Grocery store parking lot, 50 miles north of the fire.
There is always something burning. Fires are part of the natural order of things, in fact, they play an important role in Sierra Nevada ecology. So, why worry? Isn't this fire part of the ebb and flow? Well, not really. It's true that the Sierra's ecosystem depends on fire as part of its natural cycle, but it depends on small events every decade or so -- colossal fires really aren't part of the natural plan. They don't support the ecosystem.
So, how did the Sierra become such a pile of kindling? A lot has to do with how it was managed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It used to be that when there were fires, folks simply put them out. To be fair, that makes a certain amount of sense. Problem was, the fires were extinguished before they could burn away the foliage that nature would normally remove. Farmers also deliberately protected grass and regrew it to graze cattle, which is still the case to some degree. Today, the Sierra is a crackling tinderbox that holds too much fuel for fires that are decent by nature's standards. Add to that the climbing average temperatures and ambivalent La Nina to El Nino neutral periods, and I swear you can start a fire just by sneezing.
Whatever you do, don't light a match. You could blaze away 400,000 acres in one shot.
The Giant Sequoia's life cycle depends on fire. Its seed cones don't open unless they are on fire. After the fire, the clearing of brush allows sunlight to nurture the saplings. The larger trees -- some are more than 3000 years old -- generally survive the natural fires and live on.
Here is a fire scar on a Giant Sequoia at Calaveras Big Trees State Park in Arnold, California. These trees are precariously big things, with surprisingly shallow root systems. So shallow, in fact, that they are a little like 250 foot tall dominoes standing on a table. They need stable, stable ground that isn't too wet, or they'll topple over. That's why there are only a few stands of these beautiful trees anywhere in the world.
Their bark looks like asbestos. Seriously, it's fireproof. The trees do get burned if the covering gets compromised, but the bark does a pretty good job of protecting them from small fires. When the fires get hotter or the trees are holding less moisture than usual, all bets are off. But the fire does open the Giant Sequoia's seed cone, so the circle of life cycles again.
If ecology depends on fire, then, why worry? What is it that makes this particular fire so scary?
First of all, it's huge. This fire is the third largest in California's recorded history. When fires are this big, they have a life of their own. They have their own weather systems, and create their own wind and heat patterns -- the twists and turns they take cannot be predicted purely by what is known from outside the blaze. The Rim Fire also has at least two fuel system layers -- brush, grass, and tinder that lies near the ground, and the treetop foliage in the canopy. Since heat is one of the main ingredients needed to keep a fire going, the two layers can reinforce each other in dire ways.
In terms of the ecosystem, the Yosemite fire is a perfect storm. The Sierra is a little too dry, so trees are holding less moisture than usual. Decades of fire suppression leave us with too much fuel in the wilderness -- as does protecting grass for grazing cattle. We stand to lose a lot of forest this time.
The Giant Sequoia's seed cone is ironically small, don't you think?
The connection between climate and drought is reasonably well understood. The connection between deforestation and drought is also well understood. Losing forest makes things drier, and making things drier loses forest. In terms of things to come, we are facing what scientists call a positive feedback loop. Fires beget deforestation, which begets drought, which begets fire, which begets deforestation, and so on. Scientists predict up to a four-fold increase in forest fires in the Sierra Nevada and in California more generally over the next century.
Mother Jones posted quick primer on how some of the subtle relationships work. The progression depends on wet and dry periods cycling. With climate change, the wet years will be wetter and dry years drier -- which is an effective way to create more perfect storms.
NASA released some satellite photos of the fire recently, which Salon posted in a slide show. Amazing that it can be seen so well from outer space.
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"Hummingbirds" Blogathon: September 9-September 13, 2013
In May 2006, the late environmental activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai addressed 7,000 international educators who had gathered in Montreal for the 58th annual conference of the National Association of Foreign Student Advisers (NAFSA). Here is the story she shared with them.
One day a terrible fire broke out in a forest - a huge woodlands was suddenly engulfed by a raging wild fire. Frightened, all the animals fled their homes and ran out of the forest. As they came to the edge of a stream they stopped to watch the fire and they were feeling very discouraged and powerless. They were all bemoaning the destruction of their homes. Every one of them thought there was nothing they could do about the fire, except for one little hummingbird.
This particular hummingbird decided it would do something. It swooped into the stream and picked up a few drops of water and went into the forest and put them on the fire. Then it went back to the stream and did it again, and it kept going back, again and again and again. All the other animals watched in disbelief; some tried to discourage the hummingbird with comments like, "Don't bother, it is too much, you are too little, your wings will burn, your beak is too tiny, it’s only a drop, you can't put out this fire."
And as the animals stood around disparaging the little bird’s efforts, the bird noticed how hopeless and forlorn they looked. Then one of the animals shouted out and challenged the hummingbird in a mocking voice, "What do you think you are doing?" And the hummingbird, without wasting time or losing a beat, looked back and said:
"I am doing what I can."
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In this time of escalating climate change, this is our challenge.
To refuse to surrender to the apathy of denialism and fatalism.
To be fierce in our defense of the Earth.
To continue to fight in the face of overwhelming odds.
And always, always, to do what we can.
Because it is only by each of us doing what we can, every day, that we will save the Earth – for ourselves, and for the generations to come. Like the hummingbird.
Our Daily Kos community organizers are Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, boatsie, rb137, JekyllnHyde, citisven, peregrine kate, John Crapper, Aji, and Kitsap River. Photo credit and copyright: Kossack desertguy and Luma Photography. All rights reserved. Used with permission.
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