Repair Job on Forests’ Scars Starts

Even as firefighters continued to beat down the last of the wildfires eating up Northern California timber country, David Wickwire’s crews were poking through the ashes, trying to figure out how best to repair the scars.

Wickwire, a gray-haired, veteran U.S. Forest Service ranger based in this small farm town about 75 miles west of Redding, heads a team of specialists--geologists, hydrologists and other Earth scientists--who last week began the job of rehabilitating tens of thousands of acres blackened since the end of August.

“While the people and equipment are still here and available, we always try to start this process immediately,” Wickwire said, studying a map of the rugged and now burned-out terrain he is trying to shield from erosion and long-term environmental damage.

Assessing the Damage

From Lake Shasta to the edge of Yosemite National Park, rangers like Wickwire have begun the painstaking process of assessing the devastation left by the worst forest fires to hit California in 30 years.

It could take years--even decades--before the full extent of the damage is known. But already, forestry officials and natural resource economists are beginning to piece together a picture of the damage that was wrought--and the mammoth cost of replacing what was lost.

The raw numbers are staggering: More than 1.4 billion board-feet of lumber destroyed--the equivalent of 140,000 three-bedroom homes--with a market value of $140 million; 886 square miles of land scorched--an area roughly equal to Rhode Island; seven lives lost, 102 people injured, 38 homes destroyed, thousands of animals, mainly rodents and other ground dwellers, killed.

Cost of Millions

Fighting the California fires cost $4 million per day at the height of the emergency, bringing the total so far to about $70 million. Before all fires in the state are put out, officials estimate the bill could run as high as $100 million.

After that, the planned three-year rehabilitation program--replanting trees, fixing roads, checking erosion--could cost $150 million. Since most of the charred forests are on federal land, the U.S. Forest Service, probably with some help from Congress, will cover most of these costs.

Ironically, for all the devastation, the blazes will provide benefits for some--at least for a while.

For one thing, forestry officials estimate that as much as 75% of the lumber charred in fires can be salvaged, provided it is harvested before bark beetles and other insects attracted by smoke render the lumber commercially worthless.

The upshot is a boom for local lumberjacks and logging companies that could last two to three years.

“This would increase the forest service’s normal harvest (in some areas) by two or three times and create a lot of employment for a few years,” said Ed Tonnesen, land management planner for the Stanislaus National Forest, one of the state’s worst-hit areas.

Tonnesen estimated that salvage operations could provide as many as 2,000 logging and reforestation jobs in Stanislaus National Forest alone.

Moreover, the increase in timber from salvaging could push down lumber prices and reduce home and commercial construction costs, said Peter Berck, an agricultural economist with the University of California, Berkeley.

He predicted that the expected influx of at least 1 billion additional board feet of pine and fir into the market could depress retail prices by as much as 25% until salvage operations end, although prices could be more stable if the U.S. Forest Service compensates by cutting back on the sale of other timber from federal land.

Retails Sales Up

Then there are retailers in the immediate fire areas who have been overwhelmed by a wave of demand for everything from steaks to gasoline to sustain the huge firefighting effort.

“They are hitting us for everything from fruit to meat--pork chops, steak, hamburger, everything, anything,” Jim Wiley, owner of Wiley’s Market in downtown Hayfork, said last week. During the height of the Trinity National Forest blazes, Hayfork saw its usual complement of 2,000 residents boosted by another 2,000 ravenous, thirsty firefighters, putting unusual pressure on local stocks of staples.

With more than 16,000 firefighters in the state, retailers in otherwise quiet mountain communities have had a heyday. For example, George Halcomb of the Trinity Market in Weaverville said he filled an order one day last week for 700 sirloin steaks--more than nine times the number he usually sells in an entire month.

Up in Smoke

Law enforcement officials, meanwhile, got an unexpected windfall when fires in Trinity, Mendocino, Lake and Nevada counties destroyed about 2,500 marijuana plants--with an estimated street value of as much as $8.5 million.

Although many animals, mainly ground dwellers like raccoons, opossums and squirrels, died in the blazes, at least 75% of them are estimated to have outrun the fires. These survivors--especially large numbers of deer--will return to feast on the high-protein vegetation that will sprout next spring from the ashes.

But when the short-term timber salvaging tapers off, so too will the benefits for local economies. Even after reforestation is finished, it will be many decades before forestry agencies will allow new timber harvests, said Allan West, deputy chief of the U.S. Forest Service.

“After logging and replanting the situation here would become quite dismal,” said Jack Rucker, president of the Tuolumne County Economic Development Co., who predicted that unemployment could top 25% five years from now, as a result of the decline in timber harvests. A large chunk of Stanislaus National Forest is in Tuolumne County.

And, while salvaging efforts will benefit logging companies, they will mean lost revenues for counties hit by the fires.

California counties on national forest land receive 25% of the forest service’s timber revenues. Bob Swinford of the agency’s regional headquarters in San Francisco said reduced harvests of greener forests during salvage operations combined with the lower market value of salvaged lumber could cost the 31 counties affected by the blazes a total of $20 million a year until salvaging is over.

Mile after mile of charred natural scenery will take a toll on another sector of the economy: tourism. Although only seven of the 850 national forest campgrounds in the state have been destroyed in the blazes, many vacationers will be turned off by “a landscape of dead (trees) as far as you can see,” said Dale Robertson, chief of the U.S. Forest Service.

Some local officials predicted that income from tourism in their areas will be down by about 10% over each of the next three years. In the Stanislaus National Forest, for example, that translates into upwards of $10 million a year in lost income for Tuolumne County, Rucker said.

Erosion Problem

Potentially more damaging than the loss of tourist dollars is the threat of erosion from the fires. Erosion creates a host of problems, not just for life on the forest floor but also for spawning fish, drinking water systems and flood control, U.S. Forest Service officials said.

Besides clogging water transport systems and treatment plants, sediment deposits will make it harder for game fish, such as steelhead and salmon, to lay their eggs on gravel stream beds, said Mary Decious of the California Water Resources Control Board. The deposits could suffocate their eggs and kill small organisms on which the fish feed, reducing the likelihood of reproduction and survival, she said.

“The lack of forest canopy can suddenly change the water temperatures,” Decious said. “Salmon and steelhead are very sensitive to temperatures. . . . They could die from the heated water.”

Zeke Grader, director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen, said erosion and temperature changes in the Klamath River and Trinity River watersheds could affect as much as 20% of the state’s salmon spawning grounds, depending on rainfall and Forest Service anti-erosion measures.

Rebuilding Forests

The Forest Service will have to spend “large amounts of money to rebuild the national forests’ road system and provide adequate drainage” to prevent flooding and erosion on top of the millions of dollars needed for reforestation, Berkeley economist Berck said.

About 96% of the forest land damaged by the California fires is under federal protection, said the Forest Service’s Swinford. The service pays suppression and rehabilitation costs partly by selling off salvageable timber and partly by taking money from elsewhere in its budget, said Ray Schaaf, Forest Service spokesman.

But the Forest Service is expected to ask Congress for $10 million to $15 million in emergency rehabilitation funds, which could arrive as early as November.

The remaining land involved in this season’s fires is protected by the California Department of Forestry. Its contribution to firefighting efforts is funded by the state’s $20-million natural disaster reserve, which “is more than enough” to cover firefighting costs, said Lois Wallace of the California Department of Finance.

With autumn rains--and the threat of massive soil erosion--possibly only a few weeks away, crews such as Wickwire’s are working feverishly to identify and protect the most sensitive areas of the forest terrain.

One of their first jobs will be to undo whatever damage is caused by the thousands of fire lines firefighters cut through the forest to contain blazes.

When the fire lines were cut, the idea was to strip away anything that would burn--trees, shrubs, even the duff, or decaying leaves and wood on the forest floor. Some of the hand-cut lines in steep terrain are as thin as 18 inches; “cat” lines cleared by bulldozers can yawn as wide as 60 feet.

Such lines are an effective way to check the spread of wildfires, but they lay bare the normally sheltered topsoil to be carried off by wind or rain. So the rehabilitation crews employ bulldozers, backhoes and sometimes even shovels to build rough water bars--shallow, diagonal ditches that divert water off the sloping, bare soil before it can build enough momentum to cause serious trouble.

When the fires are completely contained, the special crews will go directly into the burned areas. There they will closely assess fire damage and soil conditions--noting the location of salvageable timber and prescribing the type of grass or other interim ground cover that later will be seeded by air to protect the forest floor from the coming winter rains.

“Some of the areas are burned very lightly . . . and the trees will have survived,” Wickwire said, explaining the need to visually inspect all of the burned regions. “Other areas will have burned very hot, what we call a crown (treetop) fire, which probably destroyed all vegetation.”

Each type of area, he said, requires different rehabilitation.

Once in the burned areas, the crews will have plenty of physical work to do, clearing streams of logs and other debris to prevent the accumulation of pools of water. Pooled water can break through its temporary dam, cutting gullies, ruining stream banks and causing more erosion damage than if it were allowed to trickle away.

Eventually, all the burned areas will be replanted with tree seedlings--a process that could take up to three years, about the same time as the salvage effort.

But even at this rate, progress is slow. Trees planted next spring will take 40 to 60 years or more before they will begin to rival the stately timber consumed by this year’s blazes.

“We know that the long-term effects (of the California fires) will be felt for many decades,” said the Forest Service’s Robertson. “Growing a tree is a 100-year proposition.”

THE FIRES’ COSTS AND BENEFITS

THE TOLL

More than 1.4 billion board feet of lumber destroyed--the equivalent of 140,000 three-bedroom homes--with a market value of $140 million.

Seven lives lost, 102 people injured, 38 homes destroyed, thousands of animals, mainly rodents and other ground dwellers, killed.

$4 million per day to fight the fires at the height of the emergency; total firefighting costs so far of $70 million.

Estimated final cost of firefighting as high as $100 million.

Three-year rehabilitation could reach $150 million. SHORT-TERM BENEFITS

Timber salvaging will create thousands of jobs over the next three years and flood the market with timber that will reduce home building costs and reduce the retail price of some wood products by 25% until salvaging efforts end.

Boon to local retailers supplying firefighters. LONG-TERM COSTS

Damage to timber industry after salvaging is completed. Unemployment in some areas could hit 25%.

Ten percent decline in tourism in some fire areas.

Soil erosion that could damage fish spawning areas, drinking water supplies and impede flood control. WHO PAYS?

Ninety-six percent of acreage ruined by fires is on federal land, so U.S. Forest Service will pay for fighting fires and rehabilitating forests on this land. Money comes from Forest Service, plus special emergency funds if approved by Congress.

Remaining acreage covered by the California Department of Forestry, which will draw on funds in the state’s $20-million natural disaster reserve that is expected to more than cover costs. SCORCHED LAND

In all, 865 square miles burned, an area the size of Rhode Island. Hardest hit, in thousands of acres: Klamath National Forest 154 Stanislaus National Forest 141 Mendocino National Forest 83