As part of the Climate Desk partnership, this article was originally published by the Guardian and is being reprinted here.
Fuels for fire are waiting to bloom deep beneath the soggy soils and snowy berms that currently cover California. As the temperature warms, grasses and other swiftly growing vegetation that were sparked by the early-year downpours that submerged the state quickly turn to kindle.
According to Isaac Sanchez, a CalFire battalion chief, when that rain arrives, like it did last month, it causes large increases in fuel load. As the year progresses, [plants] will develop, pass away, and eventually turn into flammable fuel.
It’s still too early, according to experts, to forecast what the coming months will bring or whether the weather will cooperate to help infernos ignite, but it’s evident that the rains that pounded California this winter were a mixed blessing, bringing much-needed relief but also posing new threats.
In addition to hindering efforts to execute crucial landscape treatments required to reduce the dangers of catastrophic fire, the bad weather also prevented efforts to seed the tinder of tomorrow. According to Sanchez, that is the current state of the environment in the state in which we reside. We are always dealing with a two-edged sword.
The strength of reservoirs has increased recently. The snowpack is 134 percent of the average for April, giving the state a significant head start. This snowpack will gradually release rain into parched landscapes over the spring and summer. According to the most recent US Drought Monitor report, the rainfall also moved California out of the most severe categories of drought.
But, the storms also left hazardous waste in their wake. Powerful gusts tore limbs from trees and uprooted them, leaving igniting potential all across high-risk areas. Saturated dirt crumbled through the steep slopes, eating holes through highways and access points. Fire risks could increase if these problems continue into the summer and fall.
According to Scott Witt, deputy chief of pre-fire planning at CalFire, a branch that focuses on mitigation, those heavy rains essentially stopped our capacity to distribute burning across the region.
Introducing controlled fire to landscapes is a tried-and-true method for improving forest health and resilience as well as reducing fuels that can worsen fire severity, but the correct circumstances must exist before the fire is started.
The idea is at odds with efforts to improve air quality because too-wet landscapes won’t burn and high moisture levels might enhance the smoke output during a burn. Windy circumstances, in particular, can make them extremely difficult to handle.
Some remediation methods, such as those that employ machinery to remove plants from overgrown areas, were less impacted, but the storms created access challenges, according to Witt.
He explained that since certain regions had been so badly damaged that the roads had washed out, roadwork needed to be done first. The location of our treatments could be restricted or changed as a result of the recent severe rainfall.
The number of treatments provided by the state and its affiliates in December and January was nearly 50% lower than it was the year before, according to data from the agency that was published on Friday.
If the weather is good into the spring and the state was able to accomplish more than anticipated during a dry fall, there may still be time to step up the work. To make up for more than a century of fire suppression, which left woods overgrown and ready to burn, there are a lot of territories to cover, and the state is already playing catch-up.
The climate catastrophe has now increased the volume. Increasing temperatures are removing more moisture from the environment, which creates the perfect conditions for once-healthy ignitions to develop into infernos. Treating and receding the fields is a difficult task, especially now that there is more fuel on the ground as a result of the storms and time is of the essence.
Smaller plants dry out quickly when the rain stops, according to Witt, and dead grasses begin to dry out within an hour or two. If California receives much more of a dousing before spring is still uncertain.
Even though we had a fairly robust start to winter, Witt stated that if we continue to stay in a dry climate, we may very possibly have an early fire season. The substantial snowpack could assist postpone the introduction of danger.
Despite the urgency, Adrienne Freeman, a California-based representative for the US Forest Service, claimed that things might not be as bad as they might seem. Before the arrival of high-risk weather, a lot could still happen.
Forests recovered from the drought thanks to the cold, wet weather, making them more resistant to fires. Water tables are much more appealing, and pest species that prey on trees with weak defenses are better managed. We can’t separate all the good ecological news, she said, adding that the increase might not be as significant as it would have been in a world without climate change.
She noted that in order to complete the task, we simply need to keep in mind that it is a lengthy process and that it is necessary to monitor the impacts of landscape interventions over decades rather than years. It took 150 years to develop, and it won’t be corrected in a single season.
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She acknowledged that this winter’s landscape treatments were hampered by the storms, but added that there is still more work to be done. It really doesn’t affect what we can do in the spring or how the summer and fall fire seasons will look, she added. We are much too early to predict how this may impact fire season.
This year, the conditions that coincide in the summer and fall, which are more difficult to predict, will have a higher impact on the likelihood of fires. Like Freeman, Lenya Quinn-Davidson, director of the Northern California Prescribed Fire Council, agreed that a lot still depends on luck.
The timing favored California last year when dangers were high and the winter was dry. There were fewer large-scale fires that spread rapidly, and even while there were some disastrous and destructive high-severity burns, the total area charred by the end of the year was far smaller than in previous years.
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The weather this year is really different. With more snow and wetter soils heading into spring, various concerns still exist. Quinn-Davidson said it illustrates the necessity for us to think about fire constantly. There is more that can be done to be ready for the worst even though the weather will do what it will.
This entails building on the current momentum to carry out more prescribed burns and other treatments, to support communities that are fire-ready, and to pay attention to and learn from Indigenous leaders who carried out cultural burns for centuries prior to white colonizers upsetting vital and natural cycles on the lands.
Agencies and organizations tasked with this job will need to be nimble because weather patterns are becoming harder to predict. She said that this is where the community-based fire management groups that are springing up all throughout the state excel and that we really need to be prepared to seize the opportunities when they present themselves.
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She finds hope in that. There is a lot that can be done, even though some circumstances can be left to chance. She asserted that because people have shaped the landscape, we hold a great deal of power and ownership.
People and communities will be responsible for making sure the necessary instruments are available to stop the worst types of fires from breaking out. All we need to do is have the correct intentions in our hearts.
