More Prescribed Fire means less Wildfire!

Tuesday, 18 November 2008 18:47

The California fires are finally out. The summer of 2008 stands as the worst fire season on record for California, with over 800,000 acres burned. Which beat out the previous record, set in 2007. At one point in Northern California, there were over 2,700 individual fires burning. A record dry spring, combined with a July heat wave, combined with heavy fuels loads, contributed to this record breaking summer season.

However, the fire season did not end in August. In November, southern California burst into flames. While half the total acres were burned compared to the northern part of the State, over 43,000; the southern California fires burned more in the "Interface" and resulted in the destruction of over 400 houses, 500 mobile homes, forced the evacuation of thousands of people, and caused the closure of interstate 5.

The Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) refers to the zone where natural areas and urban areas intersect. One fire burning in the WUI in LA, the Sayre fire, caused the worst loss of homes by wildfire ever recorded in the city of Los Angeles. That's right, there was a major wildfire, withing the city of Los Angeles.

That sober fact defines the challenges that face us today in regards to managing fire. The hills of southern California are covered with a volatile mix of chaparral, live oak, grass and dead brush. This ecology has evolved over millenia to regularly burn. However, continued urban and suburban sprawl has pushed homes and businesses out into these fire prone areas. As a result, any fires, even the small ones, are contained as soon as they flare up. While the short term result may protect homes, the long term result has been a severely altered fire regime in these areas. The resulting buildup of fuel contributes to the large catastrophic fires that we see today. The map below is of the Santa Barbara area in southern California. It was developed by the LandFire mapping initiative. Purple are urban areas. Green are areas with normal fire conditions. The red areas are those with severely altered fire regimes. Where red and purple intersect are the WUI zones. It was these areas where the most recent fires raged and hundreds of homes were destroyed.

So the challenge then is, how to return the reds areas to green? One of the best tools that we have for restoring historic fire regimes is prescribed fire. Prescribed fires are those intentionally set, under exact fuel and weather conditions, using trained personnel and specialized equipment to keep the fire in the intended area. These fires are typically lower intensity than wildfires, often conducted in off season, and help to reduce the hazardous buildup of fuels. While prescribed fire in the WUI verses in rural areas involves considerably more risk, due to the homes, this risk is far lower than those posed by catastrophic wildfires. There are ways to lower these risk as well. The FireWise initiative teaches landowners how to mitigate the areas around there homes to lower the risk of wildfire, and improve the safety of their homes during prescribed fires.

The issue of managing fire in the WUI is not only unique to the West Coast. The map below, developed by the Maryland Forest Service, shows the WUI zones for Maryland.

The threats of catastrophic willfire will continue to grow across the country as conditions get hotter and drier, and sprawl continues to push out into the wildland areas. The challenge of dealing with increasingly worst wildfire fires seasons can only be met by fighting fire with fire. More prescribed fire means less wildfire. Period.