One of the most urgent issues facing Californians are the massive, destructive wildfires. Each season seems more devastating than the previous one. In 2019, California saw 137,126 acres burned. In 2020, that number jumped to 4,257,863, with a whopping $1.3 billion spent on fire suppression.1 Over 10,000 structures were destroyed and damages topped $12 billion.2 The August Complex fire alone grew to more than one million acres, surpassing a megafire and entering a new classification: gigafires.3
Behind these statistics, Californians are losing their homes, businesses, and too often, even their lives. The issue of climate change dominates the discussion and media coverage of wildfires. Yet, upon closer inspection, climate change seems to be a red herring.
Wildfires fall into two categories: naturally occurring, caused by lightening strikes, and human induced, usually resulting from campfires, pyrotechnics, downed power lines, arson, etc.
A fact that would surprise most Californians is that naturally occurring wildfires are an integral part of California’s ecosystem and have been for millennia. This has been absolutely established through analysis of tree rings and through anthropological research of Native American tribes.4
A fascinating and highly informative study conducted by fire scientists from the University of California, Berkeley can be found here.
Naturally occurring wildfires are not purely destructive, but are incredibly rejuvenating to the land. Plant and animal life have adapted to, and even become dependent on, this cycle of naturally occurring wildfires.
Native American tribes indigenous to California understood this, and practiced “cultural burns” for more than 13,000 years in precolonial times.5 Better known today as controlled or prescribed burns, these fires are deliberately set and closely monitored in order to mimic the natural ecological cycle, which requires fire.6
Then, humanity’s relationship with fire changed. A risk adverse culture that viewed all fire as purely destructive and completely unacceptable became dominant. The result is an ecosystem in chaos. Much of California’s landscape is artificially altered due to extreme and unnatural fire suppression.7
Not understanding the reasons for it, the first Spanish colonizers in California denounced the Native American’s cultural burns as barbaric and self destructive. The United States government outlawed cultural burns in the mid nineteenth century, and the newly formed U.S. Forest Service focused aggressively on fire suppression, rather than prevention. The ban on controlled burns on federal land wasn’t reversed until the late 1970s.
A few notable incidents reinforced this new way of thinking. In the summer of 1910, a series of wildfires broke out. Remembered as “The Big Burn,” over three million acres burned and 85 people lost their lives. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake sparked 4 days of out of control fires caused by gas leaks. These fires claimed approximately 3,000 lives and destroyed over 80% of the city.
Today, this negative cultural attitude towards fire, as well as concern over environmental issues, persists strongly in California, despite a near consensus in the fire science community that employing controlled burns, in conjunction with forest management, is one of the most effective tools to prevent wildfires and is absolutely essential, yet underutilized.8
In the early twentieth century, firefighting was still in its infancy. As the decades passed, technology, equipment and techniques vastly improved. This, along with larger firefighting budgets, led to massive fire suppression.
The result of this is land excessively choked with parched undergrowth, creating tinder for catastrophic wildfires. This vegetation also competes with mature trees for sunlight, water and nutrients from the soil.
The lack of fire allows massive infestations of bark beetles to move in and kill these sickly trees. This has resulted in over 100 million dead trees in California’s forests, adding to the fuel load. Some of California’s forests comprise of 85% dead trees.
The Creek Fire of 2020 burned 379,895 acres and destroyed 853 structures, mostly single family homes. Firefighters estimate 80% to 90% of the fire’s fuel came from beetle infested, dead trees.9
But there is another story of the Creek Fire. Around the small community of Shaver Lake, an island of 20,000 acres was largely spared. When the fire began to encroach this area, it rapidly diminished in intensity, allowing firefighters to quickly gain control of that flank of the Creek Fire.
This is because those 20,000 acres are owned by Southern California Edison and have been carefully maintained for years through the use of controlled burns, tree thinning and removal of dead trees.10
Controlled burns are not the silver bullet to preventing wildfires, as many experts agree that it will take a multi year commitment to restore the land to its natural state. Nor are they completely without risk.
The Cerro Grande Fire that occurred in New Mexico in May 2000 began as a controlled burn that grew out of control due to high winds and destroyed over 200 homes.
Despite these isolated instances, controlled burns are utilized worldwide and have an excellent safety track record. Fire officials agree, the risk of destruction from more catastrophic wildfires in California is far higher than losing control of a prescribed burn.
Although areas subject to prescribed burning in the U.S. have increased 5% each year since 1998, in the western states, the acreage has remained stable or even decreased.11 Florida burns an average of two million acres per year, compared to California’s 125,000 acres.
While the argument that Florida’s high humidity makes it easier to do controlled burns is certainly valid, the dry climate in California is exactly why state leaders must be more aggressive with forest management.
In part two, I’ll examine how needed forest management conflicts with California’s environmental priorities.
California Dept. Of Forestry & Fire Prevention, Fire Statistics, September 2020
Krishnakumar Priya, The Worst Fire Season Ever, The Los Angeles Times, September 15, 2020
Anguiano Dani, California’s wildfire hell, The Guardian, December 30, 2020
Stephens, Scott, Stephens, Scott, Forest Ecology & Management, Volume 251, November 15, 2007
Cagle S., Fire is Medicine, The Guardian, November 21, 2021
Buono Page, Quiet Fire, The Nature Conservancy, November 2, 2020
Sommer, Laura, To Manage Wildfire, California Looks To What Tribes have Known All Along, NPR.org, August 24, 2020
Moritz, M.A., Common Ground Regarding the Role of Wildfire, University of California, Santa Barbara, September 2018
Yeager, Josh & Olalde, Mark, Creek Fire ignites fire management debate, USA Today, September 20, 2020
Venton, Danielle, Interagency Cooperation and Controlled Burns, KQED, May 13, 2021
Kasler Dale, Burning California to save it, The Sacramento Bee, February 25, 2021