thinning forests to prevent wildfire

While lightning strikes can start wildfires, today more than 95% in California are started by people — mostly accidentally. A promotional film from the community’s early days reveals that much of the surroundings were once bare of trees, due to logging and the use of the land for ranching and vineyards. Forest thinning helped save the town of Sisters, Oregon, from a wildfire in 2017. Given the highway's high traffic volume and frequent backups, a quick escape from an approaching fire is unlikely. State lawmakers committed more than $200 million annually to fire prevention efforts and Gov. Overall, the evidence indicates thinning forests does not reduce fire risk." Fuels reduction efforts like this are especially effective in areas where historic management practices, including fire suppression, grazing and harvesting, caused extensive changes in forest vegetation. Since 1970, the amount of land burned each year in California has increased five-fold. Melanie Lenart, University of Arizona. Almost 2 million homes are in flammable areas in western states, said Jennifer Balch, a fire expert at the University of Colorado. California could save billions of gallons annually by undertaking significant forest thinning operations, according to scientists affiliated with the National Science Foundation and the Sierra Critical Zone Observatory. Over the past three years, fires have killed 149 people and destroyed almost 25,000 homes across the state. SANTA CRUZ MOUNTAINS, Calif. -- Buzzing chainsaws are interrupted by the frequent crash of breaking branches as crews fell towering trees and clear tangled brush in the densely forested Santa Cruz Mountains south of San Francisco. Fires are sparked by downed power lines, campfires, mechanical equipment such as chainsaws, and even hot vehicle exhaust pipes touching dry grass. California and the Forest Service have a plan to prevent future catastrophic fires In a recent agreement, officials committed to ramping up thinning and burning across the state. Much of the surrounding land is also private, and real estate development grew unchecked for much of the past century. Senator calls for forest thinning to prevent exploding trees. Legislators have been debating “mismanagement of our forests,” but whose timberland are they talking about? The researchers wanted to test whether forest thinning, controlled burning, or a combination of both might prevent beetle infestations and increase overall fire resistance. It compromises the effectiveness of the entire project.”. Better forest management would not only prevent wildfires but could serve as a valuable water-conservation tool, according to a study published Tuesday. Thinning forests involves removing trees and other vegetation that is dead or slow-growing to make room for new trees and to remove wildfire fuel from the area. The restoration thinning project outside the city of Cle Elum mirrors numerous projects in forests across the U.S. West, mostly on federal public lands, aimed at preventing wildfires and restoring forest health. (CBC) "They were able to stop it at the road and prevent it … Washington State Is Thinning Out Forests To Reduce Wildfire Risk The state of Washington is moving to aggressively thin forests to reduce the worsening wildfire risk. Route 17, which gets about 80,000 vehicles daily and is flanked by hundreds of homes, is the only direct way into or out of the area. Bill Williams project aims to prevent wildfires by thinning forests Importance of public support. It is designed to retain large fire-resistant trees and to create a mosaic of trees and openings as was once common. Bush’s “tree- thinning” proposal for preventing forest fires is to thin forests, making them less crowded, and therefore less incendiary. The Nature Conservancy is selectively logging dry forests in Washington’s Central Cascades as part of a long-term plan to make thousands of privately owned forestland more resilient to fire, disease and climate change. “If we’re going to do field treatment, we have to do it where it matters most — where people live and work,” Balch said. U.S. The Myth That Logging Prevents Forest Fires. (CN) – Better forest management would not only prevent wildfires but could serve as a valuable water-conservation tool, according to a study published Tuesday. Chipping up woody material removed from the forest and left on the ground as mulch. “I see the recent wildfires as a tidal wave — it’s going to be very hard to stop that,” Williams said. One tool the Forest Service uses to help reduce the risk of uncharacteristically severe wildland fires, such as the Carlton-Complex, is the thinning of densely growing forest stands. The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. With California scorched by thousands of wildfires this year, forest managers are turning to a controversial approach to reduce fires: cutting down trees. Everyone from Williams has a wildfire story, whether it's from the 2010 Schultz Fire, 2013... A high cost, an investment. As a result, future fires will retain potential avenues to spread into residential areas and threaten people and property. Describes benefits of thinning a stand of forest trees. All Rights Reserved. Turn on desktop notifications for breaking stories about interest? “We’re changing how the fire would burn, and changing it from severe to a fire that would be good and would maintain forest health,” said Ryan Haugo, senior forest ecologist at The Nature Conservancy. FILE - In this Sept. 2, 2017, file photo, a crew with California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) battles a brushfire on the hillside in Burbank, Calif. California regulators on Tuesday. From U.S. News: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/washington/articles/2017-04-03/project-is-cutting-down-trees-to-reduce-forest-fire-risks, Copyright 2021 Timber Harvesting Magazine, a Hatton-Brown Publication. The Forest Service has programs to thin out forests, removing smaller trees and brush. The 2014 Carlton Complex wildfire in north central Washington was the largest contiguous fire in state history. Although it’s not feasible to manually thin all the forests and shrub land in California, targeted efforts to remove flammable vegetation in areas of high human activity can effectively reduce the chance of major fires. Offered the choice between clearing vegetation-choked areas or retaining greenery that acts as a shield against the din of the nearby highway, a small minority opted for privacy over safety or said they’d do the work themselves. Summarizes considerations in thinning to reduce hazardous fuels. A century of wildfire suppression has resulted in overgrown tree stands that are ripe for fire, so the group is weeding out smaller trees that can serve as kindling for fires. | Website by CP&D, https://www.timberharvesting.com/thmagpress/wp-content/themes/presstwo, The Nature Conservancy Thinning Forests To Reduce Wildfire Risk, https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/washington/articles/2017-04-03/project-is-cutting-down-trees-to-reduce-forest-fire-risks, Washington Logger Opposes Future Logging Careers Act, Winston Plywood & Veneer Hosts Ribbon-Cutting In Mississippi, As Black Hills Pine Beetle Epidemic Ends, Resiliency Project Begins, NC Court Ruling Clears Way For Wood Chips, Foresters Have 180,000 Piles Of Trees To Burn In Colorado Forests, Loggers: Forest Service Policies Thwart Logging. In 2016, ecologists led by Curtis Bradley of the Center for Biological Diversity in Tucson, Arizona, looked at 1,500 fires over three decades that collectively burned across more than 35,000 square miles. Our strategies to embrace “good fires” will have to involve controlled fires and forest thinning, as well as wildfire management, rather than suppression. The Trump administration has been working to prevent the deadly wildfires that have plagued the West by putting in place forest management practices, including thinning forests in Oregon to reduce fire fuel. Climate change and decades of lax land management practices have put the U.S. West on a collision course with out-of-control wildfires. Across the West as a whole, however, there’s little hard evidence that thinning forests will do much to reduce damaging wildfires. The following articles provide more information about reducing the risk of damaging fire in your forest: Thinning Forests to Reduce Risks from Wildfires. “They won’t be able to get here — and we won’t be able to leave,” Bates said. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Yet officials say efforts to make areas such as this road corridor in Northern California more fire safe are undercut by property owners who refuse to let fire crews work on their property. Different agencies h… In areas exposed only to fire, tree mortality was lower than in unburned forests, but still quite high. That means patches of low-lying shrubs and some thickets of trees will remain when the job wraps up next year. Today those same views are largely blocked by thick stands of redwoods, oak and eucalyptus. Thinning forest canopies opens the stands to more sunlight, which encourages growth of fine fuels, including shrubs, small trees and grasses. They recommend avoiding highly flammable materials for roofs and decks, and not planting fire-prone non-native species. To restore a forest and reduce the risk of severe wildfires, a conservation group is cutting down trees. The Nature Conservancy Thinning Forests To Reduce Wildfire Risk. The area has a long history of large wildfires, yet the land on which Redwood Estates sits has not burned since the 1800s, said Jeff Bates, a lifelong resident of and manager for the local homeowners association. But they are different in intent and design. McCarthy said treating the forests to reduce the intensity and size of fires will ultimately save money. This was shown in … With California’s increasingly warm, dry and overgrown landscape, wildfire has become a perpetual danger. Outlines thinning rules and regulations and how thinning is done. The biggest landlord, by far, is the federal government. While that may seem logical, in reality, a nation-wide thinning policy would do more harm than good. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown). Yet these steps won’t entirely keep the flames away. Some common but non-native plants — including eucalyptus trees, cheatgrass and pernicious shrubs such as French and Scotch broom — burn more readily than native species. “We’re trying to mimic the role that fire would naturally play.”. Many of the community’s original cabins are gone, replaced by larger single-family homes that in some cases push right up to the property line. Climate change and decades of lax land management practices put the U.S. West on a collision course with out-of-control wildfires, and authorities are now rushing to limit the potential damage from blazes that threaten year-round. This makes it difficult to organize a unified system to manage the forests, becoming potentially more chaotic when fires rage. These are some of the sounds of a forest thinning operation around the Paradise Pines Property Owners Association in Magalia. The most important prevention strategy is education — teaching people about what starts accidental fires, and how to minimize them. Surgical thinning of the forest, when trees and brush are properly cut back, can help reduce fire severity, most researchers agree. Thinning Magalia’s Trees To Prevent Future Forest Fires. Forests cover a third of California, but the state owns only 2 percent of that land. “It’s a chink in the armor,” said Ed Orre, division chief with Cal Fire, the state’s firefighting and fire prevention agency. The project by a private landowner also represents a fraction of the millions of acres that some say need to be treated to prevent the kind of intense wildfires that have scorched thousands of acres across the U.S. West. Trees don’t arrange themselves according to property lines. By contrast, most commercial logging operations are more like crop … Thinning forests for fuels reductions, unless strategically done, is a waste of taxpayer funds, and has significant ecological … Across the 11 western states, acreage burned annually has doubled since 1984. Simply burning the forest helped control beetles, but not much. Research has shown that thinning does not help to stop wildfires, but actually causes them to spread. by George Wuerthner. Thinning trees/shrubs near homes, combined with a reduction in home flammability by installation of metal roofs, removal of flammable materials adjacent to homes, and other measures can virtually guarantee a home will survive even a severe high intensity forest fire. Benefits include increased potential economic value as well as better protection against wildfire. Their goal: To protect communities such as Redwood Estates, where giant redwoods loom over the houses of tech workers who live in the wooded community just 20 miles from the heart of Silicon Valley. ... leaving less money to prevent fires in the first place. That leaves little space between houses and the forest, meaning embers could easily leap from house to house in a fire. Authorities are rushing to clear vegetation in high-risk communities after fires killed 149 people and destroyed almost 25,000 homes over the past three years. Forester John Davies says thinning and pruning forests can dramatically slow the spread of wildfires. For More Information. MATTHEW BROWN and CHRISTINA LARSON Associated Press, A fire prevention crew hauls away sections of a tree they cut down Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2019, near Redwood Estates, Calif. Managing the risk of wildfires isn’t only the job of firefighters, say experts. Hand crews and helicopters were a … Thinning to reduce fire risk is intended to slow the rate fire spreads, lower flame heights and improve recovery after wildfire hits. HURTEAU: The influence that thinning has is that it alters the way that fire interacts with the forest. The study also found 20- to 40- year old forest was more likely to suffer crown burn than 70-year-old forest. They’re leaving bigger, older and more fire-resistant ponderosa pines while removing tree species such as grand fir that are more susceptible to fire. California is now nearly 3 degrees (1.67 degrees Celsius) warmer than in 1990 due to climate change, with hotter temperatures during the Golden State’s long dry season removing moisture from plants and soils, said Park Williams, a climate scientist at Columbia University. California could save billions of gallons annually by undertaking significant forest-thinning operations, according to scientists affiliated with the National Science Foundation and the Sierra Critical Zone Observatory. Rapid residential development in recent decades boosted populations in high-risk areas. Gavin Newsom wants to spend even more, motivated by infernos such as one last year that killed 85 people in Paradise, California, some who died in their cars while trying to flee. There are also private property owners, and county and tribal lands. Bates said a county emergency official told him that in the event of a major fire, “You folks are on your own.”. Among the most important tools the state has against fires is to mimic their effects: thinning trees and brush by hand to reduce the amount of vegetation that would become fuel in a fire, and using controlled burns to keep undergrowth and shrub lands in check. Mechanical thinning is a forest management tool for selectively reducing forest vegetation—including small trees, shrubs, and groundcover―that can fuel dangerous fires. Forest thinning to stop wildfires as strong as weakest link Climate change and decades of lax land management practices have put the U.S. West on a collision course with out-of-control wildfires Thinning forests to reduce fire occurrence or intensity and using vegetation byproducts of thinning in energy production is gaining traction in the western United States due to concerns about wildfires (eg, Southern Oregon Forest Restoration Collaborative, 2013; Governor Edmund Brown, 2015). California eases way for land clearing to prevent wildfires. “California is in the fire sweet spot,” said Williams, the climate scientist. 24/7 coverage of breaking news and live events. The Nature Conservancy is selectively logging dry forests in Washington’s Central Cascades as part of a long-term plan to make thousands of privately owned forestland more resilient to fire, disease and climate change. Dealing with Slash and Debris from Thinning Treatments; Contributor. The changes in climate and development are on display Redwood Estates, which was conceived in the 1920s as a vacation community, an escape from the city where families could weekend in small cabins in the Santa Cruz Mountains. “Some big fires are probably inevitable.”, Follow Matthew Brown on Twitter: @MatthewBrownAP, and Larson on Twitter: @larsonchristina. To restore a forest and reduce the risk of severe wildfires, a conservation group is cutting down trees. States, said Jennifer Balch, a fire expert at the University of Colorado Associated Press Health and Department! A nation-wide thinning policy would do more harm than good thinning and pruning forests can slow... 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