Learning from the Gap Fire

By Ray Ford

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Probably no one had the anniversary of the Zaca Fire on their mind two weeks ago when smoke was first spotted near the top of the mountains. But within hours of the 5:32 p.m. call on July 1, it was clear this could be the fire that everyone dreaded. During the next two weeks — despite resources depleted by the hundreds of other fires burning in California and days filled with smoke, soot, ash, shifting winds, massive evacuations, and scores of untold dramas complete with lifetimes’ worth of emotional ups and downs — we somehow survived the Gap Fire. Though a half-mile or so of hand line still needs to be completed before official containment and another month of monitoring will be needed before it’s declared under control, it’s safe to say we dodged a bullet, big-time.

Outside Insider

Already, with neither smoke nor flames visible on the horizon for several days now, many on the South Coast have moved on. As threatening as it was, especially during the several nights of terror when it moved south toward the North Patterson area and northeast to the San Marcos Trout Club, the Gap Fire is slowly sliding off the community radar. But it shouldn’t, because wildfire in Santa Barbara isn’t just a phenomenon that we need to endure every so often. By the nature of our geography, the seasonal gusts that turn canyons into wind tunnels, and the interfacing blend of chaparral-laden wilderness and wood-framed homes that stretches from waterfront to mountaintop, we live in one of the most fire-prone environments in Southern California.

According to research biologist Jon Keeley, who works for the U.S. Geological Survey in Sequoia National Park and studies the management and ecological impact of wildfire, the situation is only getting worse. “Every decade we see one or more massive wildfires in California,” explained Keeley, who recently spoke about the causes of California’s “megafires” during the Physics of Climate Change conference at UCSB. “Every decade we increase funding for fuel modifications and fire suppression activities and every decade we still see even worse fire impacts. It’s clear that we don’t really understand how to manage the wildlands to reduce the vulnerability of the communities to these really big fire events.”

The issue isn’t just learning how to manage the chaparral better. “For a number of years, the prevailing theory has been that past suppression activities by the Forest Service have been the cause of the recent spike in fire activity and that once we’ve altered our practices we can fix the problem,” explained Keeley. “The actuality is that over time we really haven’t excluded big fires from the landscape — historical patterns show that there hasn’t been any significant change in the number of large fires over the past century. Southern California has a number of qualities that make it especially susceptible to fire no matter what the fire management tools we use: rugged topography, large continuous patches of chaparral fuels, a history of long droughts, and Santa Ana winds that can make a fire completely uncontrollable.”

Meanwhile, the costs for fighting fires are skyrocketing. “In 1999, the Forest Service spent a half-billion dollars on wildfires,” he explained. “Now we are averaging more than a billion and a half, and most of this is going to fight fires just in California and predominantly on the wildland/urban interface. Here we have a federal agency whose mandate is to protect natural resources and more than half of it is going to fight wildfires and a lot of that to protecting private property.”

Rather than keep the feds in charge, Keeley suggested that reducing costs and protecting communities should be decided at the local level, where officials have direct control over land-use planning and fire protection strategies such as defensible space, hazard reduction, and homeowner wildfire mitigation. Indeed, much of the success firefighters had in battling the Gap Fire was credited to the readiness of County Fire and other regional government entities. But there’s plenty more work to be done.

While recently driving through Mission Canyon, across the Riviera, and into Montecito, my impression was that these communities have a long way to go to fireproof themselves, let alone create sufficient defensible space for fire protection. There are also questions about what type of fuel modification is needed in areas where the homes intermix with the chaparral. Keeley suggested the Forest Service begin talking to the local communities about being reimbursed for the costs of protecting them.

He explained with a laugh, “I can’t think of a better way to get communities to think about how to solve the issues than them having to pay for the cost themselves.”