Big Fire in the Kern..Alta Sierra

What's killing us in the area now is trying to find some Magician Sawyers who can precision drop 100 footers without crushing the sh#t out of our homes.

Even though we all know, in many if not most cases, burnt homes should be permanently zoned out of residential home usage. If your homes burns in a wildfire then it should not be rebuilt there, that would help start us humans down a more harmonious relationship with the forest.

We went wine slurping in the Santa Ynez valley on our last day, and ash was falling, despite being many miles away from the fire.

When I was enjoying my six-month stay at Taft, a fire was raging near Santa Barbara, I believe about 100 miles away (of course from prison, it might as well have been a million miles away). In the morning, we would see no sign, but by about 4:30 in the afternoon, it would be raining ash. Ycch!

Aug 25, 2016 - 10:10pm PT
I have been giving some serious thought to the assertions made by Chainsaw about the loss of genetic strength by harvesting of trees.

I have two degrees in genetics, and a background in botany, and this has given me pause, as I could not figure out how this would actually work.

I don't think that this assertion is correct, and the lack of any studies supporting this seems to bear this out.

I did graduate work with the great evolutionist G. Ledyard Stebbins, who created the modern framework of plant genetics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._Ledyard_Stebbins

Oh, and Stebbins put up first ascents in the Sierra!

This reminds me very much of a recycling of the discredited theory of Eugenics.

In fact, the assertion might be the most erroneous conclusion possible.

Dominant trees are just that, retarding the growth of the smaller trees around it. Those trees either came from the same parent, or from the tree itself. If it involves progeny trees, that means that the gene pool has been diversified.

This is important, because we are going through an era of climate change. For trees to respond, like all living things, they need genetic diversity, for there to be alternatives that may live better in the changing circumstances. As long as the dominant tree is present, it will inhibit the growth and reproduction of all other nearby trees, inhibiting that "genetic drift". So the species gets "left behind" the environment, and if it has not had a chance to adapt, it will perish in that environment.

Tree genetic change is VERY slow. We count human generations as 20 years. Bacteria often 20 minutes. For trees, it may be hundreds of years, which does not really allow for changes in the expression of different genes, and to provide a survival advantage.

There may be a trees right now, that are resistant to the beetles. But they will not gain widespread traction until the existing forests are replaced. I'm not sure they have that time.

But I do not believe that logging is genetically bad, and if anything, is probably good.


Ken M

chainsaw

Trad climber
CA

Aug 21, 2016 - 03:42pm PT
We are seeing similar problems up highway 4 in the Stanislaus. Not as bad as Kern but definately happening. This is caused by three things. Obviously drought and hot temps are stressing our forests. More importantly, the forests are dying because of genetics. In the 1900s loggers cut all the best healthy trees, leaving behind the sick and genetically inferior trees. These genetically inferior trees were all that was left behind to reproduce in many areas.
The result is that today we have forests of mostly inferior trees that are about sixty to ninety years old. And they didnt grow in a natural age stratified population.
In a normal aboriginal forest, shade and competition limit the growth of younger trees.
Fire burned regularly and thus only hearty trees survived, while slash was burned up.
A person could walk and hunt in these forests. But in the clearcuts with the absence of fire and competition, the new forests grew huge swaths of what USFS calls "poodle-tails" which are tall, skinny matchsticks packed close together. You cant walk through them. They die and form slash that pluggs the paths and burns furiously. If wildfires had been allowed to burn for the last century we would not have such a fuel load today. It is in fact our reluctance to thin and burn these areas today that contributes to the problem.
That is in fact the third and most manageable reason the forests are unhealthy. Unfortunately we will have to thin and burn for the next 100 years to restore a more age stratified and robust forest with trees that are genetically superior reproducing instead of the ones rejected by loggers which gave rise to our current germplasm (genetic collective.) Lastly, although the beetles and other bugs appear to be the cause, these organisms have been around almost as long as the forests. The fact is that beetles and most tree diseases are opportunists that capitalize on stressed and already dying trees.
In the arboriculture business we see this all the time. People treat their trees for bugs with Lindane and other nasty injections to no avail.
The trees die anyway even when bugs are gone. The bugs are not the cause, just the symptom of a weakened and vulnerable forest. Only a hundred years of thinning and burning will cull the weak, clear the brush and make way for a new stronger generation of robust and genetically diverse age stratified forest.
Quite tragic really.
The best recommendation I can give is to buy land in an area that has already burned. You will be amazed how fast nature bounces back, especially in chapparal which is very fire tolerant. Areas like Mountain Ranch will be on their way towards recovery while the rest is still burning. Where fires have raged, you will have less dry fuel and thus greater fire protection in the future. My heart goes out to the Clan Dykens and all those who lost homes in Mountain and Rainbow Ranches and the Land Trust. My prayers are with you.