Posted on by Californiacontrarian

California on Fire

We have lived on a canyon for almost twenty-eight years and the threat of fire has been on my mind for the entire time. About ten years ago a very nice woman from the city was in my backyard inspecting the brush clearing in the canyon.

She asked, “When was the last time the city cleared anything in this canyon?”
I answered, “To the best of my knowledge, never!”
That woman inspector has never been back.
In fact, no one from the city has ever been back!

Fire is always a threat in California, and the drier, and the hotter, the worse the threat, and this year has been especially hot and much drier than average. Around the state, crews are stretched to the limit to combat at least 17 major blazes from San Diego to the Oregon border, and so far these fires have burnt about 250,000 acres. Dead trees are one of the major reasons for the vast swatches of forests being burned by these fires.
 Drought and excessive temperatures cause the trees to be less resistant to the bark beetle which in kills the trees. Dead trees are highly flammable, and there are a myriad of dead trees out there as the die-off has been accelerated by years of past droughts. The estimate is that 102 million tress have died in California over the past few years. To get an idea of the severity of the problem, lifeless forests in California occupy an area about twice the size of Connecticut!
The die-off, which prompted Gov. Jerry Brown to declare a state of emergency three years ago, began when trees, mainly pine but also oak, cedar and fir, became weakened by drought and easy prey for the beetle. The decline was hastened by already-crowded forests — a product of antiwildfire policies — which increased competition among trees for soil, sunlight and water.
Brown canceled the state of emergency in April, 2017 after a wet 2016-2017 winter. At that time there was a controversy as to whether or not the governor excessively cut that part of the budget that was allocated for fires. The governor said he didn’t, while the congressman from a district with a lot of forest said that he did. What actually happened is anybody’s guess. To no one’s surprise fighting wildfires is quite costly
This year California spent $125 million in July fighting wildfires. That was more than one-fourth of what was budgeted for the entire fiscal year, which began July 1 and won’t end until June 30, 2019. Keep in mind that September and October has historically been the prime time for wildfires.
Of course whenever disaster strikes, someone is always trying to place the blame on somebody else, and I am no different! Should any of the blame go to the environmentalists? When you listen to environmentalists and ecologists, you get the feeling that their houses have never been destroyed or even threatened by a wildfire.

Chad Hanson, research ecologist with the nonprofit John Muir Project, said tree die-off is part of the natural progression of the forest. While many fear that the largely dead forests present increased risk of fire, Hanson is among many who say the standing timber is no more dangerous than living trees. In fact, he infers that it can be less threatening because there are fewer needles and less foliage to burn. “From my perspective, you want a lot of live trees and you want a lot of dead trees in the forest,” Hanson said. “It’s just good for biodiversity.”
Biodiversity . . . Smio-diversity! Let’s get the fires out and let’s try to prevent them from occurring next year. If getting rid of dead diseased tress is what it takes, then get rid of them!
Now back to my canyon. In my younger days I spent many many hours each year clearing the canyon slopes adjacent to my property . . . but no longer can do. We just paid to have the slope cleared of brush, and it was not cheap. A large cottonwood tree in the canyon just at the edge of our property on has multiple large dead branches, high up in the tree. These dead branches are undoubtedly due to this year’s drought. A fire threat? Absolutely!
A easy fix? Absolutely not!
Should I get did of these dead branches? Absolutely.
A cheap fix? Absolutely not, as tree guys are not cheap even when you pay them in “cash only.”
I have a partial solution for my tree and the millions of other trees adjacent to houses, that are fire hazards. Recall the classic idiom, “A stitch in time, saves nine.”
Make the cost of getting rid of fire hazards – dead trees and dead brush – a state tax deductible expense. Would this be self-serving? Absolutely, but the end this would save not only lives, but also money as fighting wildfires is an extremely expensive item in the state’s budget.

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