All this week, KCBS Radio is taking a look at California’s emerging drought crisis. Part One looked at the dry conditions in Sonoma County. Part Two examined the state’s agriculture industry and the people who rely on it. Part Three focused on the possibility of “disaster burnout” and Part Four explored the tug-of-war over water being used to grow legal cannabis.
In Part Five, Holly Quan reports on how the drought is impacting wildfire prevention.
When experts say wildfire season is year round, they also mean prevention and maintenance should be year round.
Martin Matarese used to monitor the wildland areas for the city of Oakland. Now, he manages the goat herds that eat away at the hills. 30 years ago this October, the area saw a deadly firestorm that incinerated over 3,200 homes, condos and apartments.
"Everybody wanted the goats last month. They wanted them in late March or early April," he said. "Because now all the hills are turning brown – East Bay hills – whereas usually we have most of May for our Oakland hills to start drying out. And this is all accelerated this year."
The little rain we did get this winter helped germinate seed, but the new grass is sucking the moisture out of the soil.
Grassfires are dramatic as they can spread quickly, but they are still easier to put out than forest fires.
Unfortunately bay, pine, eucalyptus and black acacia trees are dying out in large numbers.
"Trying to figure out what’s causing it; everything seems to be coming back currently, right now, to the drought,” said Oakland Fire Deputy Chief Nick Luby. “These trees are stressed and they’re not able to rebound with the little bit of moisture they’re getting in the rainy season. And they’re dying off not in ones and twos, but tens, twenty, thirty threes in a clump.”
Luby’s colleague in the East Bay Regional Parks District, Fire Chief Aileen Theile, says it is an issue across the region and possibly the entire state.
She oversees thousands of acres with dying trees including 600 acres in Chabot and 177 acres in Redwood Park, all of which are now fuel for a potential fire.
“Because trees tend to not show their signs of decline until they’re really dead, we don’t have any idea how many more may become apparent, especially with the really dry winter we had," she said.
The dead trees need to be removed as doing nothing is not an acceptable option, but that will cost millions and could take years.
"We’re not trying to stop fires from happening, we know we can’t do that,” said Chief Theile. “But we can certainly make them more survivable, and that’s what we do here in the park district is try to create more healthy forests so that they can survive things like wildfire and even drought."
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