A fire-fighter comments on the California fires

Bone dry vegetation, low humidity, hurricane winds.

A forest-fire fighter comments.

I had two jobs in the summers of 1967 to 1971. I grew, picked, and sold melons in the cool early mornings between daylight and 10 a.m. After 10 a.m. I was on duty at the Oregon State Forestry fire station, where I was on the hotshot crew. We fought forest fires in the brushy scrub oak wild areas on low elevation land outside the cities. We were the rapid response to small fires, typically from a cigarette tossed from a car or kids playing with matches. If there weren't wind gusts, we could usually contain the fire while it was still smaller than a football field. I know enough about fighting fires to know that wind changes everything.

Gary Shade

Gary Shade knows a lot about fighting forest fires. He was a member of an elite crew of "smokejumpers" who would parachute into remote roadless areas where lightning had started fires. 

Gary Shade is at the top left. Smokejumper crew in Grangeville, Idaho, 1977.

He shared with me a letter he received from a lifelong friend, a Pennsylvanian who gets his news from Fox, who had questions about the California fires. Then Gary's response.

The friend writes:

I have been watching the news the last few days and the main story is the horrible fires in California and I would like to hear your opinion on what the hell is going on out there.      

I watch Fox news, which I think gives a more honest opinion of the real news and I think they do a good job of exposing the failures and causes of the fires. It seems that the liberal policies to protect the environment have   actually helped to  destroy the environment. The people in charge know that every year they have a fire threat and every year they have high winds in Jan and Feb, yet nothing preventive has taken place to prevent the fires or contain them in a timely manner.  I could not believe that they actually cut the Fire Department funds, but raised the homeless allotment by billions of dollars.      

It also sounds like Newsom is focusing on himself and his political future, instead of planning for any possible disasters, which looks like he helped promote, with taking out dams in the rivers and not building water reservoirs, which the federal money was allocated to in the billions of dollars.  Not one reservoir has been built and the ones they had were empty.  It seems like all common sense has left southern California.  I know you have been fighting the forest fires in the past and would like your honest opinion on what is going on. I feel terrible about the loss of life and property and all the wild animals that have been lost and all the forests that have been lost.    

Your friend,

         B. 

 

Gary Shade's response: 

The wildland fire management in CA is complex. Fourty-six percent of the land in CA is owned by the Federal Government. Here in Jackson County, Oregon, the Feds own 53 percent of the land. Imagine if half the land in PA or Montgomery County were owned by the Feds. The Feds are responsible for fuels reduction programs and fighting wildfires on their lands.

The Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and Department of Interior are the primary agencies managing these lands. They have been working on fuels management and fuels reduction strategies for decades. The question is, have they done enough? They could do more with more money and less concern for environmental impacts as the argument goes.

The state agency for fighting CA wildland fires on state and private lands is Cal Fire. Cal Fire is the best firefighting agency on the planet, with the US Forest Service second.

The release of energy that destroyed Pacific Palisades was the equivalent of a strike by a tactical nuclear missile, but without the radiation. People are traumatized and angry. This can't be an "Act of God", somebody is responsible and righteous indignation floweth over. 

Weather patterns have been developing for the past two years in southern CA setting up for the perfect firestorm: a wet 2023 and an eight-month drought this year. Brush fields in southern CA were lush from last year and paper dry this year. Once there was an ignition in the wrong place at the wrong time, with hot dry east winds of hurricane force, a perfect firestorm was created. It was a wind-driven fire tsunami or fire avalanche barreling downhill to consume Pacific Palisades. 

The perfect stage has been set for a political backlash. I first think of the political backlashes from repeated hurricanes destroying Florida, or statewide winter power grid failures in Texas. Public outrage seems tempered and muted.  Republicans still keep their jobs.

The catastrophic firestorms in CA have now turned into the perfect firestorm for Dems. Now is the time to plant the stake in the heart of Newsom and environmentalists. And it is working, especially with Dems and their penchant for self-inflicted wounds and public snobbishness. The political goal is to eliminate a national Dems leader as a presidential competitor, punch the environmentalist in the nose, and keep the discussions away from the elephant in the room: a dramatically changing climate. 

The brush-filled mountains above Pacific Palisades had well-established dozer fire lines on all the ridge tops before the fire. There was work done in fuels management, and fire-breaks were effective for a topography driven fire. This was a wind-driven fire. So rather than racing uphill to the ridge-top fire breaks, the fire was driven down-slope by the winds from Hell. 

I live in the woods and a crown fire in the forest next to our compound will take out my home. There is much that I and neighbors can do to create a fire-defensible space around our homes and property. But if east winds blow hard, a fire could become a crown fire that would take out my neighborhood.

The criticisms of Dems are real and appropriate. We can and need to do better. Difficult strategic decisions will need to be made from lessons learned. My take is that, if I lose my place due to wildfire, I am not blaming the governor of Oregon. Now I could move to a more fire-secure location, but I'll take my chances with God's Acts.   

G. 

 

View of fire taken from a window seat of an airliner

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