Explainer: Blame climate, but crowded
forests also fuel California fires
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[November 14, 2018]
By Nichola Groom
(Reuters) - With a tweet blaming
California's wildfires on "gross mismanagement of the forests,"
President Donald Trump dismissed the role of climate change in the
worsening blazes across the U.S. West - generating widespread derision
in the Golden State.
Viewed on the surface as the latest shot by Republican Trump at a
Democratic state that has repeatedly pushed against his administration's
policies, the tweet nevertheless shone a spotlight on California's
overgrown forests and their role in devastating fires.
In fact, few disagree that California's increasingly dry and overgrown
forests are, effectively, large-scale tinderboxes.
"California's forests are reaching a breaking point," the Little Hoover
Commission, an independent state oversight agency, wrote in a report
earlier this year.
The report outlined recommendations such as increased prescribed burning
and dedicating more money and jobs toward forest management -- measures
the state is already adopting.
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Trump in the past has blamed environmental regulations for fires in
California and promoted tree clearing to stop blazes. Last week, he took
to Twitter again, saying, "There is no reason for these massive, deadly
and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is
so poor."
The president was pilloried by firefighters and California Governor
Jerry Brown, whose spokesman called Trump "uninformed."
Nearly 60 percent of California's 33 million acres of forests are under
federal control, Trump's critics said, noting the importance of climate
change in causing more frequent and destructive fires. With a warming
climate, rising temperatures and an increase in dry conditions in
already-dry areas lead to a higher likelihood of drought.
California does not stand alone. The U.S. Forest Service's practice of
fire suppression has been an issue across many Western states. Although
the Forest Service had changed that practice in the 1970s, a massive
fire in Yellowstone National Park in 1988 caused the practice of letting
fires burn where possible to be scrolled back. In addition, various
groups and researchers cite increased building of housing near forests
that have resulted in the need to battle more blazes.
And not all wildfires are fueled by forests. The current Woolsey fire
burning near Malibu in Southern California is being fueled by coastal
chaparral.
LOGGING RESTRICTIONS
Yet the Little Hoover Commission report found poor management policies
for the last century have left forests vulnerable to fires.
"The costs of long neglecting and mismanaging forests have become an
unsustainable burden in California," the report said.
Before Europeans settled in California, Native American fire practices,
including periodic low-intensity fires, helped renew forests and kept
them from becoming too dense. Policies of aggressively fighting every
fire, however, have resulted in the loss of that natural thinning.
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A house destroyed by the Camp Fire is seen in Paradise, California,
U.S., November 13, 2018. REUTERS/Terray Sylvester
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In addition, federal and state restrictions on logging caused timber
harvesting in California to decline more than 70 percent between the
late 1980s and 2012, according to a U.S. Forest Service report.
Trees in federal forests where timber harvesting is prohibited have
high mortality rates from wildfire, and dying trees currently
outpace new growth, according to a report by the California Air
Resources Board (CARB).
"When John Muir arrived and discovered Yosemite we had about 40
trees to an acre. Today we have hundreds of trees to an acre," said
Rich Gordon, president of the California Forestry Association, an
industry group. "We will be better off if we can get closer to the
way our forests once were."
CARB, which oversees the state's aggressive climate change
regulations, has estimated that 15 million acres, or nearly half of
the state's forestlands, were in need of restoration. If left to
languish, the forests could become a source of overall greenhouse
gas emissions by burning rather than a means to draw carbon from the
atmosphere, CARB said.
Between 2010 and 2017, drought and bark beetle infestation
contributed to the death of 129 million trees in the Sierra Nevada,
increasing the risks of wildfires in the region, according to the
U.S. Forest Service.
DISASTER FUND
Recently, California has pushed for changes to the way its forests
are managed, including performing more prescribed burns and
advocating for harvesting timber from its forests for wood products
or energy production. The U.S. Congress acted this year, too,
creating a disaster fund to fight fires and stop diverting funds
away from much-needed forest management.
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Earlier this year California's Brown doubled the amount of land open
to vegetation thinning, to 500,000 acres from 250,000 acres, and
streamlined permits for landowners to clear trees.
A new law also allocated $200 million a year for forest health and
fuel reduction projects as well as a scrutiny of California's
1970s-era logging laws.
More commercial harvesting could help pay for the hefty cost of
clearing dry fuel, Oregon State Professor John Bailey said, though
it would just be one part of a range of solutions.
"We can't just log our way out of this," Bailey said.
(Reporting by Nichola Groom; editing by Bill Tarrant and Leslie
Adler)
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