Bob Zybach who works for the forest industry published highly inaccurate guest commentary in the Eugene Register Guard. You can find Bob’s commentary here: http://registerguard.com/rg/opinion/36070698-78/help-california-rebuild-by-managing-our-forests.html.csp

Bob Zybach’s October 31st Register-Guard guest editorial on wildfire was full of misinformation and incorrect assumptions. He suffers from the Industrial Forestry Paradigm that sees forests as either “fuels” or potential “lumber.” Neither is an accurate perspective on forest ecosystems.

First, and foremost, he, like far too many others, neglects to consider how important the influence of climate/weather is upon wildfire ignitions and spreads. Weather/climate drives large wildfires, not fuels.

All large wildfires burn under extreme fire weather conditions which includes drought, low humidity, high temps, and most importantly wind. If you have these conditions you get uncontrollable fires. When these conditions change, you get fires that can be extinguished.

The majority of all acreage burned annually is in a very few fire burning under extreme fire conditions and they account for 95% or more of the annual acreage charred by blazes.

Why is this important?

Because numerous recent studies conclude that under extreme fire conditions, fuel reductions largely fail. In other words, logging won’t significantly reduce large blazes. Indeed, some studies even conclude that “active management” exacerbates fire severity.

Zybach points out that between 1951 and 1987 there was only one large wildfire in Oregon, which he attributes to more active logging during that time. However, the climate between the 1930s through the late 1980s was moister and cooler than before and after those decades.

What happens when it’s moist and cool? Well, you don’t get many ignitions, and the ones you do get don’t spread. They self-extinguish.

Since the late 1980s, the West has seen considerably warm, drier and significant drought around the West.

The recent fires in California, for instance, were driven by extremely high winds that threw firebrands and embers miles ahead of fire fronts. These burning brands ignited homes. Not to mention most of the vegetation contributing these brands was grass and shrubs, not forests at all.

Zybach makes a point of talking about the great expense of fire-fighting but neglects to note that 95% of the cost of fire suppression is spent trying to save structures. The rising cost of firefighting is a result of the increasing home construction in the wildlands urban interface.

Zybach also repeats the old forestry myth that dead trees contribute to larger fires, despite an abundance of research that finds that dead trees, because they have less fine fuels-like resin-impregnated needles, cones and small branches—do not burn as well as green trees.

Indeed, the majority of all acreage burned occurs in green forests, not stands with dead trees. Dead trees whether from beetles or a previous wildfire often slow or halt the spread of wildlfires—which is why firefighters attempt to herd fires into previously burned stands.

Dead trees also are very important for ecosystem function, storing carbon, providing homes for many plants and animals, and important structural components in streams.

Zybach advocates more active management which he suggests would save communities from wildfire.