Californians, Did We Mismanage Our Forests?

Don Burns

November 17, 2018

Sunnyvale, CA.

This is what the President of the United States tweeted on November 10, 2018:

“There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor. Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!”

For the past week we have been watching the news and seeing the devastation of the Camp fire, where Paradise, CA has, in essence been wiped out.  I am writing this as the tragedy continues, and as of this writing the death toll has been reported as 71, with 1,011 people still unaccounted for.   The fire has consumed over 148,000 acres.  It is the worst fire tragedy in the history of California.

Its frightening and disheartening, and while those of us in the Bay Area are complaining about the air quality, which has also reached the worst levels in the world due to the smoke that has covered our area as the North East winds push it out the Golden Gate, the discomfort pales in comparison to the loss that is being experienced 200 miles to our North.  

I can’t help but think what an inopportune moment it is, in the middle of this devastation, to lay blame.  Today, President Trump visits with our Governor and Governor elect, with no apologies for the victims for his statements, and, on the contrary, a continued message of simplistic solutions and blame for poor forest management.

I thought for a moment, regardless of the insensitivity, maybe he’s right.  Maybe it is the fact that we Californians push our conservation policies too far.  Maybe we need to face the fact that the increasing population that is pushing into forested areas is creating a higher hazard.  Perhaps we aren’t managing our resources correctly.

So, I did some research.  And by research I mean that I took three measures.  First, I read articles and browsed images about the fire.  Second I read up on the weather conditions on the days of the fire.  I happen to know something about weather and I know that the days of the fires had higher than normal winds.  Second, I fired up Google Earth and started browsing the fire areas.  What I found could not, in any way, support the idea that poor forest management was a cause of either of the two large fires occurring in California right now.

For the days of fires, we had high pressure weather systems that create high winds from the North East, and very dry conditions.  These dry conditions follow a dry spell in California, where, other than a small amount of rain a few weeks ago, we haven’t seen rain since before Summer.  The winds that accompanied this high pressure system averaged above 20 mph (average for the whole day), often peaking at much higher than the average.  I recorded the wind for the following days on a mountain above the bay area:

And to add a visual, this is what Paradise, California looked like on November 10, 2018

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Paradise, California got wiped out.  90% of it is gone, burned to the ground.  And this is what didn’t make sense to me in the context of “forest management”.  How could the homes in this picture have burned to the ground?

This picture is of a cul-de-sac near Paradise Plaza, off of Clark Road in Paradise, Ca.   This is its location in context:

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It couldn’t have been further from a forest and still be in the city of Paradise.  These homes didn’t burn down because of forest management, they burned because a strong wind swept the fire over a dry town and the fire spread quickly from house to house.

But Trump could still be right.  I might still be the mismanagement of forests that was the causative reason, which was then exasperated by the meteorological conditions.  At one point he tweeted,

“California wildfires are being magnified & made so much worse by the bad environmental laws which aren’t allowing massive amount of readily available water to be properly utilized.  It is being diverted to the Pacific Ocean.  Must also tree clear to stop fire spreading!”

But then I zoomed out.

And so can you.  Google Earth is free.  If you don’t like the 3D aspect, use Google Maps.  Its OK, its the same imagery.  And the imagery is reported to be from July 3, 2017, just a year old.

I’m not sure what Trump’s reference to water was about, since Paradise is close helicoptering distance from Lake Oroville (remember the one that was a concern last winter about the dam breaking and flooding the town below it?).  

But here’s the thing,  just to the NorthEast (from where the wind was coming from) of Paradise, the terrain looks like this:

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All of those little patches are, guess what? Land cleared of trees.  Here’s a close-up:

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Zoom out further:

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And Further:

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This picture above, is the 100 miles between Paradise, CA and Mount Shasta to the North.  The land is littered with cleared forest area (Forest Management!).  There is a lot of water in the reservoirs to fight fire with.

So, no.  I reject the idea that the tragedies occurring in California are occurring because of “gross mismanagement” or forest and water.   To clear our trees any further in the area of the fires would mean to wipe out our forests of pines and redwood.  The images above are clear evidence of a well-managed balance between preservation and support of the local logging industry.

California is burning because of lack of rain, high winds, high population, mistakes that humans make.  46% of California forest land is managed by the federal government.   There are no grounds to accuse us of misappropriation of funds or to withhold federal funds.  I’m sorry, Mr. Trump, but “We’re with you” falls on deaf ears unless it is accompanied by the funds needed to restore and rebuild.