In a response to the report from the Bushfire Royal Commission, Australia’s Federal government will create a new agency to provide relief, recovery, and mitigation from future weather events.
The National Recovery and Resilience Agency (NRRA) will be given $600 million to fund projects to bushfire and cyclone-proof houses, and build levees in disaster-prone areas. The money would also be put towards improving telecommunications infrastructure to better withstand disasters.
Two existing recovery agencies will fall under the umbrella of the new government body — the National Drought and North Queensland Flood Response and Recovery Agency (NDNQFRRA), and the National Bushfire Recovery Agency.
Control of the Bushfire Recovery Agency’s $2 billion fund will be handed to the new body.
The long-term recovery efforts in communities affected by recent floods across the east coast and cyclones in Western Australia will also become the responsibility of the NRRA.
NDNQFRRA coordinator-general Shane Stone, a former Northern Territory chief minister and Liberal Party president, will oversee the new agency.
The Type 1 Incident Management Team that assumed command of the Tussock Fire southwest of Crown King, Arizona at 6 a.m. Monday provided additional information, confirming the fire was still mapped at 3,500 acres.
(Click here to see which areas will be affected by smoke from the fire on Monday and Tuesday.)
“The fire actively moved up hill yesterday with the dry windy conditions,” the update said. “Challenges the team will be assessing include the rugged topography and the alignment of drainages combined with anticipated weather. Additional resources and personnel are arriving to assist with the firefighting effort.”
Approximately 226 personnel are assigned to the fire.
Updated 9:17 a.m. MDT May 10, 2021
Tussock Fire map. The red dots represent heat detected by a satellite at 4:18 a.m. MDT May 10, 2021. The red line was the perimeter at 9:22 a.m. MDT May 9, 2021.
The Incident Management Team (IMT) on the Tussock Fire five miles southwest of Crown King, Arizona is not releasing much information. At 11:35 p.m. on May 9 evacuations were in effect for Minnehaha, Fort Misery, and Horse Thief Basin. Crown King is now at SET and residents should begin preparing in the event an evacuation order is issued.
The map above shows the proximity to Crown King; scroll down to see maps showing broader areas.
Sunday night the IMT reported that no structures were immediately threatened at that time and the fire had burned 3,500 acres.
Wildfire history in the vicinity of the 2021 Tussock Fire.
The Southwest Area Type 1 IMT #2 with Incident Commander Dave Bales was expected to assume command of the fire at 6 a.m. Monday, May 10.
1:15 p.m. MDT May 9, 2021
Map of the Tussock Fire at 9:22 a.m. MDT May 9, 2021.
Since the Tussock Fire started during the afternoon of May 8, it has burned 2,448 acres 6 miles southwest of Crown King, Arizona and has spread onto the Prescott National Forest. Due to very dry fuel and weather conditions a Type 1 Incident Management Team has been ordered to assist with management of the incident.
The fire is between Phoenix and Prescott, 27 air miles northwest of the suburbs of Phoenix. (See the map above)
Tussock Fire, satellite photo at 1241 p.m. MDT May 9, 2021. NASA.Tussock Fire. Posted May 9, 2021 by BLMTussock Fire. Posted May 9, 2021 by BLM
The Copper Canyon Fire north of Globe, Arizona has burned 2,560 acres. Here is the latest information from the Incident Management Team at 10:24 p.m. MDT May 8 2021:
“Overnight firing operations were successful and firefighters were able to tie in the Copper Canyon Fire to the 2020 Griffin Burn scar on the northeastern edge. A pocket of unburned fuel remains on that side, and within the interior of the fire, and may produce visible smoke when afternoon winds pick up. Today, crews will monitor the southern and western edges of the fire and begin mop up. While fire activity has significantly decreased, Sunday’s afternoon winds are of concern as gusts up to 30 miles per hour are forecasted in the area. No change in acreage or containment has been reported as of Sunday morning.
“US 60 remains closed in both directions outside of Globe as the Arizona Department of Transportation evaluates the damage to the guardrails near mile marker 253. Call 511 or check ADOT’s social media channels for traffic and road closure information.”
8:55 a.m. MDT May 8, 2021
Map showing the approximate location of the Copper Canyon Fire 11:30 p.m. MDT May 7, 2021. A portion of it appears to have burned into the Griffin Fire of August, 2020.
The Copper Canyon Fire that started in dry vegetation at about 12:30 p.m. Friday was pushed northeast by strong winds. Eleven hours later it was mapped at 2,500 acres. A portion of the fire has burned into the footprint of the Griffin Fire that blackened over 61,800 acres in August of 2020. It has been running roughly parallel to Highway 60, which is now closed. There are about seven miles of open country ahead of it until the north and east sides become trapped in the area burned last year.
The Copper Canyon Fire is spreading toward ranches, mines, utility infrastructure, and local grazing allotments. Crews are actively engaged in structure protection for the potentially impacted properties. As of 1:52 a.m. on Saturday there were no evacuations in effect.
Aircraft including a Very Large Air Tanker (VLAT), a Large Air Tanker, Single Engine Air Tankers (SEATs), and Air Attack are assisting an estimated 100 fire personnel on the ground.
Friday night a weather station south of Globe detected 5 to 10 mph winds gusting out of the south and southwest at 10 to 15 mph. At 7:06 a.m. on Saturday it recorded 67 degrees, 14 percent relative humidity, and winds out of the east at 7 mph gusting to 13 mph. West to southwest winds are expected to become breezy to very breezy again during the afternoons on Saturday and Sunday with gusts generally reaching upwards of 20-25 mph. Minimum RH values will generally remain around 9-15%.
Copper Canyon Fire, May 7, 2020. AZ State Forestry photo.Copper Canyon Fire, May 7, 2020. AZ State Forestry photo.
7 p.m. MDT May 7, 2021
Map showing the location of heat detected by satellites over the Copper Canyon Fire at 2:54 p.m. MDT May 7, 2021.
The Copper Canyon Fire about 3 miles north of Globe, Arizona has forced the closure of Highway 60 north of the Highway 70 intersection. The fire is about 60 air miles east of Mesa.
At 5:58 p.m. MDT the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management reported the fire had burned about 1,300 acres and had crossed Highway 60, forcing its closure.
Single engine air tankers and two larger air tankers, a DC-10 and an RJ85, have been seen working on the fire.
Copper Canyon Fire crosses Hwy. 60, May 7, 2021; AZ State Forestry.Copper Canyon Fire, May 7, 2021. AZ State Forestry.Aircraft over the Copper Canyon Fire at about 6:12 p.m. MDT May 7, 2021.
A Drought Monitor update: During the 5-week period between March 31 and May 4, the “Extreme Drought” areas grew in California, Oregon, Montana, Wyoming, and North Dakota.
Drought Monitor, March 31, 2021. NOAA.
Below are the temperature and precipitation outlooks for May, 2021.
Temperature and precipitation outlooks for May, created April 30, 2021.
Beaver dam. Wyoming Game and Fish Department photo.
When Paul Stewart bought his rangeland in Eastern Oregon in 1884 it included a meadow with “stirrup-high native grasses”. The sub-irrigation provided by Crane Creek was amplified by several families of industrious beavers who had built numerous dams across the stream to form ponds for their homes.
In 1924 he left his farm for a year and upon returning found that poachers had trapped and removed the beavers. The dams had washed out and over the next 12 years the meadow and the creek was transformed. Uncontrolled flood waters eroded the banks, cutting into his valuable crop land. The stream was flowing 15 feet below its original level and the water table had dropped. The meadow was drying up and a well was barely producing any water.
Mr. Stewart arranged for the Oregon State Game Commission to bring him sixteen of nature’s hydraulic engineers — native beavers.
Below is an excerpt from a document written in 1941 by Paul W. Schaffer, the Regional Biologist for the U.S. Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Region.
“The beavers began their reclamation work at once. They erected strong dams almost overnight; they sent huge cottonwoods and aspen crashing into the gully; they built more and more dams.
“When the heavy spring run-off came, water that for the past twelve years had rushed through the stream channel to be lost in the river below was caught behind the beaver dams and stored in large ponds which acted as settling basins for the silt-laden waters. At each flood stage of the stream, inches of soil were added to the bottom of the deepened channel. As the ponds were filled, excess water flowed over well-designed spillways and continued down the stream.”
The average summer streamflow of the preceding twelve years was increased considerably by the water escaping from storage. Water from the ponds percolated into the banks to the adjacent fields. Hay production in the meadows improved. The well again supplied ample stock water. The ugly erosion scar through the meadow was healing.
To make a long story shorter, Mr. Stewart’s downstream neighbor, Lloyd Johnson, urged Mr. Stewart to remove the beaver dams thinking it would improve the condition of his own eroded land. He did not realize that if the dams were blown up that the water would simply flow through his land, unimpeded by any structures, resulting in little if any change in his water table.
Mr. Johnson filed a lawsuit to have the beaver dams removed. He won. The judge ordered Mr. Stewart to within five days ask the State Game Commission to remove the beavers and the dams. He was also ordered to pay a $300 contempt fine and was threatened with three months in jail if he did not comply.
Mr. Stewart appealed to the Oregon Supreme Court which ruled in his favor, writing in part:
“To deny our water users the right to control such streams and prevent the erosion that would soon take place would mean the utter destruction of much of our most valuable lands throughout the state.”
Below is Mr. Schaffer’s nine-page beautifully written and typed description of Mr. Stewart’s experience with the beavers, crafted in 1941. It even includes an epilogue. Notice how both the right and left margins are justified, a long and tedious process when done on a typewriter. (You may also download the document.)
If you’re still starving for more information about beavers, Heidi Perryman, Co-Chair of last month’s California Beaver Summit, tells us that their website has information about presentations made at the conference, including the effects on wildfires, managing the challenges beavers can cause for landowners, and the value beaver engineering can have for the drying state of California. She said two of the researchers mentioned in our May 5 article, Dr. Emily Fairfax and Dr. Joe Wheaton, gave keynote talks at the conference. There were also speakers from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, US Forest Service, and Bureau of Land Management.
Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Kelly for letting us know about this case.
Their dams create wetlands affecting vegetation type, fuel moisture, and local humidity
American Beaver. Photo by Steve from Washington.
The job of a beaver is to build a dam and lodge across creeks using tree branches, vegetation, rocks, and mud. They chew down trees for building material. Dams impound water and lodges serve as shelters. Their infrastructure raises the water table and creates wetlands used by many other species, and because of their effect on other organisms in the ecosystem, they are considered a keystone species.
This storage of water can change the vegetation type as well as the moisture content in the live and dead fuel. Wetlands usually do not burn in a wildfire and they can serve a barrier to its spread.
However, beavers can also be a nuisance and can damage crops, timber, roads, ditches, gardens, and pastures by cutting trees, burrowing, or flooding areas.
Wetland created by beavers in Baugh Creek in Idaho, part of the Sharps Fire.
The BeaversandBrush.com website is a not-for-profit publication, “Created by Californians seeking to protect California from wildfire. We can help one another to safety by welcoming back native beavers and traditional prescribed burning of brush.”
Photos from their website show the change in a creek after beavers moved in.
An article by Lucy Sherriff at the Sierra Club’s website explores how beavers can change the landscape, including their effects on wildland fires.
[Dr. Emily] Fairfax began to carry out the scientific research that she had hoped to find. Using satellite images, she mapped vegetation around beaver territories before, after, and during wildfires (footage of wildfires in progress can show how a fire moves through a landscape). She visited field sites in California, Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, and Wyoming and found sections of creek that did not have beavers were on average more than three times as affected by fire—burning a bigger area—than areas where beavers had built dams.
“I expected some of the time beaver dams would work,” says Fairfax. Instead, she found the presence of beavers had significant effects. “It didn’t matter if it was one pond or 55 ponds in a row. If there were beaver dams, the land was protected from fire. It was incredible.”
Fairfax hopes her research will help change California’s strict rules around beaver relocation, the way policy is already changing in Washington, especially as wildfires in California have reached record-breaking levels over the past several years.
Meanwhile, Fairfax’s research on beavers and wildfires is only beginning. “I set out to ask a question: Do beavers keep the land green during fires, yes or no?” she says. “The answer was yes. But that’s not the end of the story. Why? How? Does this happen everywhere? What if you have a tight canyon? I’m digging into the specifics now, so people can implement this and actually use beavers for fire prevention. I would love to be able to call someone up and tell them how many beaver dams they need in their creek.
“Right now I have so little advice on how to do it. But at least I can now say it works.”
The two-minute video below is a brief introduction to beavers. It appears to be an excerpt from an episode of “Nature”, titled, “Leave it to Beavers.”
