Not Forest Fires Dominated Washington State in 2020: What Does That Imply Regarding Global Warming?
The key issue in this event was the strong winds, which were accompanied by COLDER THAN NORMAL temperatures. The crazy powerful winds were forced by a cold, high pressure areas to the east and such cold highs should become LESS frequent under global warming.
And there is something else. Unirrigated areas in eastern Washington are much more flammable today than a century ago because of the invasion of highly flammable invasive grasses such as Cheatgrass (a.k.a. grassoline) …
https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2020/10/grass-fires-not-forest-fires-dominated.html