Beyond Burnout: Charting a Path to Regenesis [Phase 1]

Two years ago, I wrote an essay for our website titled, God Almighty, This is Hard to Watch.” I described the devastation brought on by four enormous and deadly wildfires that burned across northern California in 2018, 2020 and 2021.

Camp Fire: 153,336 acres, 85 dead. Paradise, population 26,000 wiped out

 August Complex: 1,032,648 acres, the largest wildfire in California history

Caldor: 221,836 acres, 20,000 evacuated, 1,003 structures lost

Dixie: 963,309 acre, Greenville wiped out in a 30-minute firestorm

The causes varied: lightning, wind, arson and downed power lines.

Cause does not matter if you lived in one of these communities or lost your home or business or a family member or friend.

What does matter is that there is a judgment day - an accounting of the deaths and damages – a battle plan describing what Congress and the Administration must do immediately to reduce the frequency, size and destructive force of these perennial fires. We are fast losing our forests, rangelands, history and culture across the mostly rural communities that make up the western third of these United States.

There has been a cavalier – indeed arrogant and sadly misinformed effort to blame what is happening on climate change and, by inference, greenhouse gases, including carbon – one of the most basic building blocks on Earth.

Again, causes don’t matter if you are on the losing end of forest policies that fan the 2,000 degree infernos, 100-foot flames and plumes of carcinogenic smoke that reach five miles into the sky and are with us for weeks, even months on end. The cost is beyond counting, the affliction beyond measure.

A few of us have been talking via email and phone about the accounting part of what has become a wildfire pandemic spanning 12 states.

With help from Roger Jaegel, Bill Derr and Frank Carroll, all wildfire experts, Bob Zybach has assembled a list of 72 communities across the West that have been terrorized, even pulverized by deadly wildfires.

If you ask ordinary American’s what they want from their forests the answers are clear: Clean air, clean water, abundant and thriving fish and wildlife habitat and a wealth of year-round outdoor recreation opportunity. These are not amenities found amid black sticks and charcoal biospheres.

I’ve written dozens of essays about many of these fires. Lately, Bob and I have been joined in this effort by Dana Tibbitts, a capable writer and media relations consultant who lives at Lake Tahoe and writes periodically for the Nevada and California Globe. Like us – and many others – she’s been critical of the Forest Service’s inexplicable “managed wildfire” policy and its incendiary practice.

Going forward, our storytelling strategy will address the national emergency at hand in four areas:

Counting the cost: An effective emergency declaration will be strengthened by counting the cost of wildfire destruction in financial terms, and more generically, in terms of personal and community health, safety and well- being.

The Heart of the Matter: Engage communities in the process of accounting for damages and sharing their stories of trauma, recovery and resilience in the face of devastating wildfire. Interview victims about their experience and frustrations with federal or other agencies that failed to protect their homes, health and communities.

Changing Minds: Give communities greater understanding of how Congress and federal forest policy got us into this mess and what must now be done to get us out before our forests are lost.

Empowering communities: Counter false claims and narratives used to suppress public awareness, resilience and ability to move forward and rebuild. Provide tools and safeguards to mitigate future wildfire scenarios.

The current “managed wildfire” strategy – the “big box’ theory that we can burn our way out of this mess – is neither viable, repeatable nor sustainable.

Do Americans want to wait 200-300 years for the next forest to rise from the ashes? I don’t think so.

Why not protect and conserve our federal forests the same way Indian tribes have been doing it for eons? States and small Tree Farmers have been replicating Indian forestry for decades. Why not the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management?

Currently, about 100 million acres of federally-owned forest and rangeland are dying, dead or burnt to a crisp. Yet federal agencies remain tone deaf where vital course corrections are concerned.

Why? And how can we right this ship before it is too late?