Burn piles: 2,400 down — 5,400 to go
Most work in giant sequoia groves will pause until July 1 to protect wildlife
Volume 1, Number 29 - Thursday, March 2, 2023
Now twice a week — Monday and Thursday mornings!
This week’s spotlight
By Claudia Elliott
Giant Sequoia News
SNOWSTORMS resulting in an impressive Sierra Nevada snowpack — double or better than normal — slowed progress on the Forest Service’s Giant Sequoia Emergency Response this winter. And restrictions related to protection of the California spotted owl, Pacific fisher and other wildlife mean most burning has ended for the season.
But efforts to burn some 7,500 piles of vegetation created last summer and fall will continue as weather and other conditions allow, according to Gretchen Fitzgerald, ecosystem staff officer of Sequoia National Forest and Giant Sequoia National Monument.
In an interview on Feb. 24, Fitzgerald said that workers have burned more than 2,200 piles in three of the groves — and about 5,400 piles remain.
“The snow keeps coming,” she noted, adding that while it’s great for the trees, it’s not so great for the roads or access — and also means that pile-burning efforts will need to continue later in the year. In addition to challenges from the weather, areas that are habitat for the California spotted owl or Pacific fisher, activity was set to stop at the end of February.
“Burning shuts down on March 1 in spotted owl and Pacific fisher habit,” Fitzgerald said. Burning may be able to resume in May, depending on snow levels and whether it’s safe to burn. She said that may be the case in some of the higher elevation groves.
According to the GSNM management plan, the 328,315-acre monument includes 22,620 acres of California Spotted Owl Protected Activity Centers — called PACs. And 3,070 acres have been identified as den sites for fur bearers included the Pacific fisher. The plan guides management activities in those areas, not just for the spotted owl and fisher, but also for other wildlife.
“There’s no activity in the spring, when they’re having babies,” Fitzgerald said. “On July 1, that ends and contractors will begin working in the groves, doing similar work to what we did (last year), including some biomass removal.”
The Giant Sequoia Emergency Response was announced on July 22, 2022, and within about two weeks, work was underway on Sequoia and Sierra national forests – home of most of the 37 giant sequoia groves found on 37,000 acres of national forests in California. Of those groves, all but five burned or partially burned in wildfires since 2015. The agency said that the wildfires caused significant destruction of the giant sequoia groves and destroyed nearly one-fifth of all giant sequoias in the last two years.
‘More to do’
“There’s more to do,” Fitzgerald said of the project. “We’ve awarded a contract to three different contractors.” They will continue work much like the vegetation removal around monarch giant sequoias, that SQF started last summer. Use of contractors will allow the agency’s crews to do other work.
When the emergency response kicked off, the agency used what it calls OCs (organized crews) to do the work in the groves. Through the heat of the summer and into the fall, four 20-person crews worked within a 25-foot radius of monarch giant sequoia trees remove ladder fuels, pull back duff and remove down and dead logs with most of the vegetation assembled into burn piles. The piles were covered with paper to try to keep the materials dry.
“Last year, the OC crews did a 25-foot perimeter around each giant, but no treatment in the background forest matrix,” Fitzgerald said. In this summer’s work, crews will go back on a much smaller scale than last year in the Black Mountain and Belknap groves, she said. This work may also help protect communities in the area.
Prescribed burn
In addition to the pile burning, the emergency response includes a prescribed burn project planned for the fall.
Fitzgerald said the planned Alder burn will cover about 4,000 acres, including the Wishon, Silver Creek and Burro Creek giant sequoia groves. The groves burned in the 2016 Hidden fire.*
The planned broadcast burn with low severity fire is considered an important component in managing giant sequoia lands. But it’s a challenging and expensive effort.
“It requires a lot of outside support to keep low severity fire across the forest floor,” Fitzgerald said.
Firefighters must put a fire line around the area to be treated with a broadcast burn. Cool weather without wind is important so the firefighters can maintain control of the fire. The aim is to burn the floor and controlling flame length and intensity is essential.
Fitzgerald said prescribed broadcast burning generally takes place in the fall, although in some cases a spring burn may be possible. If possible, the planned Alder burn will take place this year.
“It’s very hard to get people there,” she said of the remote Burro Creek grove. Crews have to hike in and drone footage will also be used to gather information needed to manage the fire.
Natural balance
In addition to the emergency response, SQF has other projects in the planning process including the Castle Fire Ecological Restoration Project, Freeman/Starvation Restoration Project and Windy Fire Restoration. More information about these projects is online at bit.ly/3Zd2cGJ.
Fire is a natural part of life for giant sequoias and some of the wildfires of recent years have actually been beneficial — although high intensity wildfire has been destructive.
Efforts such as those included in the emergency response were planned to help protect groves, but they are only part of the story.
“We want to reduce the fuel so we can do a broadcast burn after to restore groves to natural balance,” Fitzgerald said.
*This post previously stated that the Wishon, Silver Creek and Burro Creek giant sequoia groves burned in the 2020 Castle fire. The groves burned in the 2016 Hidden fire.
Wildfire, water & weather update
Recent massive snow storms appear to be nearing their end, although there is some rain in the forecast next week. And there is some concern that warmer rains on top of double normal snowpack could create problems. Here’s a gift link to an article in this morning’s San Francisco Chronicle with varying opinions about that prospect. An excerpt: “Fortunately, the current snowpack is relatively cold. And though individual weather model simulations hint at warm, moist conditions in the coming week, ensembles are not pointing to a warm atmospheric river on the horizon.”
Drought update: A new California drought map is out this morning and finally the winter’s snow and rain is shown to have made a huge difference with many areas of California no longer in drought!
Wildfire update: Here is an interesting report that even shows prescribed burning which, fortunately, is the only burning going on in giant sequoia country right now.
Noteworthy
The National Park Service (NPS) is seeking public feedback on a proposal to replant giant sequoia and other mixed conifer seedlings in areas severely impacted by the recent Castle and KNP Complex wildfires and where regeneration is otherwise not anticipated in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. There were technical difficulties in a related virtual presentation on Feb. 27, so it has been rescheduled for 5 p.m. on March 7. More information is HERE.
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Giant sequoias in the news
• Here’s a LINK to a fascinating video of the Hume Lake Ranger District’s Indian Basin grove that Sequoia National Forest published recently on Facebook. What is apparently drone footage provides an aerial view of the area with snow on the ground and an update: Firefighters have burned approximately 1600 piles, roughly 60 percent of the existing piles within the Hume Lake Ranger District’s Indian Basin grove as part of the Giant Sequoia Emergency Response that kicked off in July 2022.
• The website for London’s Natural History Museum published an article about giant sequoias this week by Sandra Knapp, the museum’s botanist. It’s an excerpt from her book, “In the Name of Plants.” You can read it HERE.
• At Pacifica Garden in the Siskiyous at Williams, Oregon — south of Grants Pass — a 100-foot diameter circle of giant sequoia trees was planted on Feb. 18. Read more HERE or watch this VIDEO about what sounds like a really cool project.
• Similar articles about continuing impacts of the 2020 Castle Fire in the Sequoia Crest community by Claudia Elliott were published recently in The Bakersfield Californian HERE and the Porterville Recorder HERE.
• Knowable magazine has a very interesting article about wildfire HERE. Here’s the headline and subhead: “Controlled burns won’t save all of California from wildfire — There are two types of wildfire in the state, and they’re on the rise for different reasons. Each needs a distinct management approach, a researcher says.”
• Classical music critic Mark Swed writes about “Treelogy: A Musical Portrait of California’s Redwood, Sequoia and Joshua Trees” for the Los Angeles Times HERE. An excerpt: “Can three splendid pieces of music, inspired by trees, save our state? Of course not. But the real value of “Treelogy” is subliminal. Trees inspire art. Art serves to enhance awareness. Awareness saves the day.” (And Swed’s writing is so lovely it makes me want to hear the music. Fortunately, I found a Vimeo preview HERE that let me listen to a little of it).
A work in progress — The Big Trees & the presidents
I am a storyteller, not a scholar. I dive into information and want to share it as quickly as possible. I struggle to find the discipline to make detailed notes and reference sources, although I’m working to improve my attention to such rigor.
When imagining Chapter 1 of this work in progress, I envisioned a list of giant sequoia groves with information about when the locations of each were first recorded. Such a list could be tied, chronologically, with the presidents whose actions had impacts on the big trees.
But if such a list exists, I haven’t found it yet. So I’ve decided to plow through some of the earliest published information and construct such a list — over time. Some of the early accounts are fascinating. And I love research.
My efforts this week — hours of reading and note-taking — resulted in a realization that I am still in what might be called the “survey of the literature” for this project. More next week — Claudia Elliott
Thanks for reading!