Let it Burn or Suppress It? Park Service and Cal Fires Competing Fire Management Policies

SAN DIEGO - Feb. 4, 2014 - PRLog -- Like millions of others, last summer I watched and monitored the progress of the Rim Fire as it burned its way deeper into Yosemite National Park.  The fire started outside of the park in the Stanislaus National Forest, but rapidly grew to an out of control conflagration that consumed state and national parklands, destroyed local businesses and communities.

In response to the fire, Cal Fires, (California Department for Forestry and Fire Protection) immediately began deploying vast amounts of manpower and equipment to battle the blaze.  Yet even with the rapid response in manpower and equipment, the fire raged out of control and marched toward Yosemite National Park, eventually crossing over the boundary and entering the park.  While Cal Fires continued in the massive effort to suppress and contain the blaze, once the fire crossed over into the national park, responsibility for fire containment fell upon the National Park Service.

Cal Fire operates under the mandate to suppress, control and extinguous wildland fires as soon as they erupt.  Cal Fire is charged with protecting millions of acres of state and private parklands, forests and timber interests, as well as keeping hundreds of small communities safe from wildland fires.  Their decades old policy of fire suppression has been criticised for allowing the buildup of old, over mature trees, forests and native habitats that inevitably ignite and turn into huge out of control conflagrations.

The Park Service employs a more scientific fire managment strategy called "fire use", similar to forest thinning or prescribed burns.  The fire cycle for an area is viewed as a natual component of the land, a means by which old, mature plant growth is kept in check by fire burning through the area, thereby reducing the fuel load and preventing huge wildland fires that occur from massive fuel buildup coupled with drought conditions.

The two very different strategies for fire management have been employed on a number of fires, depending on point of view, with varying degrees of success or failure.  Since the Rim Fire was fought by both agencies, each employed their own methods for managing the blaze.

Articles written in the Los Angeles Times describe the differing methods and how Cal Fires employed a risky strategy to protect and defend groves of ancient Redwood trees that were directly in the path of the Rim Fire.  Read about how these two agencies fight fires and how Cal Fires decided to protect the redwood groves.

Read the full story at http://landscapeexpertwitness.com/2014/02/03/burn-suppres...