Lessons from the Creek Fire
The Southern Sierra has been in the limelight of forest management for over 130 years. Once a resilient mixed conifer stand of large, old, widely-spaced trees, the forest was maintained by frequent lightning fires and Native American tribes. In 1890, the National Park system was established right here in the Southern Sierra with the creation of General Grant, Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks. Within seven years, a reserve force was set up to protect and preseve the forest from wildfire. Thus began a century long affair with fire suppression.
The Big Burn of 1910 inexplicably changed attitudes about fire. The belief that forests needed to be protected from fire spurred an increasing drive for fire suppression. Decades passed. Forests quickly became small diameter, even-aged, overcrowded stands, creating an unstable ecosystem highly susceptible to drought, bark beetle infestation and fire.
In the midst of the Southern Sierra sits a 20,000 acre parcel owned by Southern California Edison, purchased in 1912 from the Fresno Flume and Lumber Company for its Big Creek hydroelectric project. That same year, A.W. Elam drew up a timber inventory map plot by plot, showing the native species composition of the forest.
Enter Harold Biswell. After 17 years with the Forest Service, Biswell became Professor Emeritus of Forestry and Resource Management at the University of California at Berkeley in 1947. Biswell's practices promoted the use of prescribed fire to restore the overstocked and unhealthy forests of California. Biswell's 1989 landmark book, Prescribed Fire in California Wildlands Vegetation Management, is a key text for natural resource land managers.
John Mount, a student of Biswell, was recruited in 1979 by Southern California Edison to manage its forest. Mount immediately adopted a total ecosystem approach, including prescribed fire, burning up to 1,000 acres per year in addition tomechanical thinning, chipping, and highly selective logging, choosing not the largest stems but those that made the most ecological sense. Slowly, the jungle became a forest again.
Today, Elam's map has become the cornerstone of forest management on Edison lands. Working one 1/10-acre plot at a time, college students collect information on height, species, and condition of the vegetation. The data is compared to the Elam map to create a management plan to build resilience on the land. Rob York, who manages UC Berkeley's Blodgett Research Forest to the north, noted, "What I see is incredible. Edison is setting an example for how it can be done."
Forester and wildlife biologist Steve Byrd continues the work since Mount retired in 2010. Edison continues to burn around 1,000 acres annually, attempting to restore the historic fire return intervals of 4-25 years in the Southern Sierra. Byrd would like to double that number. The crew also plants sugar pine, ponderosa pine and giant sequoia seedlings to recreate the forest's historic species composition. Forest supervisor, Ryan Stewart, says, "We're planting trees not just for one year or ten years, but for 75 or 100 years, for our grandaughters and grandsons."
Edison's low and slow prescribed fires foster an island in the dense national forest surrounding their property. Bald eagle and spotted owl populations have revived. Wildlife species increased. Native plants grow faster than those in untreated forests. Riparian areas thrive. The soil remains stable and protected from erosion. Land managers and foresters in the Sierra have taken notice. About 15 years ago, CALFIRE, the forest service and the national parks began increasing prescribed fire use on their lands. But they have massive holdings, limited personnel and, as it turned out, limited time.
The Creek Fire
September 4, 2020
380,000 acres; largest single fire in California history
On the evening of September 4, 2020, the Creek Fire sparked between Huntington Lake and Shaver Lake in the Southern Sierra. It quickly became a firestorm, creating the largest single fire in California history. The fire burned nearly 380,000 acres in the Sierra National Forest and took nearly 3 months to put out.
NASA described the pyrocumulonimbus cloud as one of the largest ever seen in the United States. These clouds fuel and are fueled by fire, creating wind that adds oxygen to the fire. A pileup of over 150 million dead trees created expansive crown fires, feeding the cloud and creating explosive fire behavior.
With so many acres burned, those that survived stand out. Among them are Shaver Lake village and the mixed conifer stands of SoCal Edison Land. This is especially relevant when you realize that Shaver Lake sits on a plateau surrounded by heavy forest on three sides.
Steve Byrd explains that the proximity of Edison land to Shaver requires constant attention. "We always knew that fire was a risk coming at us from federal land. For us, it was a matter of what do we do when it gets here? How do we get that fire down on the ground so we can stop it?"
The Creek Fire approached from the north toward a patch of untreated national forest land at Ely Mountain that was surrounded by 800 acres of Edison land that had been burned over the last three years. The SoCal Edsion forest withstood a wall of flames roaring up from Big Creek on September 5, bringing the fire out of the crowns and creeping along the forest like a healthy prescribed burn. This prevented the fire from going up and over Ely Mountain toward Shaver.
On the west side of the lake, a network of fuel breaks thinned and burned in a collaborative agreement between SoCal Edison and the Hwy 168 Fire Safe Council helped to save the village, dam, camps and marina. "That preparation, combined with all those firefighters pouring in behind those homes in what was an absolute dogfight, that is what saved Shaver Lake," said Byrd.
The Southern Sierra is an ecosystem adapted to fire--it wants fire, thrives with fire. Yet, prescribed burning in the Southern Sierra falls far short of what is needed to get the ecosystems on track. Mike Mohler, Deputy Director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, indicates that overcoming public fear of fire is one hurdle to getting more good fire on the ground.
Choose the forest you want
Wildfire moved across this landscape as a crown fire, killing the trees on the right. It entered a managed forest on the left and the fire dropped to the ground and crept through the forest, consuming underbrush, creating a more resilient forest.
The aftermath of fire on an overstocked forest.
The aftermath of fire on a healthy forest.
There is a need for appropriate forest management practices. The perception that we must "save the trees" by protecting them at all costs ignores the reality that healthy forests thrive with the balance that frequent, low severity fires can provide. Too much blame is placed on climate change with regard to catastrophic wildfire. "Climate dries the wood fuels out and extends the fire season, but it's not the cause of the intensity of modern forest fires," says US Forest Service scientist Malcolm North. "The cause of that is fire suppression and the existing debt of wood fuel." The US Forest Service estimates that dead stands in the Southern Sierra contain about 2,000 tons of fuel per acre. Healthy stands that held 60-100 trees per acre during John Muir's day now contain 500-800 trees per acre. This puts a burden on all natural resources and wildlife.
It can take years to navigate federal, state and local environmental and air pollution regulations. "Most state and federal agencies...know they need to be doing more prescribed fire, they want to be doing more prescribed fire. They are simply unable to accomplish that," says Crystal Kolden, fire science professor at UC Merced.
But there is some good news on the horizon. There is increasing support for prescribed fire to reduce barriers in permitting and smoke managment. The California Forest Management Task Force and the California Air Resources Board are working to help prescribed fire practitioners and local air pollution control districts navigate a smooth approval process for prescribed fires to go forward. California SB 1260 mandated a new California Presribed Fire Burn Boss program to train more fire practitioners. It rolls out in the spring of 2021. Furthermore, Prescribed Burn Associations are making a comeback. Now local landowners have options to help set up and conduct burns on their own land. If you live on forested, oak woodland or grassland in the Southern Sierra, we encourage you to get involved and contact the Southern Sierra Prescribed Fire Council or UCCE Mariposa to find out more about opportunities near you!
