Black Forest fire: 5 years later, residents warily eye looming danger
When
Thirty-some years ago, her kids all denied chiseling the words into the stone. Now, they all take credit.
The message was a permanent fixture in the Burke home, which was tucked in a dense stand of ponderosa pines at the end of a rural road in
Then, suddenly, it was gone.
Community picnic to mark 5 years since the
On
Burke's home and the ponderosas that once shielded it burned to ash. So did many of her oil paintings and albums of family photos. The hearth and the words it bore melted in the heat of the firestorm.
"These things are history, and you can't replace history'" Burke said last week, dabbing tears from her eyes with a tissue. "You just can't, and that's rough."
What she could replace were the torched trees. And as soon as it was safe, she did. Since 2014, she has planted more than 200 trees on her 11-acre lot in addition to extensive mitigation work. Her land is now a patchwork of plants: 10-foot high chokecherry trees, lilac trees that stand just above your knee and infant evergreens.
It may not be the haven of ponderosa pines that drew her to
"If you're not moving forward, you're falling behind," she said.
Many others have moved forward alongside Burke, with residents rebuilding nearly 300 homes. But, with a potentially catastrophic wildfire season on the horizon in
Restoring lives takes money
Black Forest Together spends little time dwelling on predictions, preferring action, instead.
"A community that has experienced disaster and has gone through recovery needs to be their own advocate because no one will care as much for that community as the people living there," said Planning Coordinator
The nonprofit, started in the wake of the fire, has logged about 47,000 volunteer hours since 2013 to recover, rebuild and restore the lives of those affected by the fire. In 2017, the group completed 84 projects in 102 days, including the mitigation of 148 acres and relocation of 250 ponderosas to 37 homes and the community park.
Black Forest Together's role has evolved with residents' needs, director
What has stayed constant, though, is the community's need for financial assistance.
The cost of mitigation on a typical 5-acre lot is about
Many of the areas affected by the
So, when Black Forest Together receives project funding, their waiting list grows faster than their resources can manage. When that money runs dry, though, the demand for their services drops.
"You have a group of people out here that understand the importance of mitigating but can't do it because of the financial burden," Clark said. "When we get grant money, people are proactive in calling us to get work done."
Launched in early 2018, Trees 4 Tomorrow transplants healthy trees from unmitigated properties to ones in the burn area in need of more trees. Crews can move 10 trees a day and are booked up for the next several weeks. By the end of the year, Clark and Trosper hope to move 1,300 trees.
Their efforts could be aided by
Though the survival rate of a conventionally-purchased tree is higher, the cost of an uprooted tree is about half the price.
"This is really to give homeowners an affordable outlet to reclaim what they lost," Clark said.
Yes, her home, 5 acres of fencing and various outbuildings were obliterated, but they didn't matter much to her.
"Family and animals are not replaceable," she said. "My house, my saddles, my clothes all are."
So is her forest, and the tractor she now drives day after day as she plants, mows and waters her property's denuded, eroded hillsides.
"My basic thing is that the fire is done. It's spilled milk," said Brown, who also helps run Black
"Plus, it's good therapy for me to cut trees," she said.
Not everyone in
"They moved there for the trees, they want their privacy, and they don't want to see neighbors," he said.
Others have a misconception that mitigation is clear-cutting. Root has spent every year since the Hayman fire in 2002 debunking that myth through consultations with private landowners and partnerships with organizations like Black Forest Together.
"The goal is to be good stewards of the forest," Root said. "I ask people what they want, what their objectives for the property, whether wildlife or plant life or defensible space. I then see how that fits into the overall health of forest."
Clark says these types of discussions and management practices are part of the informal terms of agreement to living in
"There is a responsibility of living out here," Clark said. "You can't just be your house and be done."
Fuels just need a spark
Though
Nationwide, more than 12,000 homes and structures were destroyed or damaged, at least 200,000 people were forced to evacuate and 66 people lost their lives in fires or subsequent mudslides.
Coined the "big burn of 2017" by researchers, last year's fire season was fueled by tall, dry grasses that grew during the country's relatively wet winter and hot and early spring. It was the "perfect recipe for fire(s)" that devastated
The ingredients of
As on the
This year, the foliage waited and waited and waited for snowmelt and consistent rain that never came.
Compounded by an average temperature 7.9 degrees higher than normal in May, the conditions parched
Already,
Looking ahead, the
"I think people are frightened this season, and reasonably so given the way the weather has been because it is Hayman, Waldo,
"I hate to break the news to people, but just because we burned five years ago doesn't mean you won't burn again," Root said. "We've simply exchanged one fuel for another."
'On top of our game'
The afternoon of the
Then-Battalion Chief
"I used to work for the
Five years later, Jack is
Every morning, his crew reviews the forecast for the county and the federal resources available in case of a fire. On fire weather watch and red flag days, the team also adds two people on each of its three shifts and patrols the community for spot fires and illegal burning.
When a fire breaks out, Jack's tactics are different every time. The 117 fire was "95 percent" a grass fuel model, whereas the flames in
Emotionally, those fires stick with him.
"In this line of work, you see tragedy all the time; you see sad stuff all the time," he said. "I think you take those experiences with you and try to be as compassionate as possible on any incident."
There's a brotherhood that grows between first responders on the frontlines of tragedy, too, which Jack said has helped streamline communication and tactical coordination among the 26 fire districts in the county.
This year, a countywide mutual aid system was implemented in which strike teams and tasks forces are automatically called to fires in pre-assigned districts. The system expedites resource deployment to an area under siege while keeping unaffected areas protected, Jack said.
"That was a huge accomplishment this year and something that worked really well in fighting the 117 fire," he said. "District boundaries are on paper for taxing purposes. Realistically we look at challenges in
Sharing resources is critical as limitations on statewide property taxes chip away at the budgets of fire districts across the state.
Under a tax-limiting provision of the state
Though a relief for many citizens, the provision has steadily gutted funding for fire departments, school districts and other public services that rely on property taxes, the
Climate change raises risks
The cause of the
Humans caused 89 percent of the wildfires in 2017, which burned nearly half of the reported acreage, according to Balch's paper. Whether from tossed cigarettes, improperly extinguished campfires or arson, these wildfires exacerbate the ripe conditions already present in an increasingly arid environment managed under forest fire suppression hawks for over 100 years.
What the West needs is "sustained policies that help us coexist with fire," including ones that incentivize building in lower-risk areas and lighting more controlled burns, Balch's study concluded.
Ultimately, the course of wildfires depends on to what extent the West, the
"To ignore the role of a warming climate, and our contribution to it," the study says, "puts lives and property at great risk from wildfires."
Burke sticks to what she can control, and that is her land. She's done almost everything she can to craft a life adjusted for the realities of a changing environment. Though she might not see the day when her ponderosas are as tall or as mighty as they were in 2014, she can rest easy knowing that her children and their children may.
"It's not worth hoping that the climate will get cooler and that the environment will go back to the way it was," Burke said. "You need to build and plan to live with what the environment will be."
Burke has no plans to leave, and neither does Brown. Though her meadow, once a swamp in the spring, is drier and drier every year,
"We all have a little niche in life," she said, "and mine is here and now."
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