Cal Fire to speed up the thinning of forests to lessen wildfire risks

After successive years of devastating wildfires, California’s fire agency announced a plan Tuesday that would dramatically increase removal of dead trees and other forest management efforts with the help of the National Guard.

Cal Fire released a list of 35 priority fuel-reduction projects it wants to start immediately across the state over roughly 90,000 acres. That’s double the acreage the agency aimed to cover in the current fiscal year, Deputy Chief Scott McLean said. Dead trees and dry brush allow flames to spread more quickly. Their removal, as well as fire prevention, are seen as key weapons in limiting destructive, deadly wildfires.

Cal Fire is also seeking National Guard assistance to coordinate the work. McLean said it was the first time he could recall turning to the National Guard for help with clearing trees and vegetation.

“It just goes to show you how committed everybody is,” he said.

The deadliest U.S. fire in a century destroyed much of Paradise — a city of 27,000 people in Northern California — in November 2018 and killed 86 people. California also experienced devastating wildfires in 2017, including a blaze that killed 22 people and destroyed more than 5,500 structures around the wine country city of Santa Rosa; and the Thomas fire in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, which at 281,893 acres was the largest wildfire in state history at the time. It destroyed more than 1,000 structures and led to debris flows in January 2018 that killed at least 21 people.

Republican President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized California’s Democratic officials for not doing a good enough job managing its forests and has threatened to cut off California’s federal disaster funding.

The 35 projects are based on input from local Cal Fire units and would reduce wildfire risk to more than 200 communities, according to Cal Fire. They include removing dead trees, clearing vegetation, and creating fuel breaks, defensible spaces and ingress and egress corridors. The projects prioritize communities at high risk from wildfires but also with significant numbers of vulnerable groups such as the elderly or poor. They include work around the city of Redding, which was also devastated by wildfire last year, and in Butte County, where Paradise is located.

Only one project is scheduled for south of Santa Barbara, a controlled burn on 431 acres in the Big Rock area near Malibu. Although there are vast swaths of dead trees in Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, most of those are on lands managed by the U.S. Forest Service. There, federal and local organizations remove vegetation. Cal Fire’s territory, called the State Responsibility Area, is roughly 31 million acres — about one-third of the total acreage in the state.

An estimated 15 million acres of forest land in California are in need of thinning or other restoration work, so the 35 projects are just a start, Cal Fire officials said. The agency wants to establish incident bases with the National Guard close to vulnerable communities to coordinate fuel-reduction projects.

Kathryn Phillips, director of Sierra Club California, said many of the recent fires were driven by high winds, so clearing trees and vegetation is not the solution. Cal Fire should focus more on clearing brush around homes and ensuring their roofs and attics are safe from flying embers, she said.

“We need to make sure we’re doing the things that we know will protect homes,” she said.

Cal Fire does call on officials to identify options for retrofitting homes as part of its recommendations released Tuesday.

Southern California News Group Staff Writer Brian Rokos contributed to this story.