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stunewberry
Trad climber
Spokane, WA
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Topic Author's Original Post - Sep 1, 2013 - 11:04pm PT
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Went to post a link to a National Academy of Sciences report on fires in the west to Ron Anderson's thread, only to find it is "no longer available for reply." It did appear to have devolved into name calling.
Anyway, here is a link that is worth following:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/02/09/1112839109.abstract
It's called "Long-term perspective on wildfires in the western USA." First author is Jennifer Marlon, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Dept of Geography.
The entire article is available for free.
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aguacaliente
climber
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I am no expert in this area, but I thought this SF Chronicle article raised some of the issues with more realism than you usually get in the popular press. It's short so of course it's not too deep. The numbers for tree density at beginning and end of the 20th C confirm something we've been hearing for a while, that the dense forests we're used to today are an aberration.
Fire in Yosemite offers forest management lessons
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Dr.Sprock
Boulder climber
I'm James Brown, Bi-atch!
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FOREST OF TORCHES Millions of drought-weakened, beetle-killed conifers are browning the Sierras and fueling fears of catastrophic fires
At 5:30 on a frosty morning last October, I crawled sleepily from my tent at the Silver Fork campground in California's Eldorado National Forest. I glanced skyward, then gazed in awe. The heavens were absolutely, marvelously aglitter.
At our 6,000-foot campsite, no haze filtered the view to set the stars twinkling. No, these were the almost piercing celestial pinpoints that one sees only through the clearest of air. Here in the dead-quiet campground was the timeless magic that the Sierras still share with early risers.
And yet I was concerned, seriously so. Paradoxically, this enchanting sight was also a grim reminder that this range is in a deepening crisis. The Sierras need far fewer clear days and celestial nights. They need rain and snow - huge pours and falls of it over months, years.
Put simply, these beloved mountains, clad in probably the noblest stands of mixed conifers on earth, are in a state of deadly drought.
A year and a half ago, as my wife, Maurine, and I visited the Sonora Pass where we have a cabin, I saw no more than a few dead firs and pines here and there. Then last summer, near Pinecrest on the Stanislaus National Forest, I became concerned as I gazed southward across the Tuolumne River drainage and noted hundreds of dead trees.
"Not to worry," someone told me. "Just beetles."
I'd seen the effects of bark beetles in the Sierras over the better part of six decades. But never anything like this. So Maurine and I decided to find out what is happening.
Last October, with our little Eureka tent, sleeping bags, and chow box stowed in our pickup, we departed the town of Mt. Shasta in northern California and headed southeast into the Sierras. Our trek would take us through six national forests and lead us to entomologists, tree farmers, timber officers, firefighters, Forest Service and California Department of Forestry experts, and forest-products producers.
The beetle-killed trees, we soon found, are symptomatic of a far greater problem for the Sierras: a critical, long-term shortage of precipitation that has no equal in recent history.
That moisture deficit goes back at least a decade at many Sierra locations. It's written with eloquent accuracy in the steadily narrowing outer rings of affected trees that have been felled from one end of the range to the other. That same deficit ties as directly to the disastrous 1987 California firestorms as it does to the chomping, multiplying critters whose work over the past several years has devastated at least four billion board-feet of prime timber (private and federal) in the Sierras. That's enough timber to build more than 300,000 three-bedroom homes.
DEATH ROBES
Bark beetles are hardly new to the Sierras. So we weren't particularly surprised, driving toward Lassen National Park, to spot a few yellowing pines and firs standing stiff and brittle in their rusty robes of death.
That afternoon on the 1.2-million-acre Lassen National Forest headquartered in Susanville, Timber Management Officer Bill Holland hit us with some shocks.
"Our forests are under tremendous stress," Bill said. "We've got a 75-to 100-million-board-foot infestation problem here on the Lassen - ponderosa and Jeffrey pine, red and white fir, Douglas-fir, incense cedar."
He added that last year 20 million board-feet were harvested from insect salvage - four times the insect-salvage harvest between 1985 and 1988.
"Trees with enough water can usually ward off bugs," he noted. "But our groundwaters are depleted, and when trees run out of water, bugs can kill them."
Properly depressed, we returned to our pickup, not yet grasping that the Lassen was one of the lightest-hit forests in the range.
Next day, after camping at Eagle Lake near Susanville, we meandered over the back roads of the Lassen, Plumas, and Tahoe national forests, visiting offbeat places like Prison Springs, Humbug Valley, Indian Valley, and many others.
The pattern of invasion was fairly uniform: a progressive browning downward from the tops of the firs and pines, and finally the full, brittle robe.
A once-magnificent ponderosa by the road on the west side of Eagle Lake on the Lassen forest seemed to stand out. Perhaps 130 feet tall and deeply scarred by several lightning hits, it glowed brown and dry in the morning sun. The ghost-like monarch still bore a lonely cone or two.
ON THE BATTLE LINE
Two days later, Maurine and I drove down to the Buttercup Pantry eatery in Placerville in the Sierra foothills, where a small group of Forest Service and wood-products people had gathered to talk about beetles and salvage - and spotted owls.
"We have to owl it, mark it, and arc it," explained Eldorado Forest Supervisor Jerry Hutchins, talking about the complex, time-consuming preparation of bark-beetle salvage sales. Spotted-owl nesting sites and archaeological sites are on the to-be-spared list.
"We had 30 owlers calling in July," Jerry reported, referring to Forest Service personnel who locate spotted-owl habitat areas. He demonstrated the "who-who-who" call used by the Forest Service people (others carry boom-box tape players) to elicit an owl response that pinpoints the nests - which environmental regulations require as a prerequisite to salvage logging.
"We have more than 1,000 archaeological sites on the Eldorado," lamented Rex Baumback, Forest Service timber-management officer, as he explained that "arc checks" are pre-salvage archaeological investigations to determine the forest areas that must be avoided as loggers salvage the beetle-killed trees.
Alas, a quandary: the Forest Service is faced with the imperative need to salvage the dead trees for marketing - and urgently needed fire control - before they rot in a year or two versus strict new controls to protect the spotted owl, archaeological sites, wild rivers, wilderness areas, and other forest resources.
Jerry explained that his people have developed their "bug salvage" operations as they would have attacked a forest fire: on an emergency, get-the-lead-out basis.
That may explain why the Eldorado leads all Sierra national forests in reaping the grim harvest of bark-beetle kill in this heaviest-hit area, where 143 million boardfeet were salvaged last year alone. That's a sixfold increase for the Eldorado over the previous year, and last summer that bug salvage amounted to nearly 80 percent of all timber harvested on that forest.
Immediately after breakfast, Maurine and I climbed into a Forest Service carry-all with Jerry, Rex, and Forest Service Silviculturist David Bakke for a day-long swing through the Eldorado.
"We have at least a half-billion board-feet of mortality here on the forest," Rex explained as we headed up U.S. Highway 50 toward little Kyburz. Placerville's earlier Gold Rush name, "Dry Diggin's," began to take on new meaning. I wondered about earlier droughts.
"There was the '54-'55 drought, the '76-'77 one, and last winter was our third dry one in a row," Dave noted. But all agreed that this latest go-around was the driest, and by far the most damaging of all.
Late that morning at around 5,000 feet, we climbed into the mountains leading toward the High Sierra, leaving the confined American River highway corridor that had restricted our view. And now we could all see the sweep of the mortality - dead trees all around us on the curving road and thousands of dead trees scattered throughout the south-aspect forests rising across the river.
At 6,500 feet, as we entered Sierra Ski Ranch, huge red firs stood dying, and environmental considerations were having their effect on the salvage process. On the one hand, dead trees along the ski slopes were being removed to protect skiers from falling limbs and tree tops. On the other side of the road, standing dead trees were being left as is - despite their explosive fire potential - because spotted owls were nearby.
Meanwhile, the beetles chomped on.
On the Wright's Lake road high to the north of Highway 50, we came across an area that had been salvage-logged three times during the past year and a half. And at Ice House Reservoir, beetle mortality was occurring in sugar, ponderosa, and Jeffrey pines; red, white, and Douglas-fir; and other species on the beetles' hit list.
"We have a maximum of two years to salvage the fir before it rots, and no more than three years for pine," Jerry noted. "There are just not enough trucks and loaders to do the job."
Late that afternoon we snaked through the twisting streets of Placerville, where Gold Rush scalawags were once hanged on the spot, and then headed for San Francisco in air far different from that morning's.
MEETING THE CRITTERS
Toward the southern end of the beetle battle, on the Stanislaus National Forest, I met the Forest Service's chief bug guy, Dr. John Wenz, an entomologist who's the on-the-scene bark-beetle expert for the southern Sierras.
"The mountain pine beetle attacks ponderosa, sugar, and lodgepole pines," he told me. "But the real culprit around here is the western pine beetle, which goes after ponderosa and Coulter pines. Ips pine-engraver beetles have also been a major factor down in this area. The fir engraver is the big culprit for the true firs - white and red.
"Death to the trees comes as the beetles - smaller than a grain of rice - produce a girdling effect as they excavate 'galleries,' distributing the flow of nutrients in the outer cambium sapwood - the xylem. The beetles introduce blue-stain fungi that invade the sapwood and block water-conducting capabilities.
"A good, healthy tree will drown the bugs in its own pitch, producing 'pitch tubes' as a physical deterrent to ward off the attack. But drought-stressed trees just don't have as much pitch, and that's why they're more susceptible," John continued.
So in the southern Sierras you have a major two-year drought in '75 and '77, historic fires in 1987, plus below-normal precipitation for four of the past five years - and John's matter-of-fact prognosis:
"If it doesn't rain adequately, the problem will accelerate. Even with normal precipitation this winter, we'll still have heavy mortality in 1990."
Next morning, on the Sonora Pass road at MiWok Ranger Station, Timber Sale Officer Harold Smith stood dejectedly in a forest of stumps.
"You can't spray every damn tree - you can't get high enough on the trunks. The bugs can fly up to 10 miles on strong upper-air currents. We're using helicopters for salvage - first time in 10 years. Can we get the timber out in time? That's the question."
A MILLION TORCHES
Near the little settlement of Confidence on the Sonora Pass Highway, Dan Ward, a forester for the California Department of Forestry, climbed toward a clearing on property that belongs to a local realtor. Reaching the clearing, Dan was surrounded by dead ponderosa and sugar pines up to 100 feet tall. He chopped into the bark of one of them to reveal pine turpentine beetles and their larvae.
"We've lost the war - the control of the beetle," he told me. "But we'll win some minor battles on private and Forest Service lands by salvaging the infested trees."
To this end, Dan spends maybe 40 percent of each day talking with private landowners in the Mother Lode foothills and the lower Sierras above. He tells them that well before a beetle-infested tree looks dead, when it's producing pitch tubes to try to expel the critters, the bugs have already done their damage.
"I suggest that people remove the tree and all slash immediately, or fell, buck, and split such trees, lop and scatter the slash to let it dry."
Meanwhile, Dan is working with a Tuolumne County special task force of federal, state, and local people to guide residents toward what owners and officials hope will be productive strategies to cope with the beetles. Upcoming: a probable ordinance requiring that property-development plans include bark-beetle-control measures.
But Dan, who is basically a firefighter, has one overriding concern: the probability of wildfire this coming summer.
"The single largest problem is fire - the torching of the dead trees, the spotting of fires ahead of the main fire line. The dead trees are a potential conduit.
This forester is hardly alone in his concern.
At the Forest Service's regional office in San Francisco, Dick Harrell, fire-management specialist for the Pacific Southwest, explained, "As dead fuel accumulates, the difficulty of fire control increases, your spotting potential goes up, firefighting becomes more hazardous, fuel consumption is more intense. Eventually it's going to rear up and bite you."
He recalled that during the Sierra firestorms of 1987, 1,200 lightning-caused fires started in just two days - and this was before the beetle problem became major.
Today millions of dead trees in the Sierras are, in a manner of speaking, unlighted torches. And given the right combinations of dryness, wind, steep slopes, and lightning starts, the Sierra Nevadas could experience fires of epic proportions this summer.
WHERE FROM HERE?
Like everyone else connected with the crisis, Regional Forester Paul Barker is hoping for a dramatic improvement in the weather, but he takes a bit longer view of things.
"Within 10, 15 years we can anticipate an extremely severe fire loss as the beetle-infested trees rot and fall. Meanwhile, I'm praying for an extremely wet and cold winter to kill the insects and to give the trees a little respite."
Multiply that one winter by five or six sopping, cold winters, I'm thinking. And fervently hoping.
Table : The principal bark beetle culprits in California:
BARK BEETLE HOST TREES
Western pine beetle Ponderosa pine, Coulter pine
Pine engraver beetle (Ips) All pines
Mountain pine beetle Ponderosa, sugar, lodgepole
and western white pine
Jeffrey pine beetle Jeffrey pine
Douglas-fir beetle Douglas-fir
Fir engraver (Scolytus) White, lowland white (grand fir),
and California red fir
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mechrist
Gym climber
South of Heaven
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In my opinion, this may be the single most important issue "environmentalists" who enjoy the woods need to understand. The public land managers are required by law (NEPA) to solicit and address public input on proposed activities, including fuels treatments. Commenting from an emotional, uneducated stance ("I love the woods, don't cut trees, ban logging") wastes time, money, and ultimately the woods we claim to love.
Please inform yourselves before resisting the best options available.
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stunewberry
Trad climber
Spokane, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 2, 2013 - 11:13am PT
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Wow, didn't take this long to sink back into name-calling.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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A long term problem.
First of all the bureaucracy has been infested with Gaia worshiping nerds trapped in a Russeauian fantasy world.
That won't change until their mentors are removed from academia and the leadership and education returns to those that actually know which end of a McLeod and a Polaski to pick up.
There are some macroeconomic items at work here. Forests will be ignored as long as they present little economic value.
With a dead housing industry there's low demand for lumber.
The plastic bag as supplanted the paper bag.
Economic policies should be instituted that promote the utilization of forest products. For example, outlaw plastic and mandate paper bags and packaging.
Long term leasing strategies should be encouraged. (50-100 years) That means the leaseholder has "skin in the game" and a financial as well as regulatory obligation to manage his lease in a sustainable manner.
Where shorter term harvesting is the only practical solution, strict controls should be established to insure slash collection and burning and proper thinning.
All funds from harvesting fees should be captive to the USFS and applied to management of areas where harvesting is either impractical, economically not viable or esthetically undesirable.
It should be illegal for various air control boards to limit controlled burns.
Areas that have recovered to a natural burn cycle should be allowed to do so.
There's a few ideas.
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mechrist
Gym climber
South of Heaven
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First of all the bureaucracy has been infested with Gaia worshiping nerds trapped in a Russeauian fantasy world.
fuking idiot. you don't have the slightest clue what you are rambling about.
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Mr Roy
climber
Seattle
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As long as the Feds have anything to do with it the forests are doomed.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Yep!
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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There is little oversight and little incentive for the logging companies to be environmentally responsible, especially on public lands.
That's why you make the leaseholds long term.
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aguacaliente
climber
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Enough name calling.
Just saying that it is all the Feds' fault neglects a lot of things. The SFgate article points out that the NPS has gone to a policy of letting fires burn unless they get too close to areas of special interest, and that this has positive effects. The Forest Service has more difficulty with this, I expect, not just because of its bureaucracy but because there are more interests - inholdings, towns inside the Forest, commercial interests, and so on. It's not just enviros that cause all the problems.
At the same time, people are going to have to accept that thinning and controlled burning are necessary and that fire isn't necessarily bad. I try to re-educate my friends about this whenever there is a big fire and they blame whoever for not "putting it out."
I don't think handing the entire forest over to commercial logging permits is gonna be a viable solution. US publicly held companies have disincentives to plan for the long term.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Werehaeuser owns 9 million acres of timber. You can bet your ass it is managed as a long term asset. Same applies to any other wood products company that owns their own land.
They also manage 14 million acres in Canada under long term leases. Maybe some of the hosers can inform us on how they manage those.
They did a really good job in NE Arizona until the lease ended back in the 80's,they left, the forest reverted to an overgrown mess and then the Rodeo fire incinerated it down to bedrock.
They also got out of the packaging businesses completely in 2008.
Get rid of plastic packaging, promote wood products and once forests are VALUED! they will be managed wisely.
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apogee
climber
Technically expert, safe belayer, can lead if easy
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" because i can find about a thousand of yours that are far worse."
It's your choice to react in any way you do, Ron. Take responsibility for your own actions & words- they aren't any more justified because someone else does something similar (or worse).
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mechrist
Gym climber
South of Heaven
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I think you meant to say "You can bet your ass it is managed for maximum profit"
Exactly why forest management (or ANY public natural resource) should never be left in the hands of corporations. Capitalism and a free-market economy are great for producing iDumb sh#t, and absolutely destructive when managing shared natural resources.
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dirt claud
Social climber
san diego,ca
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Did anyone read the information on the link Stunweberry originally posted, some interesting info there.
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Bad Climber
climber
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Re. beetle kill:
No substantial increase in fire risk. I'll post this link every time this topic comes up. Tree density, general dryness, okay, but beetle kill ain't a big part of the risk:
http://wildfiretoday.com/tag/beetles/
Re. the rest, I dunno....
BAd
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the albatross
Gym climber
Flagstaff
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Nov 18, 2013 - 01:06pm PT
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Here is a link to the Flagstaff Watershed Protection Plan:
http://www.flagstaffwatershedprotection.org/faqs/
And some select cut and paste from the above link:
"The Flagstaff Watershed Protection Project was overwhelmingly approved by City voters with nearly 74% approval. The $10 million bond will be spent to plan, implement, and monitor forest treatments within two key watersheds on the Coconino National Forest and State Trust lands.
What is meant by “forest treatments”?
Primarily selective removal (thinning) of excessive trees, focused on small-diameter trees, debris (slash) disposal, followed by controlled burning to remove remaining unwanted material and reinvigorating grass, flowers, and shrub growth.
What treatment methods will be used?
At this time, specific treatments have not been determined. All treatment options will be analyzed-including traditional logging, hand thinning and prescribed fire, as well as helicopter logging and cable logging."
If you are interested in science based research on forest treatments to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires, this link posted is a good start to understanding the complex issues surrounding management of our public lands.
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the albatross
Gym climber
Flagstaff
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Nov 18, 2013 - 02:52pm PT
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Ron, your probably thinking of the Kaman K-1200 "KMax". A sweet little lifting machine designed for moving heavy loads.
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the albatross
Gym climber
Flagstaff
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Nov 18, 2013 - 05:18pm PT
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For those folks interested in public land management, the City of Flagstaff has worked very closely with the US Forest Service for at least the last decade to help prepare the city against wildfire. If you live in the Western US and your town / city is in brush or timber it might be worthwhile to check out the link I posted above. Fortunately many of the residents of this city are aware of the dangers we face (living in a vast Ponderosa pine forest which burns regularly).
Here is some more cut and paste from the link several posts up:
"It is highly probable that the headwaters of the Rio de Flag will burn under high severity within the next 20 years. The headwaters of Lake Mary, as well as the areas contributing to groundwater recharge for the City of Flagstaff’s well fields are similarly threatened. Research and experience tell us that we face a high probability of severe wildfire and flooding events occurring in the near future if preventative, pro-active, and risk reduction mitigation work is not completed soon. Locally, following the 2010 Schultz fire, devastating flooding occurred in the Timberline and Doney Park areas, and threatened the City’s Cinder Lake Landfill.
By conducting ecologically appropriate thinning and burning, the occurrence and cost of unnaturally large and damaging wildfires can be greatly reduced. Research and experience have shown that acres burned and associated costs are exponentially reduced in treated areas as compared to non-treated areas."
I hope that other mountain towns follow our lead.
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the albatross
Gym climber
Flagstaff
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Nov 18, 2013 - 08:23pm PT
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The city of Flagstaff has good reason to be concerned about the risk of wildfire. If the Schultz fire
had started a couple miles to the south a fair amount of our downtown and university could have seen serious flooding.
Here's a link from the local university in regards to the financial impact of the 2010 Schultz fire.
http://news.nau.edu/nau-study-estimates-financial-impact-of-2010-schultz-fire/
with the text below:
The physical impact of wildfires is something residents in the Southwest are all too familiar with—charred trees, damaged structures, flooded streets and barren land endure as a monument to the devastation it leaves behind.
The financial impact of a wildfire can be just as devastating to public resources and private property owners, according to a new study by Northern Arizona University’s Ecological Restoration Institute and Arizona Rural Policy Institute.
The study examines the 2010 Schultz Fire and resulting flooding that occurred in the affected areas. The total financial impact of the fire and flooding is estimated to be between $133 million and $147 million.
The report, titled “A Full Cost Accounting of the 2010 Schultz Fire,” is intended to provide a clear picture of how fire affects communities, governments, non-profits and property owners. The findings raise questions about the full financial impact of large-scale wildfires that have swept across California, Arizona and Colorado in recent years.
“We were able to estimate the full cost of the fire and flooding beyond the typical analysis of tracking the cost of fire suppression, remediation and loss of timber value,” said Wayne Fox, director of the Arizona Rural Policy Institute and assistant dean of The W.A. Franke College of Business. “Our core analysis captured direct government expenditures, loss of property values and direct financial loss. As large as the numbers are, they are conservative.”
The Schultz Fire burned 15,000 acres north and west of the city of Flagstaff and resulted in the evacuation of approximately 700 homes. Heavy flooding following the fire inundated property below the burn area and resulted in the death of a 12-year-old girl.
The research also determined that had the area’s forest undergone thinning of small diameter trees prior to the fire, an investment of $15 million, the impact of the fire would have been lessened.
“This study demonstrates the value of prevention and the terrible cost of inaction,” said Diane Vosick, director of Policy and Partnerships at the Ecological Restoration Institute. “It shows that the brunt of forest fire and post-fire flooding is felt by everyone in the community. This can all be avoided by science-supported forest restoration that includes thinning and burning.”
The report examines the additional costs—including societal costs and impacts on private property owners—from official government reports that listed the cost of the fire and flood at $60 million. The study’s estimated total cost was determined through analysis of Coconino County Assessor records, a survey of impacted residents and the perceived value of the loss of endangered species and human life.
The full report is available here.
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