California National Forests Closing Due to Wildfires
In an Unprecedented Move, Forest Service Temporarily Closes Over 20 Million Acres of National Forest During Labor Day Weekend
Smoke filled skies off California’s Sonora Pass, September 2020
With over 1.7 million acres of land having already been consumed by fire this year alone, Forest Services officials have taken a dramatic move. They are temporarily closing all California national forests starting at 11:59 p.m. Tuesday, August 31, 2021, through 11:59 p.m. Friday, September 17, 2021 - over 20 million acres of public land. The decision announced in an August 30, 2021 News Release wasn’t taken lightly given the rapidly approaching Labor Day holiday weekend and the number of people who enjoy the forests during this time, but officials believe it was a necessary one.
The choice was made in an effort not only to protect civilians, but the brave fire fighters who are working tirelessly to get the already burning fires under control. By reducing visitors, they will be able to help prevent people from being trapped by wildfire and the likelihood of new fires starting which will help fire officials working on hot spots whose resources are already limited.
Record Level Fires
It cannot be disputed that California is known for having had wildfires in the past. However, the massive raging wildfires of the last few years are beyond normal. Officials are worried about record levels of dry fuel, limited resources to fight them and severe drought conditions in the state. There is no predicted weather relief coming for an extended period of time and officials fear the worst.
According to the LA Times, officials are saying, “more than 6,800 wildfires have burned 1.7 million acres across all jurisdictions in California, and the National Wildfire Preparedness Level… has been at PL5 since July 14, 2021, only the third time in the past 20 years that the nation has reached PL5 by mid-July - indicating the highest level of wildland fire activity.”
In fact, closures were already in effect for nine national forests before the announcement was ever made under Regional Order No. 21-04, and many areas have been under strict evacuation orders. There are over 15,000 personnel working to put out fires across California at this very moment.
Areas Affected:
This order affects Angeles, Cleveland, Eldorado, Inyo, Klamath, Lassen, Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit, Los Padres National Forest, Mendocino, Modoc, Plumas, Rogue River-Siskiyou, Sequoia, San Bernardino, Shasta-Trinity, Sierra, Six Rivers, Stanislaus and Tahoe National Forests. It does not affect the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest which is managed by a different division of the Forest Service.
The Role of Climate Change on California’s Wild Fires (My Opinion)
[See: References at the end of this article for citations.]
15 of the 20 most destructive wildfires in California’s history have occurred within the past decade. I strongly believe that climate change is a central cause of the extreme California wildfires as opposed to their simply being the result of land mis-management. There is a much bigger picture here and we cannot continue to deny climate change. Instead we must face reality and acknowledge the critical importance of doing what we can to limit humanity’s role in future climate change.
According to Scientific American, “[m]ore than half of the acres burned each year in the western United States can be attributed to climate change.” For starters, the number of dry, warm, windy days during peak fire season have more than doubled since the 1980s. These extreme fire weather conditions during periods of strong offshore winds create an ever expanding danger that is increasing at an alarming rate.
Drought conditions are also worsening due to human activity and global warming from greenhouse gas emissions. 30% of California’s water supply originates from snow pack in the Sierra Nevada mountains. As temperatures rise, more precipitation falls as rain and less as snow, and the snowpack melts more quickly in late spring and early summer.
A 2018 study in Geophysical Research Letters estimated that global warming had already shrunk the Sierra Nevada snowpack by 20% and increased seasonal runoff by 30%. For every degree Celsius this planet heats up, the snowpack will shrink by another 20% and the median burn area will increase by as much as 600% in some types of forests. In June 2021, California’s reservoir water levels were almost 40% lower than historical averages and the snowpack was gone an entire month earlier than normal.
This declining snowpack and the shifts in precipitation directly affect the health of our forests and trees. The trees become weakened by lack of water, unable to fight off insect infestation and fire. This stress is atypical and is the direct result of the intense lack of water.
Take for example the giant sequoias, the oldest living species on the plant and one of the longest living organisms on Earth. Many are over 2,300 years old. These trees have evolved where low-intensity fire is an absolute necessity for their cones to open and release seeds. However, because of the high intensity of recent wildfires and the weakening of these trees from drought, they are now in danger of fire for the first time in history. If that does not alarm you, I fear nothing will. (See: Will the Giants Survive?)
Another often overlooked culprit is our deforestation and the over-logging of our public lands that need protection. A common assumption is that logging and removing trees would prevent fires but this is a myth. For starters, the tree remnants left behind after logging such as branches and stumps serve as super fuels for fires, often drier and more flammable in the absence of the natural forest canopy. Additionally, for years, we have torn down trees in astronomical numbers and over-logged our old growth forests. Efforts to replant these areas in past decades started with good intentions, but they were more often than not replanted with single species eliminating the natural diversity of the forests. What this has done is create unnatural, mono-species forests. When fire strikes, it takes out an entire area whereas had we not done so, some species could have still survived and the forest eco-systems would not have been completely obliterated. What we have instead is huge barren stretches of charred land where nothing can live , not even the native animal species. Even post-fire logging has been found to be counterproductive and can lead to more fires.
Thus, the only real solution is to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels and reduce greenhouse emissions. This is essential to protecting this planet and California’s wild lands. Ignoring the warning signs and sweeping them under the rug because we are comfortable with our daily lives the way they are and don’t want to implement tough change and sacrifices is NOT going to prevent future climate disasters like the one we are facing right now. Our children’s children are going to suffer the wrath of our ignorance on how we have treated this planet.
As Chief Seattle said, “we do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors. We borrow it from our children.” We all must do our part for future generations.
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References:
Climate Change is Central to California’s Wildfire, Rebecca Miller, Katherine Mach, Chris Field, Scientific American (October 29, 2020).
The Climate Connections of a Record Fire Year in the U.S. West, Alan Buis, NASA (February 22, 2021).
Five Myths About Wildfires, Diego Arguedas Ortiz, BBC News (September 16, 2020).
Wildfires and Climate Change, Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.
Swain, D.L., Langenbrunner, B., Neelin, J.D. et al. Increasing precipitation volatility in twenty-first-century California. Nature Clim Change 8, 427–433 (2018).
Michael Goss et al, Climate change is increasing the likelihood of extreme autumn wildfire conditions across California, Environ. Res. Lett. 15 094016 (2020).
