Living with Fire for Forest Health in the Sierra Nevada

During the past decade western forest scientists have been delivering the message that fire suppression has contributed to the decrease in forest health. Even before the aboriginal occupants of our region began using fire as a vegetation management tool, Western forested ecosystems have evolved with wildfire as a mechanism of disturbance, rejuvenation and nutrient recycling. The consequences of fire exclusion for sequoia groves are beginning to show; almost no new giant sequoias have begun to grow in the last 130 years because sequoia seedling establishment depends on fire to expose bare mineral soil and to create clearings, which with their extra sunlight and soil moisture, are especially favorable for the growth of new trees.

Federal fire scientists have determined that it is the home and its immediate surroundings (30m-60m) that principally determine the potential for home ignition during fires.

Lightning fires have unique spatial and temporal distribution patterns in relation to topography and vegetation. The ecological role of fire is a manifestation of those patterns. The simultaneous occurrence of a lightning strike, flammable fuel, and conducive weather determines the frequency, size, and intensity of a fire. The prevalence of lightning strikes and fires shows conclusively that fire is an integral and pervasive part of Sierra Nevada ecosystems rather than an external disturbance (van Wagtendonk 1994).

Nearly a century of fire control in the Sierra Nevada has led to conditions that now threaten the very forests they were designed to protect. Suppression of naturally occurring surface fires has allowed the forest floor to become a tangle of understory vegetation and accumulated debris. Open forests and meadows have been invaded by trees and chaparral. Thickets of shade-tolerant incense-cedar and white fir have increased and have deflected succession away from the less shade-tolerant ponderosa and sugar pines.

If natural conditions and processes are to be restored and perpetuated in the Sierra Nevada, fire must be reintroduced. In large wilderness areas and parks, naturally occurring lightning fires should be allowed to burn under prescribed conditions. It is important that naturally managed ecosystems not be denied ecologically significant processes such as fire.

Keep Your Home
Fire Safe

1. Create a DEFENSIBLE SPACE of 100’ around your home. The area closest to your home is the most important.

2. Do not have any combustible fuel within three feet of your home.

3. Clear all vegetation and other flammable materials from beneath your deck.

4. Clean all needles and leaves from the roof, eaves, and rain gutters.

5. Landscape vegetation should be spaced so that fire can not be carried to the structure or surrounding vegetation.

6. Remove branches from trees to height of 15 feet.

The question becomes how to better manage wildland fire so that people and communities are safe, while ecosystems are allowed to benefit from the annual seasons of flame? Most important, the only way fire will ever be successfully reintroduced is for the rural communities on the front lines to feel safe.

Federal fire scientists have determined that it is the home and its immediate surroundings (30m-60m) that principally determine the potential for home ignition during fires (Cohen, 2000). Even so, communities will only feel safe when the land surrounding them -- the community protection zone is treated to reduce hazardous fuels through strategic thinning, brush removal, and prescribed burning. Cohen and colleagues found that even high intensity crown fires will not directly ignite homes at distances beyond approximately 60 meters (200 feet).
Fire scientists have determined that mechanical thinning without prescribed fire (including fuel breaks) does not effectively reduce fire behavior under extreme conditions (Stephens, 1998). They have also concluded that thinning or other mechanical treatments alone will not restore forest ecosystems (Conservation Biology, Vol. 18, no. 4, August 2004).

In 2001, the Forest Service promised to prioritize the reduction of hazardous fuels near our homes and communities. Now, the agency has shifted more of its focus to logging in remote forest areas far from our homes, and significantly decreased funding for fuel reduction projects in our communities. While we can clear fire hazards from our properties, we need the Forest Service to do its part by removing fuels on near-by public lands. According to the California Forest Alliance, there are more than 400 Sierra communities at risk from wildfire. We need the Forest Service to restore its promise to protect Sierra communities instead of logging the large, fire-resistant trees in the remote backcountry.

The Sierra Nevada economy is growing dramatically, but this growth isn’t coming from the timber industry. Since logging accounts for less than three percent of the economy of the Sierra region, the federal government’s plan to reopen the door to widespread commercial logging doesn’t add up. Recreation, tourism, small diameter wood production, and other industries are and should continue to replace the boom and bust cycle of large timber mills. Such forward thinking economic strategies can preserve the scenic values that draw visitors and new residents to our region, while creating sustainable job opportunities that perpetuate those values.