PBS film explores issues around the largest fire ever in California

Last year the Creek Fire burned 379,895 acres

Afterburn - The Start of the Creek Fire
From PBS. Afterburn – The Start of the Creek Fire.

Jeff Aiello, a producer from Fresno, California, created a 26-minute film for PBS about the Creek Fire northeast of Fresno, California that last year burned 379,895 acres to become the largest single fire in the recorded history of the state.

“Afterburn — The Creek Fire Debate” includes opposing points of view about fire and forest management — for example from a fire ecologist and a forester. You might find yourself picking sides, or not agreeing with either side.

Click here to see all articles on Wildfire Today about the Creek Fire.

Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Jim.

Typos, let us know HERE, and specify which article. Please read the commenting rules before you post a comment.

Author: Bill Gabbert

After working full time in wildland fire for 33 years, he continues to learn, and strives to be a Student of Fire.

10 thoughts on “PBS film explores issues around the largest fire ever in California”

  1. I understand all of the above comments and frustrations expressed and wish we could just come up with some easy to execute answers. One thing that wasn’t mentioned with enough import was the way the winds thwarted many of our best efforts in that fire. There were a couple areas where the forests were managed, thinned and manicured up around Huntington Lake. If I remember right one area on the NNW side performed pretty well while another on the SSE side burned quite readily.

    As I followed the fire pretty closely on the fire maps it was evident that the spot fires were starting miles down wind and starting in tree tops from blowing embers, none of the aforementioned approaches would have worked perfectly in this scenario. Certainly not a black and white issue. It was an amazing maelstrom of fiery destruction like being in the depths of a forge with the bellows blowing full blast at times….nothing was going to stop it or any other fire in the future that has high winds as a component, no matter how much we try and clean things up.

    How the forests were left after the logging up into the 60’s was a travesty, masses of tree limb waste many feet thick you couldn’t walk through the area, no large marketable trees left in many areas, replaced by lush carpets of small crap kindling trees, we reap what we sow for sure.

    I did some math and I invite everyone to do the same for themselves and calculate the costs of all the activities associated with getting our forests cleaned up and up to snuff and the costs associated with the removal of all that fuel (that can’t be safely “controlled burned” any more) down to the valley, just calculate the costs for an acre in man, machine and fuel, then multiply it by total forested acres…..who wants to pay that bill ?? knowing full well when your crew finally gets to end of job they will need to go back to where they started and do it again, like painting the golden gate bridge. The subsequent passes would not be so intense as the initial one, but still lots of work removing all the new growth and shrubs forever.

    0
    0
  2. It’s my opinion, living and working in the beautiful Sierra Nevada Mountains. Forest fires come and go. 90% of all fires are started by People/Arson. Once again were in a drought. Over logging over the last 100 years has resulted in a forest full of small trees that blow up into crown fires. Our national forest is nothing but a corn patch for the loggers. Cut and plant. Cut 100 trees, plant 1000. Don’t believe me? look at the checker board National Forest above Georgetown, CA. Gps on your phone, look at all those clear cuts!!! square after square. The same trees are planted over and over, just like a corn farm. On and on. How many large trees or “mother” trees are left in the Sierra Nevada. How Many?? Yes we have more trees, they are planted tree farms. Now lets also consider private property. Property after property is noted with over growth… Some cleared, some not!!! Were in for a hot summer!!

    0
    0
  3. The main problem with Western U.S. forests isn’t climate change, it is the U.S. Forest Service that has converted our public Forests into Fuel. The U.S. Fuel Service. They used to be the premier forestry agency in the world but Politics has destroyed the agency and it is now ruled by fire ecologists like Chad Hanson and also federal judges who would rather have every single acre burned and have nobody living near the National Forests, except themselves and their ilk. When he says suppression should be done near communities but not out “in the forests”, he reveals his level of ignorance of fire management. You can’t let fires burn during peak fire season and expect to control them when they reach communities during severe fire weather events! Who is he trying to fool? Rural folks understand these things but politics has all but destroyed rural economies throughout the west, weakening their political clout. City folks don’t understand these complex land management issues and since they dominate the political scene due to simple demographics, rural folks get left behind. Of course California and other western states have Insect and Disease issues, because the forests haven’t been harvested and managed to keep them healthy. How much logging is done on the millions of acres of forest land in California annually? The regulations on “private” land are onerous not to mention the fact that forest industry is villified and only a shadow of what it used to be. I don’t know for sure, but it is likely that the Creek Fire could have been suppressed when it was small, if effective and timely initial attack had occurred. But, it was “out in the forest” so the ecologists, biologists, botanists, archaeologists and risk managers probably said “let it burn, it is good for the forest and will renew it!” 380,000 acres and 853 structures later……… The only way to fix this is to decentralize the USFS to make them more accountable or turn the National Forests over to the States to manage, neither of which has a snowball’s chance in a forest fire of happening.

    0
    0
  4. I think this was a well prepared video. It showed both sides of opinion and fairly presented the biases that come with them.
    The comment made during the closing is so very true, both sides are correct and until they blend the facts from both and map out a plan, it will only get worse, and then there are the politics de jour.
    Climate change is now a common crutch, but this has been coming for many many years. America cannot alone solve climate change, as we one of of the cleanest emission producing countries in the world.
    The fire, like so many others within the jurisdiction of the Federal Govt lately, was a product of a lack of clear management and fire policy, both of which conflict on a daily basis. Lack of good public communication, or any communication from the USFS early during the fire which is a common theme on this and several others. Lack of aggressive fire attack is another. Like it was mentioned in the video, aggressive initial attack in ANY interface area is an absolute must. MIST tactics, light hand on the land, and all the other catch phrases have no place where public safety and infrastructure is at risk. We simply cannot deny the fact that population is growing and expanding into areas that challenge our abilities to protect it. But what do we do?, Build 100 story hamster housing?, require birth control?, all extreme examples I know but real discussions. We must get assertive in our actions to include ALL of the topics discussed in the video. As a retired seasoned wildland fire Chief Officer, I have heard all the reasons, causes, excuses and political lip service, but what I have not seen is a collective EFFECTIVE plan. Nuff said.

    0
    0
  5. The need to log trees much greater than 12 inches for fuels purposes has been proven false and any credible fire scientist will be clear about that. However, there is a non-monetary reason to log trees 12-20 inches – forest health – bark beetle risk is associated with too many trees/acre and higher basal areas*. Historical datasets from many frequent fire western forests show that there are way too many trees in the 12-20 inch diameter class (and not nearly enough >24 inches) at the landscape scale. Although thinning trees <12 inches followed by Rx fire works great to mitigate fire risk, the 12-20 inch trees are difficult to target with Rx fire without taking out some of the larger trees that are in deficit. Fire resilience does not mean it's beetle resilient.

    Just a note on something mentioned in the video, it is a common industry talking point for loggers to talk about how many board feet a forest is producing per year to suggest that logging is needed, but they need to be clear what trees are packing on the board feet. Yeah, the Sierra NF might put on 120 million board feet/year, but most of it's being accumulated by a lot of non-commercial or low value trees. When they were logging the heck out of the place until 1992, they took the best and left the rest. The industry doesn't want 95% of the trees.

    *Contemporary basal areas are actually within the historic range at the landscape scale in the Sierra Nevada, but there are way too many trees.

    0
    0
  6. The CA state reps and foresters comments on logging are misleading at best and lies at worst. Timber companies do not even harvest the small diameter trees and ladder fuels that contribute most to transitions to crown fire/stand replacing wildfires. That is the reason the 4fri project in Arizona is on the verge of failure, because there is no economic incentive to remove this biomass. The idea that we can simply log our way out of this disregards our fundamental understanding of how/why fire behaves the way it does. Is there a role for the timber industry in forest restoration? Absolutely. Thinning is a proven method of reducing crown fire spread and should be done near the WUI, but only a combination of managed/rx fire to reduce surface and ladder fuel will prevent highly destructive fires.

    0
    0
    1. The complex factors involved in a wildfire cannot be adequately explained in a short video and even less so in an editorial comment. Suffice it to say lack of management (be it logging, prescribed fire) and allowing vegetation ingrowth through active fire suppression have completely changed the fuel profile of California. The closure of biomass plants throughout CA over the past decades has removed an economical destination for small diameter trees. This is the same situation in AZ. The infrastructure (loggers, mills, biomass plants) that was there has been killed by a thousand lawsuits and nothing is left to deal with the small trees that have grown in over a century of fire suppression. No one is putting up the millions to build the infrastructure yet billions are thrown at wildfire. To say we can prescribe burn our way out 100 years of fire suppression is a fallacy without extensive fuel modification. The forest is in no condition to burn safely in its present condition. Two dry winters have passed with good burn conditions and yet I’ve seen very little prescribed smoke in the air. Burning expertise is scarce, approved burn windows are short and people don’t want smoke anytime. There is no quick and easy solution and getting out of the hole we’ve dug will require long term planning, multiple solutions and lots of invested dollars. The alternative is to watch it all eventually burn and not regenerate naturally.

      0
      0
  7. It’s incredible disingenuous for people like the CA State rep to say we can log our way out of this problem. The fuels that contribute most to fire spread and fire behavior are not even harvested by timber companies! That is the whole reason the 4fri project in Arizona is on the verge of failure…they can’t find a suitable market for small diameter trees and ladder fuels that contribute the most biomass/fuel loading. There is a reason why tree boles are the only thing left unburned in fires. Thinning is important and effective at reducing crown fire spread but to pretend that logging will simply prevent these fires is idiotic, especially when there is an entire field of science with hundreds/thousands of peer reviewed articles that say otherwise. The truth is always gray and we need a combination of more managed fire, thinning and fuels reduction projects to prevent megafires.

    0
    0
    1. When you say things like idiotic in the same sentence as logger just what are you implying? If you pencil pushers know so much about it why do we still have catastrophic fires? And the truth is not gray, any person that has spent any time in the woods can actually see the forest through the trees. We need to forget about letting fires go unattended, that’s like turning your favorite farm animal loose on a freeway, It’s not going to survive, The USFS needs to quit putting up clear cuts for sale and then blaming the logger for the terrible thing he did to the forest. They need to quit hiring biologist and hire a private logger to manage the PEOPLES FOREST.

      0
      0

Comments are closed.