Everyone remembers growing up and see the cartoons or propaganda of Smokey the Bear, who would say, “Only you can prevent forest fire.” As a child and a teen I never really understood the concept passed the idea of humans were the cause of forest fires. But after going through Boy Scouts and getting my first taste of environmental science I learned that fire is natural thing that actually can help the environment grown and being life again. I then attended Butte College where I learned more about fire science and the factors that it takes and affects. The class that specifically stuck out to me was the wild land firefighting course. This class showed me in more detail from how humans and firefighters affect size and increasing sizes of fires to why naturally the fires have increased in size. The blame isn’t on humans or on nature, but we there is a growing danger of fires and we as a human race need to learn and put out the effect to change our ways so that we can reduce our affects on the fires. To make a change we have to start somewhere and the perfect place to start is in the place of learning what affects the fires.
One of the easiest ways to start in our understanding of fire’s affect on nature is to see its roll in the destruction and create of life in nature. David Carle gave a great example in his book Introduction to Fire in California, when he said “Fire help maintain stands of quaking aspen.” And then he continued by saying “without those fires, conifers may keep crowding in, ultimately adding enough fuel load to generate a crown fire fatal to aspens.” But this isn’t the only way fire helps the environment, it creates a fresh habitat for animals to begin the new life cycle “ (Introduction to Fire in California Page 81). As plants reestablish in a burned area, small seed-eating mammals and birds will move in.” After the smaller animals move in larger animals will too over time. So the first step is to for all us to accept that fire is a natural thing and we need to let it help our environment.
Humans have a major affects on the environment around them, even the things we aren’t thinking about. “California once had five million acres of freshwater marsh and riparian woodlands. Today it has lost 89 percent of its original wetlands and 95 percent of the riparian forests” (Introduction to Fire in California Page 79). This is a catastrophic amount of natural lands that have disappeared to farming lands and development. Changing the environment that drastically allows fire to move more freely. Instead of thick aspens covering the land there is grass lands for grazing crops that have been spread so the can benefit for the spoil. But this leads to easy spread of fire. And since fires in California happen most during the summer and fall most plants have either dried out or begun to dry out, this allows the fire to move quickly and freely in any direction the wind pushes it. And just like David Carle said, “Fuel age is not irrelevant” (Pg 130). So it doesn’t matter if the fuel is left over from this harvest or the harvest of 5 years ago, if it is dried and sitting with other fuels when a fire gets to them they will ignite. Now in the dead of heat in summer all it takes is a small spark in California to start a fire. And it could come from anywhere, if you drive down the freeway though California you can see on both sides of the freeway and in the middle dried grass that has grown from the spring showers. Or if you enter central California you can see the grass fields where the cattle farmers let the cows graze. This is perfect kindling for a wild land fire to begin and once a spark touches that kindling with the constant winds that California has the fire can travel up to thousands of acres in an hour. So we need to be aware of how easily we have set the fire up to spread.
So once we understand that clearing the land and making so much of it farmland and developing it into towns and cities, has made it possible for fire to spread rapidly at the control of the wind and heat. It is now time to see if we can fix the problem. But many people fear fire and think that the instant it starts we need to put it out because all it does is destroy. But we know that not to be true, as earlier stated it opens the landscape so the habitat can regrow and heal itself. When we put out the fire to quickly we cause something called the chaparral dilemma. This is that when fires that are put out quickly have fuel for the fire build until it becomes a large fire and is uncontrollable. While this is going on fires that have been left to burn, have large number but are smaller and easy to lead and control. A study of photographs of southern California above the boarder and Baja California has proven this. Ten times the number of fires happens in Baja California as in southern California. Yet the Baja, “fires were much smaller, rarely exceeding 5,000 acres” (David, Page 128). The last fire in California according the Cal Fire’s website was the Thomas Fire. This fire burned from December 4th 2017, until January 12th 2018. The fire consumed 281,893 acres in that time. That is more than 56 times the amount acreage that normally burns in a single fire in Baja California. Now that we understand that shouldn’t it be time to change our thinking about the tactics we use to keep California safe?
What is the state of California doing to change their tactics of fire fighting to help reduce the fires? The Tactics used by Cal Fire currently have only been to contain fires because the fire and weather are unpredictable that is understandable. Their strategies and tactics aimed to break the fire triangle, which consists of Oxygen, Fuel, and heat. They do this in many ways, but the main two tactics they have is indirect attacks or direct attacks. So the most stereotype of firefighting where they spray water directly at the fire or if the fire is large enough they will bring is plain and helicopters with water tanks to deliver water to the fire. This is a tactic of removing the heat from the fire. Another tactic used to called “digging fire line” and you dig a line around the fire that is one and a half the height of the fire. This cuts the fire off of its access to fuel, which breaks the triangle. These are very affective ways to fight fire and have kept millions of lives safe. But in the end people still die and many of those people are the fire fighters themselves. The fire changes direction and reaches large amounts of fuel and over runs firefighters killing them even through they has training and have fire shelters. A fires shelter “protects a trapped firefighter by reflecting radiant heat and trapping air” (William Teie, Page 10) This is a way to break the fire triangle just enough to save the fire fighter from smaller fires, but when the heat is to great it can be rendered ineffective.
So what have we decided to do to help our firefighters to control these large out breaks of fire? Cal fire now has burn days when they will go and gather excess fuel and have controlled burns to allow fuel to be used and not build up. But when a fire does break out, it becomes the priority of Cal Fire and they must direct recourses to help put out and contain that fire before it threatens civilian lives. So where this may be a good way to help prevent large fires most of the season is spent fighting the fires and prevention gets put on the back burner. Another tactic used is when they dump fire retardant, which can be very effective on holding off or delaying a fire or even to protect fire fighters and structures. Although for an airdrop to be effective it takes a lot of planning and coordination. So it is not the most effective way to prevent fire spread. It helps contain the fire after it has started and spread in order to help protect the developments that are already around.
Once we realize that the best way to help firefighters is by reducing fuel and letting a natural fire run its course we have a goal. But in order to reduce the amount of fuel in the wild land area we have to start fires. Now Cal Fire may already do this but that also don’t get as far into the process every year as they’d like. So I believe the best solution would be to keep a handful of guys hired all over the state of California in order to continue the burnings through the wet season. This would allow fire fighters to combat the major fires during the summer and fall seasons as needed. And when it comes time for the rains to come a few fire fighters can keep their jobs every year and collect and continue to have controlled small burns allowing the natural amount of fuel build up to dwindle. Once it has become manageable during the fire season or summer and fall months the jobs can be shifted and allowed for more fire fighters to help control the natural fires that help the environment continue its life cycle.
Now it’s time to make the change, our actions need to help the environment and keep our firefighters safe. So keeping firefighter employed and giving more jobs to fight fire isn’t the permanent solution. Education of the young and getting people involved in keeping out wild lands clean and only containing natural elements is a key component. Without this after a few decades of clean up the idea will be lost and the next generation will forget why we strived to make the difference in our state forests and wild land areas. We can also teach people who live in the country side how to keep their homes safe from fire by explaining the how for out from their houses they need to clear kindling and other small pieces of flammable materials. This reduces the time firefighters have to spend protecting civilian houses and can use a new technique and coat the houses in a layer of fire retardant foam. After all of the fighting over protecting the environment from the fire and from anymore-human destruction, the conclusion is to let nature take its course while still protecting the citizens who live enjoy living in nature.