Firefighters battle California’s woodlands

Acre by acre, tree by tree, branch by gnarly branch, a handful of 12-person crews, armed with little more than chainsaws and axes, is attempting to thin out the California forest.

The state is home to 33 million acres of woodland. An efficient crew, working with hand tools under ideal conditions, can get through a quarter of an acre a day, give or take.

And yet, after a succession of horrific, record-setting wildfire seasons, this is where the state now finds itself: So desperate to stem the tide and contain the losses — of lives and property — that it’s plunking down more than $500 million this fiscal year alone for an effort that includes clearing pines, firs and redwoods.

Without all this fuel on the forest floor, California officials contend, blazes will be less likely to turn into the mega-fires that devour thousands of acres. Dousing them once they erupt can’t be the lone strategy in a state already scarred by global warming, they say.

The question is whether this new push can be done at a pace and scale that’ll actually make a difference.

In a best- case scenario, Gov. Gavin Newsom hopes state and federal crews will be thinning out 1 million acres annually by 2025. He’s asking the state legislature to give him $2 billion to accelerate efforts in the fiscal year starting July 1.

But even if his goal is achieved, it’d still leave millions of acres, and the communities that surround them, vulnerable for decades.

Although California’s plan to thin woodland is a costly one, it’s necessary to break the cycle of devastating blazes, according to Michael Wara, director of the Climate and Energy Policy Program at Stanford University.

Simply fighting fires as they start is “a forever war,” he said. “You don’t win those. The solution is to change your strategy and really rethink what you are doing.”

As part of the new plan, state and federal government are joining forces. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire, is supplementing its own crews with outside organizations like the National Guard and the California Conservation Corps, a state department that puts young adults to work on environmental projects.

Governments fall into a “firefighting trap,” spending their money each year on putting out fires and leaving little for clearing deadwood and debris, said Robert Bailey director of climate resilience at risk management and consulting firm Marsh McLennan.

“You get caught in this spiral of increasing costs and increasing fires,” he said. “The governments have to break out of this spiral by doing more preventative measures.”

Last year, wildfires across California and the West cost the U.S. $16.5 billion, according to the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Information. The human toll of wildfires has been vast, with the blazes killing more than 100 people in California over the past five years and upending the lives of millions more.

Residents of the state have endured blackouts as utilities periodically cut power in an attempt to prevent their equipment from sparking flames.

Wildfires have also decimated air quality, spreading acrid, choking smoke throughout the state. The fires are only getting worse.

Five of the state’s largest-ever blazes seared California last year and 10 of the most- expensive have happened since 2003, according to Cal Fire.

The price tag for fire suppression surpassed $100 million for the first time in the 1990s. In the 2020-21 season, costs are estimated to have topped $1 billion for the first time, according to Cal Fire.

Although it’s started off slowly so far, this fire season is expected to be an active one in the West, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. More than 88% of an area that includes 11 western states is under drought conditions, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

“The trend is pretty clear — the wildfire problem is not what it was 15 years ago,” said Lou Gritzo, vice president and manager of research at commercial insurer FM Global. “The fires are getting bigger.”