Forests – Enviro Updates

SuzanneMay 25, 2025June 9, 2025Forestslogging, redwoods

Op-Ed: Fixing Forests

Teri Shore, PACIFIC SUN

I just visited the redwood country and wilderness forests that stretch from the cool coastal range to snow-topped alpine ridges in the interior mountains in Northern California. Hiking through groves of redwoods adorned with bouquets of trillium and along clear rivers ringing with birdsong from tiny hidden warblers, I felt at times like I was in paradise.

But then I’d come upon massive redwood stumps that were cut generations ago still standing. Heading into the famed Headwaters Preserve, the newer growth didn’t hide the past devastation. The fragmented groves of ancient redwoods in the national parks often felt like tree museums. In fact, the Tall Trees Grove on Redwood Creek requires a permit for entry past a locked gate.

Heading into the Smith River, Scott River and Trinity Alps, I was taken by the rugged landscapes and powerful waters but overwhelmed by the miles of burned lands. Some places were recovering with green and wildflowers. Other expanses were spoiled by salvage logging where giant scorched logs were abandoned and massive slash piles left behind.

After seeing all this, I realized the urgency of halting the Fix our Forest Act moving toward passage in Congress. The bill authorizes more logging and less environmental protection in our forests and is key to the log-baby-log mantra coming from The White House.

We need our State Senators Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff to oppose this bill and rally their colleagues to defeat it. If not, they will allow the beauty of our forests to be finally and forever turned into the beasts of industry.

Source: https://pacificsun.com/your-letters-may-21/

SuzanneMay 21, 2025May 24, 2025ForestsBRIC grants, defensible space, fire resilience, wildfires, wildland urban interface

North Bay communities lose tens of millions in federal funding for wildfire preparation work

Marisa Endicott, PRESS DEMOCRAT

As peak wildfire season arrives, Sonoma, Napa and Mendocino counties are scrambling to address the loss of key FEMA grants for fire prevention work already underway.

The Brooktrails community sits in a rugged area of unincorporated Mendocino County a few miles west of Willits. Home to over 3,000 people, the neighborhood is packed in amid thick brush, forest and windy roads. Many of the homes are surrounded by abandoned overgrown lots, there’s one main route in and out and water is limited.

“It has been labeled one of the most fire dangerous communities in the state for a really good reason,” said Scott Cratty, executive director of the Mendocino County Fire Safe Council. “It’s got all the elements if fire gets in there to be very bad.”

In August, Mendocino County was awarded a $3.6 million grant through the federal Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) grant program, the first phase of a $50-million project which would have gone to reducing fuels across roughly 1,500 acres of land and creating defensible space and retrofits for hundreds of homes in and around the Brooktrails area.

Sonoma and Napa counties also received multi-million-dollar BRIC grants for similar work to make homes less likely to catch and spread fire in a region increasingly prone to devastating blazes.

SuzanneFebruary 24, 2025February 25, 2025Climate Change & Energy, ForestsCalfire, fire danger, hazard maps, wildfire hazard

New state fire maps bring new hazard designations — and building mandates — to region

Marisa Endicott, PRESS DEMOCRAT

CalFire Fire Hazard Severity Zone Viewer

State officials released the latest round of highly anticipated fire hazard maps Monday, covering Northern California coastal areas from the Bay Area up to the Oregon border, including Sonoma and Napa counties.

The new maps will add 1.4 million acres of land statewide into higher fire severity categories, accompanied by stricter building and local planning code requirements for property owners.

The increase in “very high” hazard areas is significant in many — though not all — areas.

Unincorporated Sonoma County saw its “very high” hazard area grow from 11 acres to 7,555 acres, with an additional 9,149 acres designated “high” hazard.

SuzanneFebruary 11, 2025February 17, 2025Forests, Land UseDouglas fir, protected lands, redwoods, Save the Redwoods

Save the Redwoods League signs $24 million deal to purchase Monte Rio redwood forest and expand county park

Martin Espinoza, PRESS DEMOCRAT

The $24 million acquisition by Save the Redwoods solidifies a 22,000-acre block of protected land stretching from Monte Rio to the Sonoma Coast.

A San Francisco-based conservation group has agreed to purchase 1,517 acres of redwood and Douglas fir forest near Monte Rio for $24 million, with the goal of transferring the property to Sonoma County Regional Parks for public use.

The deal — between Save the Redwoods League and Mendocino Redwood Company, which owns the property — is aimed to dramatically expand Monte Rio Redwoods Regional Park and Open Space Preserve, from its current 515 acres to more than 2,000 acres.

It also would create a contiguous swath of more than 22,000 acres of protected land, from the Bohemian Highway to the Sonoma Coast and north to the Jenner Headlands.

SuzanneJanuary 19, 2025January 22, 2025Climate Change & Energy, Forests, Land Usefire resilience, house hardening, rebuilding after fire, wildfire, wildfire hazard

Why are lone homes left standing after the Los Angeles fires? It’s not entirely luck

Ed Davey & Ingrid Lobet, ASSOCIATED PRESS

Emails and videos of burned buildings in Los Angeles next to those left standing have been flying back and forth among architects, builders and fire safety specialists around the world.

For many homeowners, like Enrique Balcazar, the sometimes scattershot nature of the carnage can seem like random chance. Balcazar, a real estate agent, posted video that showed little more than chimneys remaining of most homes on his block after fire leapt through his Altadena neighborhood. Balcazar stood on his neighbor’s destroyed classic Mustang to douse his smoldering roof, but his home was otherwise fine.

“It’s an older house and it still has the old wood sidings,” Balcazar said. “To me there’s nothing explainable in logical or scientific reason of why my house would not have burned.”

Many experts say luck does play a part. After all, wind can shift 180 degrees in a split second, pushing fire away from your house and towards a neighbor’s. But they also say there are many ways that homes can be made less vulnerable to fire.

SuzanneJanuary 17, 2025January 22, 2025Climate Change & Energy, Forests, Land UseBoard of Forestry, defensible space, fire resilience, house hardening, rebuilding after fire

California is years behind in implementing a law to make homes more fire resistant

Tran Nguyen, ASSOCIATED PRESS

Reeling from destructive wildfires, including the deadliest in California history, state lawmakers in 2020 passed new requirements for clearing combustible materials like dead plants and wooden furniture within 5 feet (1.5 meters) of homes in risky areas.

The rules were set to take effect on Jan. 1, 2023. But as Los Angeles grapples with blazes that have destroyed thousands of homes in what could be the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history, the regulations still haven’t been written. The state Board of Forestry and Fire Protection has no firm timeline for completing them.

“It’s frustrating at every level of government,” said Democratic state Sen. Henry Stern, who was part of a group of lawmakers who authored the legislation. “I feel like a failure on it, being quite frank.”

Most of the neighborhoods ravaged by the Palisades Fire are in areas that must follow state requirements to keep the immediate surroundings of their homes free of combustible materials and would be subject to the new rules because they are deemed at highest fire risk by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The fire, driven by hurricane-force winds that spread embers by air, destroyed at least 5,000 structures across areas including Pacific Palisades, Malibu and Topanga Canyon.

SuzanneJanuary 16, 2025January 18, 2025Climate Change & Energy, Forests, Land Usefire, fire warning, wildfire evacuation

How Santa Rosa-based app Watch Duty became an indispensable tool during Los Angeles’ wildfires

Martin Espinoza, PRESS DEMOCRAT

It combines updates from authorities, some gleaned from their own internal dispatches, with fire maps, photos, live video from fire lookout cameras, notices of evacuation orders and weather warnings, road and school closures.

On a mid-August afternoon three and a half years ago, a handful of volunteers monitoring emergency radio traffic about a wildfire start in Lake County sent out their first coordinated public safety alert through a startup cellphone app.

That first message on Watch Duty reached about 6,000 enrolled users in the original three-county territory, including Sonoma, Napa and Mendocino counties.

Today, Watch Duty, based in Santa Rosa and powered by a network of wildfire monitors that stretches across the globe, covers 1,476 counties in 22 U.S. states.

It has about 16 million active users, more than half of whom have downloaded the app since the start of the devastating wildfires a week ago in Los Angeles.

SuzanneDecember 3, 2024December 10, 2024Climate Change & Energy, Forestselectricity rates, PG&E, wildfire hazard, wildfires

Californians pay billions for power companies’ wildfire prevention efforts. Are they cost-effective?

Alejandro Lazo, CALMATTERS

After utility equipment sparked tragic wildfires, PG&E, SCE and SDG&E received state approval to collect $27 billion from ratepayers. As California electric bills soar, questions have emerged about oversight and costs.

Diane Moss lost her home in the Santa Monica Mountains after power lines ignited the apocalyptic Woolsey Fire in 2018. Since then, she’s pressed for a safer electric grid in California.

“It’s so easy to forget the risk that we live in — until it happens to you,” said Moss, a longtime clean energy advocate. “All of us in California have to think about how we better prepare to survive disaster, which is only going to be more of a problem as the climate changes.”

In recent years, California’s power companies have been doing just that: insulating power lines and burying lines underground, trimming trees, deploying drones and using risk-detection technology.

As wildfires across the U.S. intensify, California is on the leading edge of efforts to prevent more deadly and destructive fires ignited by downed power lines and malfunctioning equipment.

Customers have shouldered a hefty price for wildfire safety measures. From 2019 through 2023, the California Public Utilities Commission authorized the three largest utilities to collect $27 billion in wildfire prevention and insurance costs from ratepayers, according to a report to the Legislature.

And the costs are projected to keep rising: The three companies — Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric — continue to seek billions more from customers for wildfire prevention spending. Rates are expected to continue outpacing inflation through 2027.

Red more at https://calmatters.org/environment/2024/12/pge-utilities-wildfire-prevention-customer-bills-california/

SuzanneAugust 17, 2024August 29, 2024Climate Change & Energy, Forests, Land Usedevelopment, wildfire hazard, wildland urban interface

Controversial bill to abolish California fire hazard rankings dies in Legislature

Hayley Smith, LOS ANGELES TIMES

A bill that sought to overhaul California’s system for wildfire hazard mapping has died in the state Assembly.

A bill that sought to overhaul California’s system for wildfire hazard mapping has died in the state Assembly.

Senate Bill 610, introduced in June by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), sparked heated debate over its plan to eliminate the decades-old system of ranking state and local lands as “moderate,” “high” or “very high” fire hazard severity zones — designations that influence development patterns and building safety standards based on an area’s probability of burning.

The plan instead would have empowered California’s state fire marshal, Daniel Berlant, to create a single “wildfire mitigation area” classification for California, which supporters said would simplify the system and create a uniform set of standards for wildfire preparation and mitigation.

SuzanneAugust 14, 2024August 29, 2024Climate Change & Energy, Forests, Land Usedevelopment, wildfire hazard, wildland urban interface

A Newsom-backed bill to change California’s wildfire hazard rankings is taking heat. Here’s why

Ari Plachta, SACRAMENTO BEE

The bill would overhaul California’s ranking system for wildfire hazards.

A bill backed by Gov. Gavin Newsom to overhaul California’s ranking system for wildfire hazards is taking heat from environmentalists and local governments, who argue the bill would lead to a dangerous increase in housing development in fire-prone areas.

Senate Bill 610 would replace the state’s existing, three-tiered, labeling system that rates communities based on their probability of burning with a single framework that would only identify whether or not an area requires “fire mitigation.”

The hazard ranking system is a key to local development processes, building safety standards and home defensible space requirements. Proponents say the reform would simplify a convoluted system and help expand compliance with those rules.

Environmental Center of Sonoma County

Category: Forests