About those Big Trees killed in wildfires...
It was nearly 20 percent of large giant sequoias, not all giant sequoias
Volume 1, Number 49 - Monday, May 15, 2023
Now twice a week — Monday and Thursday!
Perspective
AMONG PEOPLE TESTIFYING about H.R. 2989 — the Save Our Sequoias Act — at the May 8 hearing before the House Natural Resources Committee was Joanna Nelson, director of science and conservation for Save the Redwoods League.
An important part of her testimony was more or less a clarification of the loss of giant sequoia trees in recent wildfires:
We’ve heard from some of our other panelists about the remarkable losses of nearly 20 percent of the largest, oldest giant sequoia — so not all giant sequoia, but just the largest and oldest trees — in only 14 months across the 2020 and 2021 fire seasons.
You may recall the children’s game “gossip.” Sitting in a circle, a message is relayed around via ear-whispers and by the time it gets back to the person who started, it’s nothing at all like it was when it began.
In reviewing my work I see that I’ve reported the loss of 20 percent of giant sequoias at least a few times when I should have written the loss of nearly 20 percent of large giant sequoia trees. Thanks to Dr. Nelson’s reminder, I will be more careful in the future.
Before I share more of her testimony, I think it’s a good idea to also clarify which giant sequoia trees are considered “large.”
Here’s what the National Park Service said in THIS ARTICLE about high-severity wildfires killing unprecedented numbers of large giant sequoia trees in six years:
But starting in 2015, higher-severity fires have killed large giant sequoias (those 4 feet or greater in diameter, or >1.2 m) in much greater numbers than has ever been recorded.
It’s also important to remember that not all the land “burned” in those wildfires was burned at high severity levels and it may not have burned at all. Acreages of wildfires are of perimeters (I may be over-simplifying here) and some places are not burned at all, and other places are burned with lower-intensity fire that I believe just about everyone agrees is good for giant sequoia lands (and the forest in general).
But, back to some excerpts from Dr. Nelson’s testimony:
Today we're hearing about the challenges of wildfires exacerbated by drought climate change and practices of fire exclusion, which are occurring at a frequency and severity that if allowed to continue at the current rate, could wipe out our irreplaceable and magnificent giant sequoia groves.
We are short on time in this emergency. We also know what to do to meet this emergency. There is substantial evidence that active forest management reduces the risk of giant sequoia mortality in wildfire.
She offered four examples:
• In the 2021 KNP fire in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park, in Giant Forest, wildfire burned into the grove with high energy but once it reached areas that had previous repeated prescribed burns, flame lengths decreased and firefighters were able to put it out.
• In the same fire in Redwood Mountain grove, previously treated areas had low to moderate severity fire effects, in contrast, areas without a history of prescribed fire burned at high severity.
• In the 2021 Windy Fire in Sequoia National Forest, on the Trail of 100 Giants — a highly visited loop in Long Meadow Grove — there was previous treatment with thinning and pile burning. Although firefighters were needed in the grove to protect individual trees, giant sequoias in the area came through the fire with little mortality.
• In the Mariposa Grove of Yosemite National Park in the 2022 Washburn Fire, that wildfire met the perimeter of a 2017 prescribed burn and did not carry.
Nelson also shared what she said were the “top three” solutions and identified root causes as both “climate change due to the burning of fossil fuels and policies of fire exclusion for over a century that has led to overly-dense forests.”
And, she noted, “I'll add that these policies of fire exclusion have included prohibiting indigenous burning and indigenous genocide.”
The solutions, she said include a “need to redouble our climate action, on all fronts and address the overly-high densities of forests with active management.”
And specifically:
• We must allocate the funding and resources needed to conduct fuel reduction treatments, based on civic, cultural and ecological goals, prescribed burns, and cultural burns led by indigenous practitioners.
• In our most at-risk growths we need to continue until treatments are completed in every grove and then, sustain consistent cycles of fuels management to ensure resilience into the future.
“As (Forest Service) Chief (Randy) Moore mentioned, we've started with emergency declarations for 23 groves. There are approximately 78 groves, so we need to keep going. We need more time in the calendar year where forest treatments — pile-burning and broadcast burning — is acceptable. Right now, we have narrow windows in spring and fall shoulder seasons. There are other missing times that are also appropriate and safe.”
And to get that work done, Nelson said, “federal agencies need an increased ability to quickly share resources in the form of skilled people, equipment and materials — not only in response to wildfire emergency but in preventative actions of forest management. We need a workforce that's skilled in prescribed fire as well as firefighting.”
She concluded by saying “The full weight of our conservation communities and our lawmakers (is needed) to coalesce and prioritize the protection and management of the sequoia groves.”
More information
More information about the Save Our Sequoias Act — H.R. 2989 — is online at bit.ly/3Bio7lu. The hearing may be watched in its entirety on YouTube, bit.ly/44Ruryc.
And it’s important to note that the people selected to testify at the hearing were people largely in favor of the proposed bill. I’ll continue with more reporting from that hearing in Thursday’s newsletter — and discuss some of the concerns raised by other people and groups when last year’s version was introduced once I’ve had a chance to compare this year’s bill with the House and Senate bills with the same name that were introduced — and died — last year.
Yes, there’s still snow in the mountains!
Yosemite National Park is still working to clear snow from Tioga Road, the eastern entry into the park. According to a Facebook post by the park, the snowpack was measured on April 1 as 240 percent of average — the highest ever recorded for this area. In previous years with a very heavy snowpack, Tioga Road did not re-open until late June or early July. Much of Yosemite's Wilderness will likely be covered in snow well into summer.
Wildfire, water & weather update
California’s central valley is heating up, but there’s a chance of rain in the Sierra Nevada later this week which may accelerate The Big Melt, meaning more flooding in the valley and in the Eastern Sierra communities. The best Sierra Nevada weather forecasts can be found at NWS Hanford, HERE, and NWS Sacramento, HERE.
Maven’s Notebook, a great source of information about California water and all things related, tipped me off to a way to read an article about California snowpack from the Los Angeles Times today without a subscription (the link HERE is on AOL News). I pay to read the LA Times, but it doesn’t offer gift subscriptions, so this is a better way to share a very interesting article. Here’s an excerpt:
(The scientist’s) measurements, along with estimates by other researchers, show that when the snowpack reached its peak in April, it held approximately 40 million acre-feet of water, nearly as much as the total capacity of all the state’s reservoirs combined. Although some of that snow has started to thaw at lower elevations, much of it remains in the mountains — setting the stage for melting on a vast scale, as well as enormous river flows that could inundate some low-lying communities.
While collecting data from 23,000 feet, the flight teams have had a rare vantage point to witness the dramatic transformation of the mountains below. In some areas, they have measured snowdrifts that are 80 feet deep or more. Cliffs that once jutted from mountainsides have been buried, disappearing into white slopes.
Across the Sierra Nevada, this year’s snowpack peaked at about 2.7 times the average, weighing an estimated 55 billion tons, according to Painter.
As of this week, the snowpack stands at more than 300% of average for this time of year, and the southern Sierra is buried in snow that measures more than four times the average for mid-May.
The Hanford Sentinel had a couple of nice articles about Tulare Lake last week — HERE and HERE. Here’s an excerpt from one, quoting John Barker, a member of the gold discovery party on Kern River in 1853 and founder of the Bakersfield Echo newspaper:
“The great Tulare lake, after the flood of 1862 of which period I write, was at that time 40 miles wide and 60 miles in length. It is now entirely dry and immense crops of wheat grow at points where it had its greatest depth.
“As some time in the future, when Jupiter Pluvius* gets up in his wrath, there will be a great catastrophe in the bed of Tulare lake, and the clam will once more claim his own along her shores and it may be years before the vast sheet of water again evaporates. The shoals of fish may once more stock our lakes and rivers and the feathered game once more rejoice in unrestricted and unlimited plenty.”
*Jupiter Pluvius, Greek god of rainstorms
Wildfire update: Grass in the foothills is starting to dry out, and even with an immense snowpack, weather watchers tell us the growth generated by a wild, wet winter will eventually stoke more wildfires. Read an article in the Los Angeles Times HERE, and an excerpt:
When Jonathan O’Brien sees the rolling green hills of Southern California, the grasses lush from this winter’s heavy rains, he can’t help but feel uneasy.
“Even if it’s not this year or next year, sooner or later we absolutely will go into a drought period again, and all this vegetation that has grown will eventually suffer — that’s just the cycle we face,” said the National Interagency Fire Center meteorologist. “When that happens, it’s all but inevitable we will see a severe fire season or two.”
This summer, however, O’Brien and other forecasters project that portions of the state could get a break. The storms of the past couple of months have left behind a deep mountain snowpack that is expected to act as a buffer against massive wildfires like those that twice burned from one side of the Sierra Nevada to the other in 2021. At lower elevations, the outlook is uncertain. Those grassy hills could burn sooner rather than later.
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Giant sequoias in the news
• My articles about last week’s Save Our Sequoias Act hearing before the House Natural Resources Committee in the Bakersfield Californian HERE and the Porterville Recorder HERE.
• The Department of Interior published a piece about the top 10 ways to prevent wildfires, HERE.
• The Rockies are not the Sierra Nevada, but many of the issues land managers face there are also an issue in California, including regulations that make prescribed fire projects more difficult — or sometimes impossible. Read ProPublica’s article HERE, and an excerpt:
The controlled use of fire by expert crews is widely considered the most effective way to reduce the dangerous build-up of grasses and other vegetation that fuel larger conflagrations, experts agree.
But it has become nearly impossible to conduct controlled burns like the one (Seth) McKinney’s crew set last month. A combination of overly broad restrictions, erratic weather patterns and public resistance have left piles of dead branches and shrubs sitting in open spaces for months.
Historic photo of the week
The area now known as Calaveras Big Trees State Park was one of the first places tourists could travel with relative ease to see giant sequoias because it’s located only about 100 miles from Sacramento. The Mammoth Grove Hotel was built in the North Grove in 1861 and operated until 1943, when it was destroyed by fire.
You can see more of photographer Carleton Watkins’ work HERE.
Thanks for reading!