“Indian have no medicine to put on all places where bug and worm are, so he burn. Every year Indian burn. …Fire burn up old acorn that fall on ground. Old acorn on ground have lots worms. No burn old acorn, no burn old bark, no burn old leaves, bugs and worms come more every year. …Indian burn every year just same, so keep all ground clean, no bark, no dead leaf, no old wood on ground, no old wood on brush, so no bug can stay to eat berry and acorn. Not much on ground to make hot fire so never hurt big trees when fire burn.”
Klamath River Jack, Letter to California Fish and Game Commission, 1916
California Fire History
The California landscape has evolved with and adapted to fire over time. It's not a question of if an area will burn, but when.
Living with fire requires community and ecosystem integration, resiliency, and sustainability in the California's fire prone environment.
Lightning fires and indigenous ignitions historically occurred with varying frequency and season of occurrence with generally low to moderate fire intensity and severity.
4.5 million acres would burn every year in California prior to settlement.
Klamath River Jack, Letter to California Fish and Game Commission, 1916
California Fire History
The California landscape has evolved with and adapted to fire over time. It's not a question of if an area will burn, but when.
Living with fire requires community and ecosystem integration, resiliency, and sustainability in the California's fire prone environment.
Lightning fires and indigenous ignitions historically occurred with varying frequency and season of occurrence with generally low to moderate fire intensity and severity.
4.5 million acres would burn every year in California prior to settlement.
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1793 SPANISH PROCLAMATION BANNING BURNS
“With attention to the widespread damage which results to the public from the burning of the fields, customary up to now among both Christian and Gentile Indians in this country, whose childishness has been unduly tolerated, and as a consequence of various complaints that I have had of such abuse, I see myself required to have the foresight to prohibit for the future… all kinds of burning, not only in the vicinity of the towns but even at the most remote distances….Therefore I order and command all commandantes of the presidios in my charge to do their duty and watch with the greatest earnestness to take whatever measures they may consider requisite and necessary to uproot this very harmful practice of setting fire to pasture lands [and] exorcize equal vigilance in trying to advise the Christian Indians and the Gentiles of the neighboring rancherias about this proclamation and impressing upon them that those who commit such an offense will be punished, and in case some burning occurs, they are to try immediately to take the most appropriate means to stop the fire….I beg and charge the Reverend fathers, priests of the missions, that they do their part in instructing the Christian Indians not to commit such transgressions….I order that this decision of mine be published by proclamation in the presidios as well as the missions and towns of this province which is in my charge….with the full understanding that whatever lack of observance may be noticed in this matter [which is] of such great interest will be worthy of the most severe punishment.”
May 31, 1793
Jose Joaquin de Arrillaga
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FIRE IN THE FOREST
Big trees hollowed by fire were used to store acorns by the Indians.
Prescribed burning maintains cultural resources, enhances wildlife habitat, protects old growth forests from catastrophic destruction, encourages plant regeneration and renewal, and ensures a quality water supply. It also protects communities both human and biological.
Native Americans used fire to manage the landscape to create fire resilient communities.
In the Central Coast we see a mosaic of grasslands and oak woodlands interspersed with chaparral, pine, and redwood forests that indicate frequent historic fire return intervals where people lived. Indigenous people lived in fire resilient communities due to frequent burning.
In the 1900's forest owners, ranchers, land managers, conservationists, water quality and wildlife habitat managers used managed fire to maintain forests, rangelands, and entire watersheds in the years after the disappearance of Indian burning. Forest and range managers use "light fire" to sustain open diverse resilient landscapes.
Fire fighters gain proficiency, improve skills, and practice valuable safety techniques participating in controlled burning.
Since the 1940's, rancher led Burn Associations would annually conduct 70,000 to 90,000 acres of private rangeland burning through the early 1970's.
Prescribed Fire Councils and Range Improvement Associations continue to use controlled burns as an important agricultural, forest, and fire habitat restoration tool today.
Catching Fire: Prescribed Burning In Northern California
California Is A Fire Adapted Ecosytem
One thing is certain. Fire will come.
Universal principles and processes govern landscape and species response to fire.
Understanding these principles and processes can help understand the variability in fire effects and observations of burned areas. This enables firefighters to accurately predict and evaluate beneficial fire effects on the landscape, and safely conduct controlled burns to protect communities from high intensity conflagrations.
Fire effects are the result of the the heat intensity (Flame Length/Btu's) created by the fire and the properties of the ecosystem.
High vegetation fuel load equals high fire intensity. Accumulation of dead fuel content creates higher fire intensity. Fuel geometry, complex terrain, and variable wind flows, can bring extreme fire behavior and destructive intensity in a wildfire.
Plant species in vegetation types that have evolved with frequent fire tend to be much more resistant to fire than species from plant communities that rarely burned.
Indians tended the landscape using low intensity fire, 'light burning". Today, high accumulations of dead and dying vegetation fuels destructive hard to control wildfires.
Seasonality
Variation in fire effects also occur because of differences in topography, fuel conditions, and weather prior to, during, and after the fire.
Fire Suppression
Fire suppression without controlled burns has resulted in large areas of California that are extremely susceptible to high intensity fire.
The exclusion of fire has resulted in a larger proportion of dead vegetation which are more susceptible to insect and disease infestations. Bark Beetle, Sudden Oak Death, Pine Pitch Canker kill substantial numbers of trees and whole forests.
Oak Woodlands
Oak woodlands are in danger due to interrupted fire cycles. Native grass meadows diminish without regular burning.
The amount of dead plant material has increased. In plant communities with historically short fire cycles, the absence of fire has allowed the unnatural development of fuel ladders between the surface and the overstory.
Fires which do occur are often carried into the tree crowns by large accumulations of down dead woody fuels, dead limbs and branches, and understory trees, now causing a devastating stand replacement fire where historically, older age trees were rarely killed.
In vegetation communities with long natural fire cycles, younger, intermixed, less flammable age classes of vegetation are not as prevalent as they would have been under a natural fire regime.
Coupled with the increased incidence of insect and disease, the arrangement, distribution, and continuity of highly flammable stands result in greater potential for extremely large destructive fires.
Water Supply
Watersheds are critical infrastructure in California (AB 2480).
Safe prescribed controlled burns are necessary for safe fire protection and to restore native fire cycles that are essential to watershed, forest, and rangeland health.
Overgrown forest and brush lands consume precious quantities of water needed in streams and valley aquifers. Heavy unnatural fuel loads increase wildfire intensity and difficulty of control. Emphasis is on maintaining inherent community protection, fire prone landscape resilience, carbon sequestration, and ecosystem function, resilience, and sustainability over time.
40 million Californians
The Wildland Urban Interface
Cities and suburbs have grown and expanded in many areas with recurring fire cycles. Where housing and development meet the forest and rangelands is referred to as the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI: "Woo-wee"). In some areas this interface occurs in distinct patterns, but in much of the wildland area there is an embedded matrix of ranches, rural dwellings, and a complex infrastructure of roads and utilities known as Intermix.
The current total suppression fire policy results in hazardous fuel build up and larger higher intensity conflagrations that are exponentially becoming more destructive and costly.
Prescribed fire and managed grazing are the most cost effective treatment and management tools available to protect life, property, and the resiliency of human communities and the natural ecosystems of the California landscape.
Today: Wildfire Is Coming
The inevitable fire next time can be anticipated as a safe science based preplanned controlled burn, or a life threatening unplanned emergency.
The Central Coast Rx Fire Council joins the Northern California Prescribed Fire Council and the Southern Sierra Prescribed Fire Council, Calfire, the United States Forest Service, and signatories to the Fire MOU Partnership supporting increased prescribed fire and fire hazard mitigation projects accomplished during safe periods that reduce the fire fuel load and fire intensity of an inevitable wildfire while enhancing indigenous, ecological, forest, and rangeland values.
Moving Forward
The Central Coast Rx Fire Council works with cooperators to demonstrate the safety and effectiveness of proactive prescribed burning accomplished in accordance with ecologically sensitive resource management plans and identified strategic and tactical pre fire priorities as identified in Community Wildfire Protection Plans, Calfire Unit Plans, Calfire Strategic Plan, the California Fire Plan, the National Cohesive Strategy, and local and federal fire agency plans.
