Wildfire is a critical part of California
s ecosystem, both as a result of natural phenomena, such
as climate, vegetation, and lightning, and as a result of
human activities. Every year these factors combine into
a set of potential burning conditions that raise the question
not of whether it will burn, but
of when it will burn.
During late October and early November
of 1993, the citizens of California were shown what can
happen when weather and fuel conditions are right for wildfire.
Last fall s Southern California fires resulted in the loss
of 4 lives and the destruction of over 1,500 structures.
The Oakland Hills Fire, which occurred under similar conditions
in fall of 1991, resulted in the loss of 26 lives and the
destruction of over 2,500 homes. Since 1990 alone, California
has lost over 4,500 homes and 30 lives to catastrophic wildfire.
A general trend we are seeing in our wildfire seasons is
that the number of acres that burns is remaining about the
same while the number of structures destroyed is increasing.
In addition to these impacts of loss of life and property,
there are also the impacts of soil erosion, water quality
degradation, forest and rangeland vegetation destruction,
loss of wildlife habitat, and damage to infrastructure such
as powerlines.
In response to the need to protect human
and natural resource values, California has created a wildland
fire suppression organization that is a combination of federal,
state, and local agencies. These agencies historically had
been oriented toward total fire suppression rather than
towards presuppression activities such as land use planning
and zoning, fire safety, vegetation management (reducing
fuel levels through carefully controlled prescribed fires
or through mechanical removal), fire occurrence and information
analysis, and managing fire ecologically. Today, California
s wildland fire protection organization is more aware than
ever of the importance of presuppression activities and
is working hard to implement them in a fully integrated
manner. However, there are some difficulties to be overcome.
Our current need for presuppression activities
such as vegetation management is in part a result of our
success at fire suppression, which has led to the build-up
of fuels that create the potential for major conflagrations.
Under a natural fire regime, frequent light fires would
keep fuels at a less hazardous level. Last fall s Southern
California firestorm reinforces the fact that California
needs to aggressively pursue presuppression efforts that
include vegetation management. These fires also demonstrated
the current vulnerability of human and natural habitat to
wildfire.
A focal point of California s presuppression
efforts has long been the "Fire Safe Program".
This program works to educate homeowners about the need
for clearing flammable vegetation from a "defensible
space" zone between their homes and surrounding wildlands.
The ability of fire fighting agencies to achieve Fire Safe
goals was strengthened with 1987 legislation that gave the
Board of Forestry authority to promulgate defensible space
regulations for state responsibility area lands. CDF works
closely with local government to enforce these regulations
through education, inspection, and when necessary citation
of violators.
Much of the Fire Safe education work
has been done by citizens involved in the
CDF Volunteers in Prevention
Program or through cooperative
fire prevention programs involving both public and private
partners. One example of cooperative efforts is the
Oakhurst Fire Safe Program, located in
the central Sierra foothills. This pilot program developed
by CDF, the U.S. Forest
Service, National Park Service, local agencies,
community groups, and businesses seeks to institutionalize
a cooperative fire prevention relationship. This program
will result in a community that has planned for the occurrence
of wildfire and has made the preparations necessary for
fire survival. The Oakhurst Fire Safe program can serve
as a blueprint for other communities.
Unfortunately, technical and institutional
roadblocks at times have prevented presuppression activities
from achieving their full potential. One example of this
occurred on a coastal sage scrub reserve in the Laguna area
that provides critical habitat for the California gnatcatcher,
a threatened bird species. For over two years bureaucratic
delays and conflicts over habitat protection needs stalled
the updating and re-approval of the vegetation management
plan for the reserve. It is sadly ironic that on the day
that the plan was finally signed off by all the involved
parties, the 16,000-acre Laguna fire destroyed the habitat
of this 2,100-acre reserve. The vegetation management plan
had been designed to use prescribed fire to periodically
burn only part of the area in order to create a vegetation
mosaic effect that would inhibit fire spread. This example
demonstrates the importance of integrating fire ecology
and fire management into conservation strategies and reserve
management plans.
Another major obstacle to presuppression
programs is that state and federal air quality regulations
can make it difficult to use controlled burning to manage
for desired plants and animals, provide safe areas from
which firefighters can work, and create fuel breaks. Although
controlled burns are rigorously planned to minimize air
quality impact, they nonetheless generate particulate pollution.
Thus, local air quality boards are often hesitant to allow
prescribed burning. This attitude sometimes fails to consider
the potential long-term benefits of the prescribed burning
of fuels at a low intensity and under favorable smoke dispersion
conditions compared to the impacts of wildfires when the
smoke dispersion cannot be planned or managed. Recently,
CDF and regional air quality boards have been making good
progress in collaborative efforts to resolve some of these
problems. In the Southern California Air Quality Management
District, for example, conflicts between prescribed burning
and air quality concerns have been largely eliminated.
The changing patterns of development
across our wildlands present increasing strategic and tactical
challenges to our fire protection agencies. The substantial
population growth in the rural areas of California over
the past 35 years has expanded the "interface"
zone, where rural wildland meets suburban development, creating
intermingled responsibilities, authorities, and restrictions
at multiple levels of government. CDF s primary mandate
is to protect wildland resources. But the reality is that
when fire occurs in the interface zone, fire suppression
organizations are faced with difficult choices in allocating
finite fire suppression resources between protecting the
natural environment and protecting human life and property.
Careful land use and fire protection planning can help to
ease this situation.
Sound fire protection planning in the
interface zone dictates that homes should not be built in
fire prone areas that do not allow for their defense from
fire. Development must be in concert with the natural character
of the landscape, taking into account fire history, vegetation,
and existing and potential hazards (e.g., steep slopes and
unstable soils result in mud slides after wildfires). Home
construction and landscaping standards must be developed
and implemented so that structures and their immediate surroundings
are fire resistant by their character (non-flammable roofs
and exteriors, non-flammable landscaping, etc.). Vegetation,
topography, weather, fire behavior, and fire occurrence
records must be analyzed to determine the safest and most
appropriate land use and zoning standards in terms of housing
density and parcel size consistent with private ownership
and public safety precepts.
One way of assuring sound fire planning
in the interface zone is for fire control agencies to enter
into a partnership with local government to develop land
use and zoning requirements that will ensure development
in a manner compatible with fire protection considerations.
State law gives the Board of Forestry and CDF authority
to participate in local planning processes. To be successful,
planning partnerships need to be initiated early in the
general plan revision process and carried on through site
planning for individual developments. In addition to improving
the protection of life and property, incorporation of fire
planning into local planning can also improve the protection
of open space and critical wildlife habitat. CDF has been
particularly successful at building planning relationships
in "Schedule A" counties, such as Riverside County,
where the county contracts with the state to provide fire
protection in local responsibility areas. In some counties,
however, there is a need for CDF to strengthen these relationships.
Another ongoing effort to improve the
ability of CDF and others to provide fire protection is
Assembly Bill 337, passed in 1992 as a result of the Oakland
Hills Fire. This legislation charges CDF to classify and
map all areas in the state that have the potential for a
severe and damaging wildfire. When this mapping effort is
finished in 1996, all levels of government will have the
information available for developing their own locally tailored
fire protection and impact mitigation measures.
In order to facilitate cooperative interagency
approaches to fire protection for wildlife habitat resources,
the California Board of Forestry and the California Fish
and Game Commission recently completed a joint policy statement
on pre-, during, and post-fire needs for protecting habitat.
The policy adopts an integrated landscape-level, ecosystem
management approach and provides guidelines for conducting
fire activities in a manner that best balances the protection
of both human and wildlife habitat values. CDF also has
been working at the department and field level to strengthen
its working relationship with the Department of Fish and
Game on vegetation management issues.
Protecting California s human and natural
resources from the ravages of wildfire requires constant
vigilance and a fire protection program that recognizes
fire presuppression as no less important than fire suppression.
Fire presuppression planning must be integrated with all
other land use and management planning activities. With
our efforts and the cooperation of government, business,
community groups, and private citizens, we hope to continue
to make significant progress toward overcoming the roadblocks
to integrated fire planning and management. Only with these
efforts can we make California a little less flammable,
thus protecting more lives, houses, and wildlife habitat
at the same time as we reduce the massive suppression costs
that come with catastrophic wildland fires.
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