As summer approaches, the constant worry in Lake County is wildfires. The county has all the ingredients for wildfires, which consist of old trees, grass and dry weeds.
Make no mistake about it, wildfires are part of living in Lake County. The series of wildfires in past years are a good example of just how much of Lake County is a tinderbox waiting to catch fire.
While lightning causes some fires, humans start 80 percent of them. For example, many fires start along roads and highways because people toss lighted cigarettes out of their car windows. In fact, many of today’s new cars aren’t even equipped with ashtrays. On a recent walk along Martin Street and Riggs Road (outside of Lakeport), I counted more than 50 discarded cigarette butts in a stretch of three miles, and this was through some very dry country. Any of these butts could have started a major fire.
There are several preventative measures that can keep the fire danger to a minimum. One is to cut the dry grass and weeds that are common throughout the county. I am amazed as I drive around the county the number of properties with dry weeds right growing right up to the homes. There are county and city ordinances requiring grass to be mowed, but they’re not enforced. All the local government agencies have to do is warn the property owner and require that the high grass be mowed. If the owner refuses, the government agency needs to hire a contractor to do it and charge the property owner. That seems so simple but is seldom done.
The other solution is to do control burning on the public land in the county. The Cow Mountain Area just outside Lakeport is a good example. The 50,000-acre area is nothing more than a dry brush patch waiting to burn.
We often hear the term “control burning” but most people don’t know what it entails. BLM, the California Division Of Forestry (CDF) and the U.S. Forest Service conduct almost all of the control burning in the state.
The purpose of control burning is to burn old brush and create new habitat for wildlife and to prevent wildfires by creating burn corridors that will contain a wildfire. Most control burns take place during the fall and winter months when the chance of the fire spreading is minimal.
Control burning itself is a simple affair. The managers of the forest lay out an area to be burned and a helicopter flies over the area. The helicopter is rigged with a barrel containing a flammable jelly-like substance suspended by a cable. The jelly is set afire and the helicopter drags the barrel over the brush, setting it on fire. Most control burns are laid out in a mosaic pattern, leaving cover for wildlife.
The cost to control burn is a pittance compared to the cost of fighting a wildfire.
Why hasn’t more control burning been done to protect residents in the county and provide habitat for wildlife? The answer is simple. The government agencies responsible for control burning can’t agree on when or even how to do it. Just the process of getting an agreement on when to burn is mind-boggling. First there has to be permission from Air Quality Control because of the smoke the control burn will generate. Funding then has to obtained to conduct the burn. Whereas money can always be found to put out a wildfire, there is often little available to do control burning. Coordinating the burn with CDF also must be accomplished. There is also the fear of liability if the control burn turns into a wildfire. All this results in a very small window of time when control burning can be done.
The only certainty is that if control burning isn’t done, then nature will do it for us, and at a much greater cost. It’s the old story of pay a little now or pay much more later on.
