Wildfire 2021

[TBS]

‘77 recap. The two ships were headed in after drops to the landing pad to reload water, IIRC the LACo ship (Bell 205) came down on the USFS ship (Bell 212) from above on approach, about 100 feet off the deck. LACo’s skids into the USFS rotors. I was off duty, in the sack, having worked the day shift (we were staffed for 24 hr. ops), but the noise was horrific, as was the scene.

One pilot (LACo) died, a USFS pilot was injured (night flying ships had two pilots on board). When I said “the crew” I meant everyone on the Rose Valley crew was devastated - pilots, helitack, helishots. And I imaging the LACo crew as well.

Holy shit! Not sure how you miss a well-lit craft below you but I've never been in a rotorcraft at night.

A former employer had three jet rangers and a long ranger. Used to fly in them every week or two.

We totaled a jet ranger on a logging site at lift off when the prop wash created a major dust storm, pilot drifted and topped some trees at 100'. No fatalities but everybody in the craft had major broken bones. Fucking scary. Glad I wasn't there...

[old_newguy]

Between me and ms and oldnewguy we’ve been involved in some real trajectory-changing helicopter tragedies in the fire service. And here we are posting on our little ski thingy. I wish we were all closer than 1000s of miles, I’d like to hang out with you guys and hear all the rest of the stories.

I’m glad we all made it out ok.

I count myself as being incredibly lucky that I always one degree of separation from the tragedies, but yeah, a lot of it was too close to home.

[neufox47]

Seems like one of the better solutions put forward would be a combination of using the military satellites to identify starts and having a fast response squad like the chinooks ready to go.

Oh and fix the forests, thats #1.


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

[ill-advised strategy]

The problem (in my day, where I worked) was those dry lightning busts with like 50 new starts.

[TBS]

^^^We had a bunch of those in So & Central OR this year
Seemed like the firefighters were forced to play whack-a-mole for several days at a pop…

[Meadow Skipper]

Holy shit! Not sure how you miss a well-lit craft below you but I've never been in a rotorcraft at night.

No lights. At that time the ships flew without lights, because pilots wearing night vision goggles would be blinded or distracted by any lights - the NVGs amplify the available light. We trained to put an initial attack crew on a fire at night and it was really weird flying in the back of a helicopter in complete darkness. Never did an actual night IA while I was there though.

NVGs were pretty primitive at the time. This one time, at night before the accident, the pilots were on the pad laughing their asses off while the belly tank got reloaded. It turned out they’d been hitting this one spot on the line a couple times, trying to knock it down, but each time they went back by, the spot was still there. The last time they came by to drop the spot was still there but it exploded into multiple little lights moving away. They figured out they’d been dropping water on a crew hunkered together on the line (which was actually cold) with their headlamps on making it look like a hotspot in the NVGs. Poor fuckers kept getting soaked, and finally figured to scatter when they heard the lightless ship approaching in the darkness.

Seems like one of the better solutions put forward would be a combination of using the military satellites to identify starts and having a fast response squad like the chinooks ready to go.

Oh and fix the forests, thats #1.

All you’d need for those is money. It’s always been a lot easier to get money from legislatures/Congress for going fires than it’s been to get money for preparedness and prevention.

[neufox47]

Well California now backstops losses due to wildfire from PGE, SoCal Edison and San Diego gas and electric. So there are a few billion reasons for the state to act.


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

[bodywhomper]

It’ll take more than just the state to act. There’s a chunk of change in the fed infrastructure bill, Feinstein’s proposed bill, and FEMA’s mitigation grants. It’ll also take shitheads to not stop challenging the agencies’ ESA and NEPA compliance. Even better would be for Congress to allow some better enviro reg streamlining, waivers, or exclusions for these projects.

[spanghew]

It’ll take more than just the state to act. There’s a chunk of change in the fed infrastructure bill, Feinstein’s proposed bill, and FEMA’s mitigation grants. It’ll also take shitheads to not stop challenging the agencies’ ESA and NEPA compliance. Even better would be for Congress to allow some better enviro reg streamlining, waivers, or exclusions for these projects.

which resources are unnecessary and need to be sacrificed? Which shitheads need to step down? What about compliance is to restrictive?

These are the kinds of boilerplate complaints used by everyone subject to rules, from the Bundies to miners to reservoir-builders. It would be nice to hear something more specific, to see where the problem lies.

[old goat]

which resources are unnecessary and need to be sacrificed? Which shitheads need to step down? What about compliance is to restrictive?

These are the kinds of boilerplate complaints used by everyone subject to rules, from the Bundies to miners to reservoir-builders. It would be nice to hear something more specific, to see where the problem lies.

The 2000 acre Big Jack East project in the Tahoe NF took 2 1/2 years to get done after the first legal notice was filed. How much planning went on before that I don't know. Opposition came from neighbors who didn't want smoke, mountain bikers who didn't want to lose access to Forest Rd 06, etc. As I recall none of the opposition came from environmental groups, or they'd still be fighting it out in court. The bureaucratic process the FS had to follow in the ABSENCE of serious opposition makes clear the regulatory hurdles.
There are 870,000+ acres in the TNF.
It is important not to use wildfire prevention and forest health as smokescreens for big logging projects, but given the current crisis situation in western woodlands we need to err more on the side of expediting these projects.

[bodywhomper]

which resources are unnecessary and need to be sacrificed? Which shitheads need to step down? What about compliance is to restrictive?

These are the kinds of boilerplate complaints used by everyone subject to rules, from the Bundies to miners to reservoir-builders. It would be nice to hear something more specific, to see where the problem lies.

I could write a lot about this.... the example that old goat used was likely categorically excluded from NEPA. it definitely is below the threshold in acreage.

There was an article in Nature in 2020 that described that wildfire fuels reduction needs to occur on ~20M acres in California to reach a good ecological baseline and that there then needs to be active maintenance of that land after the initial treatment.

When there's an emergency or active WF suppression work, a lot of work is done on the ground with exemptions to the environmental regulations. There are SME's (e.g. archaeologists) that are coordinating and flagging sensitive resources for avoidance (if possible) but the work is not performed at the same level of scrutiny because of the emergency situation.

In California, the typical individual that opposed and halts larger wildfire mitigation projects on federal lands is Chad Hanson. He is often supported by a larger organization. For years it was the Sierra Club. Now it is the CBD. For a while, he was searching. He typically focuses on one or two NF's at a time. He halted many fuels reduction/thinning projects in Plumas (I believe) Tahoe, Eldorado, and Stanislaus NF's. He's now moved down to socal and seems to be focusing on Los Padres and Angeles. If you do a deep dive or have followed this, you will see that his MO and focus has evolved over the years. He gets a big mic sometimes with the NYT or WaPo. Most fire ecologist that I have met try to ignore him, but occasionally, there are some arguments in journals. There have been some specific projects that Hanson opposed using ESA, FSM/NEPA as the specific catalyst for challenging that have now burned down and the spp habitat is no longer present. Hanson has also challenged post WF recovery in the NF's (look up Starr Fire in Eldorado NF) in a manner that has resulted in no post fire recovery, the elimination of top soil, and habitat type conversion. Sierra Forest Legacy was another group, but they are now very supportive of wildfire fuel reductions and promote/organize groups like prescribed burn associations. The Nature Conservancy has now become n force pushing to green light large wildfire mitigation projects and gathering other enviro and community groups behind it in support. TNC is careful where they chose to focus their efforts because of Hanson and some groups that have aligned with him, like the chaparral institute.

After the Camp Fire, Newsom authorized something like $40M in wildfire mitigation projects to start immediately. He suspended all California enviro regulations for those projects. I'm not sure about how all those projects were implemented, but the one near me was in sensitive habitat (ultramorphic soils). Calfire coordinated with CNPS, local tribes, and a cultural resources organization to cruise the area together, to flag resources for avoidance and protection, flag the Rx, and coordinate resource protection and effectiveness of the Rx together on the ground. There was no CEQA compliance or other regulatory framework to guide that process. This is a similar process to what occurs during active wildfire suppression activities where archaeologist, foresters, or others that are qualified are flagging cultural resources for crews and dozers to avoid, if possible.

FEMA, as a policy, does not fund Rx burning for hazard mitigation projects, but they fund firing activities during wildfire suppression through their FMAG program. FEMA just announced phase 1 funding of a defensible space grant to Nevada County. Phase 2 involves getting individual property owners to sign-on to the project (they have to make a 25% match), then an Rx likely needs to be prepared for each property, each property must be evaluated for cultural resources, tribes must be consulted for each property, the SHPO must be consulted and concur with the effects analysis, a biologist has to evaluate the potential effects to federally-listed species and develop avoidance measures that the property owner must follow, the USFWS must be consulted with the evaluation of effects of the project on each property, and the USFWS must concur with the evaluation. FEMA can likely use a CE for its compliance with NEPA. I predict that the project will not be implemented anytime soon. FEMA prepared an EIS for a large fuels reduction in the SF East Bay Hills on UC, City of Oakland, and East Bay Regional Park District lands. Originally, FEMA's NEPA EA was challenged, which led to the EIS. It was also challenged, partially over the practices of the UC and partially related to ESA-listed species. The result was the FEMA will only fund the activities on the East Bay Regional Park District lands and the wildfire hazard will mostly go unmitigated on the UC and City lands. If that area burns with the modeled severity, the federally-listed species and their habitat will not survive.

A large area of the Sequoia NF that is currently burning that has not received any fuels mitigation treatment anytime recently has been in the planning/enviro compliance phase for over 6 years. Some of this overlaps the area that we are currently hearing in the news that people are most concerned about loosing some of the old growth trees because there's been no previous treatments. A lot of rough treatment has since occurred where WFF were able to prioritize as the wildfires approached.

need more?

[old goat]

I could write a lot about this.... the example that old goat used was likely categorically excluded from NEPA. it definitely is below the threshold in acreage.

There was an article in Nature in 2020 that described that wildfire fuels reduction needs to occur on ~20M acres in California to reach a good ecological baseline and that there then needs to be active maintenance of that land after the initial treatment.

When there's an emergency or active WF suppression work, a lot of work is done on the ground with exemptions to the environmental regulations. There are SME's (e.g. archaeologists) that are coordinating and flagging sensitive resources for avoidance (if possible) but the work is not performed at the same level of scrutiny because of the emergency situation.

In California, the typical individual that opposed and halts larger wildfire mitigation projects on federal lands is Chad Hanson. He is often supported by a larger organization. For years it was the Sierra Club. Now it is the CBD. For a while, he was searching. He typically focuses on one or two NF's at a time. He halted many fuels reduction/thinning projects in Plumas (I believe) Tahoe, Eldorado, and Stanislaus NF's. He's now moved down to socal and seems to be focusing on Los Padres and Angeles. If you do a deep dive or have followed this, you will see that his MO and focus has evolved over the years. He gets a big mic sometimes with the NYT or WaPo. Most fire ecologist that I have met try to ignore him, but occasionally, there are some arguments in journals. There have been some specific projects that Hanson opposed using ESA, FSM/NEPA as the specific catalyst for challenging that have now burned down and the spp habitat is no longer present. Hanson has also challenged post WF recovery in the NF's (look up Starr Fire in Eldorado NF) in a manner that has resulted in no post fire recovery, the elimination of top soil, and habitat type conversion. Sierra Forest Legacy was another group, but they are now very supportive of wildfire fuel reductions and promote/organize groups like prescribed burn associations. The Nature Conservancy has now become n force pushing to green light large wildfire mitigation projects and gathering other enviro and community groups behind it in support. TNC is careful where they chose to focus their efforts because of Hanson and some groups that have aligned with him, like the chaparral institute.

After the Camp Fire, Newsom authorized something like $40M in wildfire mitigation projects to start immediately. He suspended all California enviro regulations for those projects. I'm not sure about how all those projects were implemented, but the one near me was in sensitive habitat (ultramorphic soils). Calfire coordinated with CNPS, local tribes, and a cultural resources organization to cruise the area together, to flag resources for avoidance and protection, flag the Rx, and coordinate resource protection and effectiveness of the Rx together on the ground. There was no CEQA compliance or other regulatory framework to guide that process. This is a similar process to what occurs during active wildfire suppression activities where archaeologist, foresters, or others that are qualified are flagging cultural resources for crews and dozers to avoid, if possible.

FEMA, as a policy, does not fund Rx burning for hazard mitigation projects, but they fund firing activities during wildfire suppression through their FMAG program. FEMA just announced phase 1 funding of a defensible space grant to Nevada County. Phase 2 involves getting individual property owners to sign-on to the project (they have to make a 25% match), then an Rx likely needs to be prepared for each property, each property must be evaluated for cultural resources, tribes must be consulted for each property, the SHPO must be consulted and concur with the effects analysis, a biologist has to evaluate the potential effects to federally-listed species and develop avoidance measures that the property owner must follow, the USFWS must be consulted with the evaluation of effects of the project on each property, and the USFWS must concur with the evaluation. FEMA can likely use a CE for its compliance with NEPA. I predict that the project will not be implemented anytime soon. FEMA prepared an EIS for a large fuels reduction in the SF East Bay Hills on UC, City of Oakland, and East Bay Regional Park District lands. Originally, FEMA's NEPA EA was challenged, which led to the EIS. It was also challenged, partially over the practices of the UC and partially related to ESA-listed species. The result was the FEMA will only fund the activities on the East Bay Regional Park District lands and the wildfire hazard will mostly go unmitigated on the UC and City lands. If that area burns with the modeled severity, the federally-listed species and their habitat will not survive.

A large area of the Sequoia NF that is currently burning that has not received any fuels mitigation treatment anytime recently has been in the planning/enviro compliance phase for over 6 years. Some of this overlaps the area that we are currently hearing in the news that people are most concerned about loosing some of the old growth trees because there's been no previous treatments. A lot of rough treatment has since occurred where WFF were able to prioritize as the wildfires approached.

need more?

Thanks for posting--especially the difference between small projects and big ones.
The environmental groups I associate with/donate to all support preventative thinning and burning.
Still, the biggest obstacle is money--especially at the federal level.

[LongShortLong]

Creek Fire documentary one year after.

side comment - one of the USFS guys I misjudged as a doofus in the community meetings, shows up organized and useful here.

[bodywhomper]

Thanks for posting--especially the difference between small projects and big ones.
The environmental groups I associate with/donate to all support preventative thinning and burning.
Still, the biggest obstacle is money--especially at the federal level.

I agree $$ is a huge hurdle, but fema has $1B to spend on hazard mitigation in the state and most is wanted to be spent on wildfire mitigation.

[spanghew]

I agree $$ is a huge hurdle, but fema has $1B to spend on hazard mitigation in the state and most is wanted to be spent on wildfire mitigation.

You posted an excellent summary and analysis. As yo usay, there are already in place emergency measures for most nepa/ceqa reqs, which is why I questioned your assertion above that these things need to be relaxed to enable some perceived good that enviro regs are being blamed somehow for preventing. Cleearly, protected resources cannot be sacrificed to justify bandaid fixes to decades-old poor forestry practices. As you point out, doing nothing can make such losses a fait acccompli, but I have yet to see a lot of easy answers. Forests choked with doghair do not have saleable timber products that anyone will bid on to remove; many solutions have been tried, with pellets being one of the better ones, but logistically it's a small-time solution. And controlled burns are as unpopular as uncontrolled burns, since either way people breathe smoke.

Large portions of the west are becoming uninhabitable, but more people want to live in the woods. Environmental regulations can make compliance tricky, and sure, there are people who make a career out of being gadflies and using the rules to push some kind of agenda. But there are a lot of Bundys out there with big camel-like noses who try to use crises to push their own agendas, generally revolving around privatizing the commons.

All kinds of things get designated emergencies to relax regulations to make them happen, generally due to political pressure for optics and bragging rights. And some forest supervisors are eager to go along with that and accuse people defending the law as 'not team players.' But when some supe stands up for principles, he/she gets pilloried by all the semi-intelligencia who know everything so much better.

Good luck to all the forest -dwellers.

[bodywhomper]

You posted an excellent summary and analysis. As yo usay, there are already in place emergency measures for most nepa/ceqa reqs, which is why I questioned your assertion above that these things need to be relaxed to enable some perceived good that enviro regs are being blamed somehow for preventing. Cleearly, protected resources cannot be sacrificed to justify bandaid fixes to decades-old poor forestry practices. As you point out, doing nothing can make such losses a fait acccompli, but I have yet to see a lot of easy answers. Forests choked with doghair do not have saleable timber products that anyone will bid on to remove; many solutions have been tried, with pellets being one of the better ones, but logistically it's a small-time solution. And controlled burns are as unpopular as uncontrolled burns, since either way people breathe smoke.

Large portions of the west are becoming uninhabitable, but more people want to live in the woods. Environmental regulations can make compliance tricky, and sure, there are people who make a career out of being gadflies and using the rules to push some kind of agenda. But there are a lot of Bundys out there with big camel-like noses who try to use crises to push their own agendas, generally revolving around privatizing the commons.

All kinds of things get designated emergencies to relax regulations to make them happen, generally due to political pressure for optics and bragging rights. And some forest supervisors are eager to go along with that and accuse people defending the law as 'not team players.' But when some supe stands up for principles, he/she gets pilloried by all the semi-intelligencia who know everything so much better.

Good luck to all the forest -dwellers.

the emergency measures in place in the federal regulations are for use when there is immediate threat to life and property.

newsom made an executive order to specifically suspend environmental regulations for a few handfuls of projects that are small on the scale of projects that people/groups like TNC, Tahoe West group, the central sierra fuels reduction group, the north yuba forest reduction group, etc. want to accomplish. burning is the only reasonable method to reduce hazards at a broad manner. this is why there are so many prescribed burn associations cropping up and taking action. burning during the "burn season" certainly has a reduced human health effect to smoke instead of during the summer and fall fire season because of the different climate conditions and also the lack of smoke from burned infrastructure and construction materials.

I worked on a project once that took 6 years to get through ESA compliance. The project was essentially unchanged during that 6 year time frame. the issue was gnatcatch and it's critical habitat. the project site burned down a few months after the ESA consultation ended and before the project could be implemented. When the fire burned through the project area, it entered the neighboring suburb, burned part of CSUSanBerdu and 900+ homes in the built-out suburb neighborhood. I do not believe that the coastal sage scrub came back. Calfire acknowledges that the WUI concept and designation of fire hazard severity zones is flawed because it doesn't enter the well developed suburbs on california. A lot of the built-out area of Santa Rosa that burned in the Tubbs Fire was designated "urban" in the wildfire maps

The potential answers/solutions are federal-level programmatic compliance efforts similar to the Cali VPT PEIR, revisions to the administrative procedures act to alter the judicial review processes (i've briefly heard about this idea), stewardship agreements that give local agencies the ability to plan and implement fuel reduction projects in federal lands, modifications to the CE's for the federal agencies, what newsom did with the temporary and project-specific regulatory suspension, a legislative waiver like what DHS used/abused to build the border wall, allow tribes with local cultural burn practices to expand their programs to larger parts of their ancestor lands.

there are some HCP's in san diego that include fuels reduction (called "brush management"), that are intended to streamline the compliance process. those have been working, but they took over decade or more to get into place and there were some mistakes in some of the planning.

I remember listening to a forest/water resources researcher out of UCMerced describe the biggest challenge that they see is getting the public to be educated and NEPA approvals. Their initial 1,000 acre research site in Sequoia NF took 10 years to get through NEPA approval.

i provided an example of federal funding of creating defensible space on private property. federal funding for structural retrofits of homes is just as (or more onerous). Currently, the CA State Historic Preservation Officer requires architectural design drawings of each structure that's over 45 years in age in addition to an evaluation of whether it's eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. That's a financial big lift for a property owner/homeowner especially if it is not certain they will receive the federal grant, and it causes delays. For private property elevation projects in CA, the SHPO does not require the design drawings, even though the structures would changed a lot more in an elevation than when a roofing material and attic venting is updated....

[spanghew]

newsom made an executive order to specifically suspend environmental regulations for a few handfuls of projects that are small on the scale of projects that people/groups like TNC, Tahoe West group, the central sierra fuels reduction group, the north yuba forest reduction group, etc.



i provided an example of federal funding of creating defensible space on private property. federal funding for structural retrofits of homes is just as (or more onerous). Currently, the CA State Historic Preservation Officer requires architectural design drawings of each structure that's over 45 years in age in addition to an evaluation of whether it's eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. That's a financial big lift for a property owner/homeowner especially if it is not certain they will receive the federal grant, and it causes delays. For private property elevation projects in CA, the SHPO does not require the design drawings, even though the structures would changed a lot more in an elevation than when a roofing material and attic venting is updated....

I worked for a while on the Yuba forest. There were places where old roads were so overgrown with doghair the only way through was charging like a berserk football player. They were doing a bunch of macerator work here and there, but it's slow and limited to where they can get with the tool; whoie steep mountainsides covered in tanbark oak were slated for that treatment, but it seemed to have been designed by someone who had never been outside.

It's actually pretty hard to qualify a structure for National Register status, even when it is apparently deserving and meets all the requirements. Someone in the Forest has to have contacts with SHPO and both have to really want to push it. Most buildings people have lived in for any length of time won't meet the criteria, but getting a qualified archaeo to do the necessary paperwork can be a pain. It seems like there should be a good opportunity to new MAs registered with the Society who need work and experience who could go out and do the research and drawings and write things up for cheap, but coordinating that might be a problem.

And if your building does qualify for Nat Reg status, say good bye to any control . . . but really, it is very very hard to get anything on the nat reg. Lon Chaney Sr's cabin up Big Pine Creek is a good example of a deserving building that was nominated 40 years ago and reevaluated a few times, but for reasons unknowable it's not happening . . .

[LongShortLong]

Might be cheaper to leave things as they are. I saw somewhere about needs to treat 20 million acres. Elsewhere I see it costs $100s to $1000s per acre treated. If $1000/ac is representative, treating those 20 million acres costs $20 billion. And the forest grows back quickly, requiring more treatment. El goog thinks there's 33 million acres of forest in CA. We're in the same neighborhood as recent fire damage. Treatment won't stop fire damage, just hopefully reduce the damage.

Whatever happened to that assessment the state collected for a few years? I think I recall the assessed homeowners getting that overturned - the beneficiaries don't think it's worthwhile to prevent fire. They are saying let it burn.

[bodywhomper]

I worked for a while on the Yuba forest. There were places where old roads were so overgrown with doghair the only way through was charging like a berserk football player. They were doing a bunch of macerator work here and there, but it's slow and limited to where they can get with the tool; whoie steep mountainsides covered in tanbark oak were slated for that treatment, but it seemed to have been designed by someone who had never been outside.

It's actually pretty hard to qualify a structure for National Register status, even when it is apparently deserving and meets all the requirements. Someone in the Forest has to have contacts with SHPO and both have to really want to push it. Most buildings people have lived in for any length of time won't meet the criteria, but getting a qualified archaeo to do the necessary paperwork can be a pain. It seems like there should be a good opportunity to new MAs registered with the Society who need work and experience who could go out and do the research and drawings and write things up for cheap, but coordinating that might be a problem.

And if your building does qualify for Nat Reg status, say good bye to any control . . . but really, it is very very hard to get anything on the nat reg. Lon Chaney Sr's cabin up Big Pine Creek is a good example of a deserving building that was nominated 40 years ago and reevaluated a few times, but for reasons unknowable it's not happening . . .

Regarding Yuba river, the north yuba project is over 200k acres.

Regarding structures on the national register, it’s not about getting something listed, but about it being eligible for listing. It’s pretty common. In the Russian river valley, there are many homes determined eligible for the register. for the wildfire structural retrofit projects, the SHPO also wants the design drawings if there’s nearby structures that maybe eligible for the national register because the change to roof material could affect the character of the eligible structure. The point being that it’s a very lengthy process and a heavy lift for potential grant recipients.

The 20M acres plus maintenance seems untenable. IMO, the initial focus/“attack” (many share this POV) should focus on developed areas, WUI, and existing roadway/evacuation corridors, but that’s not going to change the potential smoke problems from large summer/fall fires, potential habitat type conversion that has been observed, and the loss of “natural infrastructure” of the state’s surface water infrastructure.

[old_newguy]

I could write a lot about this.... the example that old goat used was likely categorically excluded from NEPA. it definitely is below the threshold in acreage.

There was an article in Nature in 2020 that described that wildfire fuels reduction needs to occur on ~20M acres in California to reach a good ecological baseline and that there then needs to be active maintenance of that land after the initial treatment.

When there's an emergency or active WF suppression work, a lot of work is done on the ground with exemptions to the environmental regulations. There are SME's (e.g. archaeologists) that are coordinating and flagging sensitive resources for avoidance (if possible) but the work is not performed at the same level of scrutiny because of the emergency situation.

In California, the typical individual that opposed and halts larger wildfire mitigation projects on federal lands is Chad Hanson. He is often supported by a larger organization. For years it was the Sierra Club. Now it is the CBD. For a while, he was searching. He typically focuses on one or two NF's at a time. He halted many fuels reduction/thinning projects in Plumas (I believe) Tahoe, Eldorado, and Stanislaus NF's. He's now moved down to socal and seems to be focusing on Los Padres and Angeles. If you do a deep dive or have followed this, you will see that his MO and focus has evolved over the years. He gets a big mic sometimes with the NYT or WaPo. Most fire ecologist that I have met try to ignore him, but occasionally, there are some arguments in journals. There have been some specific projects that Hanson opposed using ESA, FSM/NEPA as the specific catalyst for challenging that have now burned down and the spp habitat is no longer present. Hanson has also challenged post WF recovery in the NF's (look up Starr Fire in Eldorado NF) in a manner that has resulted in no post fire recovery, the elimination of top soil, and habitat type conversion. Sierra Forest Legacy was another group, but they are now very supportive of wildfire fuel reductions and promote/organize groups like prescribed burn associations. The Nature Conservancy has now become n force pushing to green light large wildfire mitigation projects and gathering other enviro and community groups behind it in support. TNC is careful where they chose to focus their efforts because of Hanson and some groups that have aligned with him, like the chaparral institute.

After the Camp Fire, Newsom authorized something like $40M in wildfire mitigation projects to start immediately. He suspended all California enviro regulations for those projects. I'm not sure about how all those projects were implemented, but the one near me was in sensitive habitat (ultramorphic soils). Calfire coordinated with CNPS, local tribes, and a cultural resources organization to cruise the area together, to flag resources for avoidance and protection, flag the Rx, and coordinate resource protection and effectiveness of the Rx together on the ground. There was no CEQA compliance or other regulatory framework to guide that process. This is a similar process to what occurs during active wildfire suppression activities where archaeologist, foresters, or others that are qualified are flagging cultural resources for crews and dozers to avoid, if possible.

FEMA, as a policy, does not fund Rx burning for hazard mitigation projects, but they fund firing activities during wildfire suppression through their FMAG program. FEMA just announced phase 1 funding of a defensible space grant to Nevada County. Phase 2 involves getting individual property owners to sign-on to the project (they have to make a 25% match), then an Rx likely needs to be prepared for each property, each property must be evaluated for cultural resources, tribes must be consulted for each property, the SHPO must be consulted and concur with the effects analysis, a biologist has to evaluate the potential effects to federally-listed species and develop avoidance measures that the property owner must follow, the USFWS must be consulted with the evaluation of effects of the project on each property, and the USFWS must concur with the evaluation. FEMA can likely use a CE for its compliance with NEPA. I predict that the project will not be implemented anytime soon. FEMA prepared an EIS for a large fuels reduction in the SF East Bay Hills on UC, City of Oakland, and East Bay Regional Park District lands. Originally, FEMA's NEPA EA was challenged, which led to the EIS. It was also challenged, partially over the practices of the UC and partially related to ESA-listed species. The result was the FEMA will only fund the activities on the East Bay Regional Park District lands and the wildfire hazard will mostly go unmitigated on the UC and City lands. If that area burns with the modeled severity, the federally-listed species and their habitat will not survive.

A large area of the Sequoia NF that is currently burning that has not received any fuels mitigation treatment anytime recently has been in the planning/enviro compliance phase for over 6 years. Some of this overlaps the area that we are currently hearing in the news that people are most concerned about loosing some of the old growth trees because there's been no previous treatments. A lot of rough treatment has since occurred where WFF were able to prioritize as the wildfires approached.

need more?

Wow.

So, as a thought experiment, since we essentially suspend NEPA during wildfires can we suspend NEPA via a presidentially declared National emergency? Does anyone have the political will to make that happen?

[bodywhomper]

Wow.

So, as a thought experiment, since we essentially suspend NEPA during wildfires can we suspend NEPA via a presidentially declared National emergency? Does anyone have the political will to make that happen?

Currently, they don’t suspend NEPA for disaster recovery but they do for disaster response because it’s an emergency. Some of the more complex FEMA funded recovery projects have relatively extensive NEPA, ESA, and NHPA compliance.

However, that’s a good strategy, argue that the current conditions are “disaster-level” prompting need to temporarily suspending (or waiving regulations. Feinstein would probably the biggest ally in the Senate. She’s pushing a wildfire emergency bill.

I had pretty good views of the North Complex Fire from my area. I remember pretty significant firing operations prior to a well forecasted strong NE/E wind event. The firing operations created a substantial cloud. One of my thoughts during that event, “a burn that size would take years to go through the planning and enviro compliance process if it were to be conducted as a winter/spring rx burn. And even then, it may not actually happen because of aq permitting or public concern for the smoke.”

[old_newguy]

Currently, they don’t suspend NEPA for disaster recovery but they do for disaster response because it’s an emergency. Some of the more complex FEMA funded recovery projects have relatively extensive NEPA, ESA, and NHPA compliance.

However, that’s a good strategy, argue that the current conditions are “disaster-level” prompting need to temporarily suspending (or waiving regulations. Feinstein would probably the biggest ally in the Senate. She’s pushing a wildfire emergency bill.

I had pretty good views of the North Complex Fire from my area. I remember pretty significant firing operations prior to a well forecasted strong NE/E wind event. The firing operations created a substantial cloud. One of my thoughts during that event, “a burn that size would take years to go through the planning and enviro compliance process if it were to be conducted as a winter/spring rx burn. And even then, it may not actually happen because of aq permitting or public concern for the smoke.”

It certainly seems that you could craft an emergency declaration tailored to protect values at risk (WUI, watersheds, etc) and leverage existing understanding of environmental and cultural issues at risk. On the other hand, I’ve definitely seen some bad practices on wildfires (cutting trees that don’t need to be cut, equipment in riparian areas, etc).

I don’t think this is the right thing to do, but from my standpoint the alternative seems to be 500,000 acre fires that do real damage when we don’t want them to.

One of the most frustrating moments for me post fire career was looking at a fire map and realizing that I had personally been a part of stopping 5-8 small fires inside what was now a huge nuked area that burned during a high wind day associated with a frontal passage. I was part of the problem.

It certainly appears, although is unsaid, that the high up folks know there isn’t enough money or time to do the treatments so you see fires allowed to burn with point protection or modified suppression strategies which accomplish some of the goals, but often burn outside of whatever normal RX would have been prescribed. Occasionally I would see a firing operation that took some real care with attempting to moderate fire behavior instead of letting it rip once the had a black line established.

Unfortunately, society and politicians don’t seem to have gotten past the “put the fire out!” mentality.

[spanghew]

Regarding Yuba river, the north yuba project is over 200k acres.

Regarding structures on the national register, it’s not about getting something listed, but about it being eligible for listing. It’s pretty common. In the Russian river valley, there are many homes determined eligible for the register. for the wildfire structural retrofit projects, the SHPO also wants the design drawings if there’s nearby structures that maybe eligible for the national register because the change to roof material could affect the character of the eligible structure. The point being that it’s a very lengthy process and a heavy lift for potential grant recipients.

e.

Just curious--are these recreational residences built on Forest land in the 50s as part of that short-lived program to move people into the woods on public land? If not, how is SHPO involved at all? And if so, this represents a very small effect of the National Register in people's lives; most people probably know little or nothing about it or are ever affected by it.

[John_B]

One of the most frustrating moments for me post fire career was looking at a fire map and realizing that I had personally been a part of stopping 5-8 small fires inside what was now a huge nuked area that burned during a high wind day associated with a frontal passage. I was part of the problem.

On a hunting trip a few years ago my buddy and I walked past a small fire he'd been on where he broke his back after getting struck by a falling tree. 7 years later it was burned over by a 70k acre fire. It really drove home a sense of pointlessness.

[altasnob]

It’ll also take shitheads to not stop challenging the agencies’ ESA and NEPA compliance.

I assume the shitheads you are referring to is Unite the Parks and their recent lawsuit against the Forest Service challenging the the conservation plan for the Southern Sierra Nevada Pacific fisher, which was listed as an endangered species in May 2020. The fisher's habitat includes Sierra, Sequoia, and Stanislaus National Forests.

Unite the Parks argument is that the Forest Service is using fisher population data from pre-2011 studies, and failed to obtain new data after the 2020 fire season, which substantially reduced the fisher habitat (and likely fisher population). The Forest Service did conduct a review of their already-approved projects after the 2020 fires, but did not modify any of the projects. Also, the review conducted after 2020 fires still relied on data from pre-2011 studies, and was therefore flawed, according to Unite the Parks.

Unite the Parks points out that Forest Service agrees that removal of large trees and structural elements through logging, hazard logging, logging roads, and other vegetation management activities decreases the quality of den and rest sites and/or increase travel distances between safe sites even if den or rest structures themselves are not removed and may expose fishers to predation from mountain lions, bobcats, and coyotes. However, at the same time, the Forest Service argues that logging and other vegetation management activities also create potential positive effects by increasing habitat heterogeneity and promoting tree clumps and gaps within a stand, thereby increasing the resilience of these stands (Unite the Parks says the Forest Service cites no scientific evidence to support this). The Forest Service concedes that these projects may result in short-term impacts to fisher (through habitat modification or noise disturbance) but because many of the proposed projects are intended to reduce fuels and the risk of high-severity fires the Forest Service expects that these short term impacts are outweighed by the long-term benefits of these projects (again, Unite the Parks contends the Forest Service lacks scientific evidence to support this conclusion).

Unite the Parks main argument is that if the Forest Service is going to make the above conclusions, they need to go out and obtain new data on the fishers and not rely on data and studies pre-2011 to base their conclusions. The fisher population and habitat pre-2011 was very different than the fisher population and habitat today.

https://forestpolicypub.com/2021/04/...isher-habitat/

Unite the Parks court pleadings can be found below. I can't find the Forest Service's reply pleadings anywhere free on the internet.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folde...bm8IXf3o7KlSEx