The Lumberjack



Students Serving The Cal Poly Humboldt Campus and Community Since 1929

Tag: Wildfire

  • How wildfire can cause flooding

    How wildfire can cause flooding

    by August Linton

    After the consuming heat and flame of a wildfire, flooding seems an unlikely problem to have to worry about. But catastrophic floods after a section of land is burned often threaten both human settlements and ecosystems. 

    Post-wildfire flooding can be caused by several processes. According to Cal Poly Humboldt professor of forestry, fire and rangeland management Dr. Jeff Kane, the forest floor normally acts as a sponge, soaking up and slowly releasing rainfall. When a wildfire burns that layer, there’s nothing left behind to stop rainfall from rushing directly downstream.

    Wildfire also can release and vaporize waxy compounds from conifer needles, which then accumulate on the burned ground and form an even more water-resistant layer. 

    “Instead of percolating, [water] may flow overland,” Kane said. “If you don’t have the vegetation to absorb the precipitation, then it’s going to be more impactful.”

    Hydrology and watershed management professor Dr. Andrew Stubblefield says that the impacts of this flooding extend to the whole ecosystem. When the forest floor loses its ability to absorb water, the topsoil can become saturated and eventually sloughs downstream, taking with it the nutrients it stores.

    “Now you have a forest that’s less able to hold water to grow trees and provide nutrients to grow trees,” said Stubblefield. “It’s impoverished, or it’s depleted; and it can take a while to hundreds of years even to rebuild the nutrients.”

    This can impact what plants regrow while the land recovers from the fire and flood. Weedy, often-invasive plants may have an easier time reestablishing themselves in this less-nurturing environment than native species, according to Kane. 

    Soil and nutrients washed into rivers and streams also negatively affect their ecosystems. Sediment and debris carried by flooding associated with the McKinney fire caused fish kill in the Klamath River earlier this August, as clays in the soil interrupted oxygen flow and nutrients nourished a deadly algal bloom. 

    Post-wildfire flooding can also be dangerous to human settlements and to the ecosystem around it because it picks up debris and soil and carries it downstream. Debris flows caused by heavy rain after the Thomas fire in Montecito, California killed 23, injured at least 167, and damaged 408 homes, according to a 2019 research article by J.W. Kean et al. 

    It’s the charge of the National Forest Service’s BAER (Burned Area Emergency Response) teams to analyze the risks for flooding after each fire and implement measures to mitigate damage and environmental impacts. According to the McKinney Post-Fire BAER incident overview, these multidisciplinary teams of scientists decide what, if anything, needs to be done to protect natural resources or human settlements in the area. 

    Examples of possible interventions include seeding the hillside from the air, setting up log breaks along hills or in creek beds, or stabilizing at-risk areas with hydro-mulch (a material similar to paper mâché which also contains seeds,) said Stubblefield. Sometimes the best treatment is to warn people away from at-risk areas with weather alerts when a big storm is coming in.

    But with modern fires often burning millions of acres at once, what scientists can do to mitigate flooding becomes a problem of scale. 

    “The August Complex [fire] last summer was a million acres, what would it cost to try and stabilize that landscape, you know, it’s too big,” said Stubblefield. “It would be the gross domestic product of a small country.”

    Flooding is not an inevitable follow-up to wildfire. It takes both intense fire and intense rain to create the right conditions. If ground cover vegetation like grasses have time to return before the next intense rain, it stabilizes the soil and can even begin to break down the waxy hydrophobic layer.

    However, due to the effects of anthropogenic climate change and poor forest management, the perfect storm happens more often. 

    When this land was stewarded by Native Americans, regular fires were part of that management. In the post-colonial absence of that management, white settlers saw wildfires as something that needed to be suppressed immediately, rather than allowed to run their course as a physiological process of the forest. When the dense, thick, choked forests that this policy produces catch fire, they burn hotter, longer, and over a wider area. The environmental legacy of clear-cut logging and fire-prevention has left the forests in a vulnerable and volatile state.

    “We are moving into an era of active fire management,” said Stubblefield.

    This means more prescribed burns, and an attitude towards fire that acknowledges its essential role in forest health. Post-fire flooding, too, is a physiological component of the ecosystem. According to Stubblefield, if sediments weren’t carried into the river, salmon might not have gravel to spawn on at all.

  • Sick in the ashes

    Sick in the ashes

    By | Michelle N. Meyers

    Threats to public and environmental health and safety continue to persist in the wake of the most destructive wildfire in California’s history.

    As part of an ongoing joint response to multiple wildfires in Northern California, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency begins what officials are referring to as the largest wildfire cleanup in California’s history.

    Since Sunday, Oct. 8, at the peak of the wildfires there were 21 major wildfires that burned over 245,000 acres in total, forcing around 100,000 people to evacuate. While the damage assessment is still ongoing, so far the blazes have destroyed an estimated 8,700 structures and devastatingly taken the lives of 42 people.

    The Tubbs Fire in Sonoma County alone broke the record as California’s most destructive wildfire in history. So far, the Tubbs Fire has scorched 36,807 acres, destroyed 5,300 structures, and taken 22 lives.

    “It worried me, not knowing what was going to happen to my friends,” says Damian Jimenez, former Sonoma County resident and Communications Major at HSU. “Friends whose houses have been engulfed by the fires.”

    “They lost a lot of family memories,” says Jimenez

    In the last few weeks, cooler temperatures and higher humidity across Northern California have aided firefighters in their efforts. As of now, temperatures across the state remain warm and dry. Yet despite unfavorable conditions, all fires in Sonoma County are at least 92 percent contained according to Cal Fire.

    While the dangers of a powerful active wildfire fire are beginning to pass, environmental and health concerns associated with the aftermath of a wildfire continue to threaten local communities and emergency personnel.

    One of the main concerns for residents returning to a damaged or destroyed home is the presence of hazardous materials such as household hazardous waste or HHW. Household hazardous waste include, “leftover household products that can catch fire, react, or explode under certain circumstances, or that are corrosive or toxic,” said Michele Huitric, EPA Public Information Officer, in a press release. “Products such as paints, cleaners, oils, batteries, and pesticides can contain hazardous ingredients and require special handling and disposal.”

    In order to ensure the safety of residents, local authorities continue to warn residents returning to what is left of their homes to beware of these possible hazards. Residents are required to read and sign a form that is intended to ensure that the homeowner acknowledges these dangers before entering the property. That form is called a Debris Removal Right-of-Entry Permit and can be found on the County of Sonoma website. In addition, the State of California has declared a state of emergency in the area.

    Cleanup efforts of hazardous and non-hazardous materials are also now underway in what is being referred to as the largest wildfire cleanup in California’s history.

    The EPA, in coordination with representatives from Sonoma and Napa Counties and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and its state and local partners began conducting surveys to identify the locations of household hazardous waste and other hazardous materials as of Oct. 25. These surveys are being conducted on residential properties in the neighborhoods of Coffey Park in Santa Rosa as well as Soda Canyon and Silverado in Napa.

    Once these properties are surveyed, collection teams will begin the safe removal, transport, and disposal of hazardous and nonhazardous materials.

    Wildfire cleanup efforts also include the removal of contaminated soil and stabilization of the creek bed according to the EPA.

    In addition, as part of the EPA’s response effort, they are “working with California and tribal governments to track the status of more than 150 public drinking water systems, some of which have been damaged, destroyed or otherwise affected by the fires,” says Huitric.

    The extensive cooperative effort is intended to reduce potential threats to public health and safety.

    Officials are aiming to, “Have all that damage debris cleaned up by early 2018,” says Kathleen Hie, Cal Fire Information Officer.

    “We’re in the rebuilding stages,” says Jimenez. “I think caring for one another is really important right now.”