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Misc: The Angora Fire, South Lake Tahoe
Fire has long been a huge concern in Tahoe. The management of the forest surrounding Tahoe seems to always be an area of contention, and a lot of resources are used in that management every year. When I started grad school last August, one of the first things we did as a group was attend the Tahoe Summit at Sand Harbor where it was announced that about $300 million would be doled out by the federal government for fire prevention and suppression. Attending that gathering put fire in our collective minds. Several people even based their entire projects on how to properly manage the forest and keep a catastrophic fire from taking place—a fire just like the Angora Fire now burning in South Lake Tahoe.
I spent some time with a firefighter from Incline Village in the fall. I was doing a biography project on someone who had a particular connection to the lake, and my assignment was a firefighter. We talked about the beauty of the lake, we talked about management issues, and we talked about her personal feelings on forest management. One thing Incline Village does, as a community, is allocate money to prevent fire. They hire hand crews and clear underbrush around the Incline neighborhoods. From there they do prescribed burns to keep the ground clear of the ladder fuels that seem to have contributed a great deal in the Angora Fire.
Historically (meaning, before management of the forest began), Tahoe was constantly burning in one part or another. Very small fires would roam through the area and take out the undergrowth and smaller trees. This kept the forest relatively thin (like about 1/3 or 1/4 of the trees that you see there now) and prevented a humongous fire from even being able to start. When modern management took over (and regulations on tree thinning), the focus had to be on suppression of fire. No longer was it possible to have small fires constantly burning throughout the basin because there were homes to protect.
One problem I saw was that even with the amount that Incline does proactively, they are woefully underfunded for such undertakings. They are able to cover nowhere near what they should have to to ensure a major fire doesn’t happen. On a burn I attended, I was told that the area was one that historically burned every ten years. The lot next to the one burning that day had been burned in 1997. That was nine years prior. They weren’t on schedule with how nature would have done it, they were way behind how nature would have done it. So despite their best efforts, there was no way they could keep up.
I mentioned that a couple of people dedicated their projects to fire. One was Sevil Omer who is now covering the fire for the RGJ. Sevil set up a deliberation online to get government officials and citizens to talk about management of fire issues in Tahoe. Sevil did everything she could to get people to participate. On the stakeholder side, she used personal contacts to bring people in and the conversation at least took place. It was filled with official-sounding statements, however, and was more formal than was expected. On the side where citizens were supposed to participate, nobody showed up. Not a single person posted a comment about how they wanted to see the forest managed. What’s interesting about it is that they had the ear of U.S. Forest Service officials, TRPA officials, and other local agencies. The opportunity was there for stating how the forest should look and be maintained. Now, I have no idea if those officials would have done any of what citizens wanted, but this was an opportunity that does not come along often, yet nobody took advantage.
Another project that would be a great starting point for anyone interested in Tahoe fire issues was done by Pam Higgins. She put together Tahoe Fire, which attempted to look at all the options that are available with the $300 million allocated by the federal government.
Blame is something that’s easily cast about in cases such as this fire. I have no idea who is to blame. Even if the deliberation had been a resounding success there would have been no time to implement and change whatever things had come out of it. One thing is for sure, though: it’s an issue the entire Tahoe community needs to own. This should serve as a wakeup call to residents. No longer can decisions rest entirely on the shoulders of government officials. The community needs to participate, offer input, and demand that they are a part of the decisions that are made regarding the forest surrounding their homes. Without doing so, it will be really easy to cast blame upon everyone else, when issues such as this surely belong on the community’s radar—not just the radar of an agency based in Washington, D.C.
Ongoing coverage is being featured on OurTahoe.org as part of our mission there. We are featuring news stories, blog entries, and photos found on Flickr that are related to the fire. If you have posted something that we have not caught, please email me and I’ll do what I can to get it up there.
Comments
Adam Scott, Jun 26, 04:45 PM #:
Aggregate information on the Angora Fire:
http://www.adamscottphotos.com/fire.html
The Anon Guy, Jun 26, 06:36 PM #:
Ultimately I think the blame will fall to the developers and homeowners who build in the middle of a forest.
Just reading some of the links you have provided shows how utterly impossible it is to please everyone. You have the homeowners who want to cut down the trees around their property for protection (which kind of defeats the purpose of living in a forest), the wildlife supporters who don’t want forest thinning in months when animals breed or slag heaps left for any amount of time, environmentalists who don’t want lumber companies to do the thinning because to make it profitable they will want to take a little more than just the junk trees, people who don’t participate when given the opportunity, all coupled with a fire protection plan that has created a huge problem.
The ultimate irony is that whenever any agency talks or tourist campaign runs about Lake Tahoe it is solely about the beauty of the lake, forest and skiing. No mention is made of all the houses and mansions built in the trees. Yet the protection of these buildings is what seems to drive much of the actual policies.
At some point, Americans are going to tire of spending billions of tax dollars on fire suppression/management, disaster aid and subsidized flood insurance so that people (mostly the wealthy) can buy vacation/dream homes in forests and in flood zones.
JGS3, Jun 27, 03:51 AM #:
People are quick to blame everyone from the TRPA to the developers, but the real villain is lack of resources allocated to the land management agencies (in this case, mostly the Forest Service). The Forest Service manages millions of acres of forest without adequate fire fuels suppression. This becomes a problem in the urban interface, and Tahoe is the ultimate example. Hopefully this fire will illustrate the urgency with which the fire supression teams need to work. Money is coming – $300 million worth – now it is time to work fast to prevent the next disaster. Hopefully the Forest Service and the other districts that perform fire fuels suppression will get the message.
As a side note, the problem in Tahoe isn’t “development” per se – TRPA allocates somewhere between 200-300 new single family residence allocations a year in South Lake Tahoe, a drop in the bucket. Most of the houses that burned are on lots that were established back in the 60s and 70s. And it isn’t “subsidized.” If you build a new home, or rebuild an existing structure in Tahoe the fees and requirements are astounding — they pay more than their share to the bureacracy.
Robert Payne, Jun 27, 04:54 PM #:
I heard that John Singlaub got booed off the stage last night by angry South Lake Tahoe citizens. While I could certainly find faults in the TRPA, I find it very narrow-minded for people to think the blame lies solely on their heads. I wonder how many of those angry citizens have or had proper defensible space around their properties? I wonder how many of them have ever turned up for a meeting on fire suppression? The TRPA is so caught up in litigation and trying to manage the intense development pressure that is put on the Lake that their resources are stretched. Granted, they have not done a good job of managing their brand, and their community equity is at an all time low. I hope they will realize that they need to work harder on managing people’s perceptions. Not caving to people’s greed, but being clear on their mission and intentions and demonstrating strong leadership.
The Anon Guy, Jun 28, 03:16 AM #:
JGS3,
If the amount of fees and requirements are so “astounding” as to not need subsidizing, then the forests surrounding Incline Village and others would be thinned already. But that’s not the case. They are hardly paying “more than their share.”
Why should some family struggling with a mortgage on a cookie-cutter in Cold Springs or Fernley (where the odds of a flood or forest fire consuming one’s home is nil) foot the bill for the Forest Service to spend hundreds of millions of dollars clearing brush so some Bay Area lawyer’s $1.7 million (the median price of Incline Village houses last month) vacation home doesn’t burn up because he built it smack in the middle of a tinder box?
If you build in the woods or on the coast or on riverfront property, there is an assumption (or, at least, used to be) of risk that one should take personal responsibility for. I saw an interview on KRNV where a woman said her home was spared and she credited it to clearing the underbrush and hazards away from her home and noted that others didn’t do that. Like Mr. Payne said, “How many people actually went to meetings on the subject?” On the project Jerz mentioned, nobody from the public participated. So to blame the Forest Service is asinine.
Let’s face it, the Forest Service policy of 100% fire suppression was formed in large part by the influx of homes into wooded areas. So to blame them now, just because you now have a home in the woods is hypocritical at best.
jojo, Jun 28, 03:48 AM #:
sounds like you are a “hater”. you pull the money card (some Bay Area lawyer’s $1.7 million (the median price of Incline Village houses last month) vacation home ), and the apathy card (On the project Jerz mentioned, nobody from the public participated.) but you didn’t pull out the ignorance card… that would be your own ignorance. Do some research on the state of our forests, what’s happened since and even before Clinton/Gore took office and slashed US forest service budgets while increasing US Forest Lands, and the effects that zero allowed tree-thinning has produced. Do you think that Tahoe always looked like it does now? A natural forest has less than 8 trees/acre- a TRPA-, US Forest Service- managed forest has many, many more than that. As far as clearing out underbrush from around homes and residences, read the regulations: landowners MUST mulch exposed grown with dried, organic materials- pine needles, bark (sound like fuel???). I could go on and on but why don’t you just do your own research. Here’s a clue- research the many open lawsuits filed by the TRPA against homeowners who cut trees to make defensible space…
Your last quote was beyond ignorant!
“Let’s face it, the Forest Service policy of 100% fire suppression was formed in large part by the influx of homes into wooded areas.”
The policy came into play b/c of radical fringe groups who opposed forest-thinning. Fires had to be suppressed or they would become catastrophic disasters. Check out Montana fires, Mew Mexico fires…
GO HUG A TREE!!!! WHOOPS, THEY ARE ALL BURNED UP- TRY A ROCK!
——A TRUE NATURE LOVER AND NON-TAHOE LOCAL FORESTED LANDOWNER
Robert Payne, Jun 28, 02:46 PM #:
First off, a natural forest does not consist of 8 trees/acre. Even if you were trying to apply a global average considering varying species, soil type, and climate, that number would still be incorrect. I would give you 50 or 60, but not 8. Second, there is nothing “natural” about the forest around South Lake Tahoe. It has been managed or mismanaged in one way or another ever since it was first logged. Third, no one is denying that better management is needed. Trying to demean someone by saying, “GO HUG A TREE!!!! WHOOPS, THEY ARE ALL BURNED UP- TRY A ROCK!” does nothing to support your argument. A debate is useful because it raises the level of knowledge and understanding, but insinuating that someone is a hippie tree hugger only because they care about the issue simply diminishes the conversation.
The point I was trying to make is that no one agency is to blame. The whole area is a bureaucratic disaster area. With five counties, two states, one “governing body,” and a multitude of other agencies all getting into the mix up there, how can it possibly be managed to anyone’s liking? Think about this: if there was no development, we wouldn’t care about suppression, but what would Tahoe be without the ability to have a home or rent a place for a week or visit a restaurant? We want the development to be there, but the things that have to come with development are very unsatisfactory.
I agree with Robert that TRPA is in a bad spot. They are seen as the guys who just take things away from people and prevent them from doing what they want to private property. And JGS3 says that there are not enough resources allocated to the Forest Service. So, my question would be: when people build and pay for permits to TRPA (or fines—read: mitigation—as the case may be), where does the money go? Does it get allocated among the agencies tasked with managing the forest? I ask because I do not know. My only knowledge of it would lead me to think it’s eaten by TRPA and decisions they make, such as settling lawsuits or the cost of litigating.
I also agree fully that I, my neighbors, and even people I don’t like, should not be subsidizing the cost of protection of any homes in an area that is as high-risk as the Tahoe basin. For instance, the entire state of California is now footing the bill for this fire. How is that fair to a farmer in the Central Valley?
But what’s most important to remember here is that while Tahoe is in a very bad situation now, the next time it comes up can be different. Check out this post about it being a community problem. That’s pretty compelling and something I was also alluding to here. It’s time for the blaming to stop and people to start taking an active role in the management of their own communities.
The Anon Guy, Jun 28, 07:07 PM #:
jojo,
For someone who fancies themselves as an expert you are curiously ignorant on the Forest Service’s fire fighting policy. Total suppression, instead of letting nature take its course, has been around long before Clinton/Gore took office or “radical fringe groups” began complaining about timber companies. The policy was shaped many decades ago because, in great part, people were building homes in areas that tend to burn often.
And why not pull the “money” and “apathy” cards? This isn’t low-income high-density housing we’re talking about. These are million-dollar homes owned by wealthy individuals who want the government taxpayer to foot the bill in protecting their property. Anyone with an ounce of working brain matter knows building in the middle of a forest is risky, especially one with a lot of underbrush like Tahoe. If you don’t want to clear it out yourself, or (allegedly) aren’t allowed by the TRPA, then don’t move there. Buy your vacation home in someplace safe.
As for the apathy, it is what it is. Nobody from the public participated in the project mentioned. Of course, jojo, maybe it was because all the people were at their primary residences at the time.
That 8 tree per acre seems a bit insane. But WTF I’m not a forester.
100% fire suppression started a long time ago for the purpose of preserving timber for the lumber industry.
People don’t want to pay for maintenance of public lands. That’s no surprise. They won’t even support more funding for police. Makes me warm up to the idea of use fees for public lands. Then I can put my dollars where I want.
Is fire suppression/thinning the responsibility of the GID like parks, water, sewer and the like?
Homes belong in cities. Going to Tahoe isn’t going to the mountains or nature, it’s a city with a lake. And ski resorts.
-M
jojo, Jun 29, 02:06 AM #:
Whoa, I apologize for the harsh statements that I made in my original posting. That said, there are many, many resources available detailing the last 100 years of US forest management. One such resource is the John Birch Society (here’s a link on wildfires http://jbs.org/search/node/wildfire). Our culture is firmly rooted in the shared risk theory. While I may not be an overweight smoker addicted to vodka gimlets, my health insurance premium provides treatment for those that are. While I may not consistently drive over the speed limit or engage in risky and reckless manouevers on the road, my insurance premium increases when others in my age bracket, hometown do. While I may not participate in government welfare programs, have children in the school system or receive social security benefits, my taxes go to support those services. As such, I have no animosity for those that build their homes in the midst of treed lands and grassy meadows, along the ocean, near a sedate stream, in tornado alley or at the MizPah despite the inherent risks associated with those environments.
Furthermore, homes destroyed in the Angora fire are not entirely multi-million dollar mansions owned by vacationers from the Bay area. There are many, many, many working, middle class families in Tahoe who did not sell out during the last real estate boom. These people lost their homes, too.
Fire Suppression, Forest management is the responsibility of the US Forest Service. And while their sphere of responsibility increases with federal land grabbing their budget for managing this land decreases- that’s a problem.
As far as tahoe not being “nature/ mountains”, get off the beach, out of the casino, push away from the bar and head up to the Tahoe Rim Trail. Now, there’s a breathtaking view of Mother “Nature”.
JGS3, Jun 29, 03:45 AM #:
I’m not a big fan of the money card either. It’s kind of like arguing abortion — you’re not going to change any minds. If you want a real education, check out the book “Fire in the Sierra Nevada.” The author, a retired forest manager found a bunch of old pictures of vistas from around the Sierra, i.e., before development — even before logging (some of the first pictures ever taken of Tahoe), and you wouldn’t recognize the basin. He found the same vistas, modern day, took the same pics and ran them side-by-side in the book. Tahoe looks like a clear-cut compared to today — how it should look with natural occuring fire cycles.
If government agencies are to be entrusted with millions of acres, they have a responsibility to manage fire fuels in the urban interface. If the resources aren’t there, then land management agencies shouldn’t be given the responsibility.
In the case of the TRPA, perhaps taking management of trees out of their purview is a reasonable solution … they were, after all, chartered to preserve and improve Lake Tahoe clarity, and since when did limbing trees have anything to do with Lake Tahoe clarity?
The Anon Guy, Jun 30, 02:59 AM #:
jojo,
You’re right about shared risk being a part of our culture. But isn’t personal responsibility an even bigger part (especially to one quoting from the John Birch Society)?
Your insurance rates do go up when people at large generate claims (which stinks), but a person who chooses to smoke will always pay more for their life insurance than a non-smoker, and a kid with three speeding tickets will have higher premiums than a safe driver. People who take more risks, tend to pay more in a free market. But that’s not the case with government flood insurance (heavily subsidized by taxpayers) or the demand for the Forest Service to clear brush from homes.
And the argument that you pay taxes for things that you personally don’t receive (e.g., welfare, SSI, etc.) somehow makes it right to demand the government spend on something you specifically want and would benefit from is just selfish and hypocritical (if you’re a small-government type). The “Well I want mine too” attitude is the reason we have such a huge budget deficit.
I do understand that a lot of the South Tahoe homes weren’t of the mini-mansion variety, but Incline Village is one of the communities demanding the government pay for forest thinning, which is akin to corporate welfare.
The point is, people have choices. Moving into a forest is risky. You need to personally take steps to protect your property all the while knowing it might not be enough in certain circumstances. But if you know going in that A) the surrounding forest is choked with fuel, B) the local agencies won’t let you remove it and C) locals would rather see hell freeze over before allowing a logging company to go in and harvest the area, then the choice is pretty clear. Don’t move in.
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