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CapitalPress.com
November 3, 2017
California
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USDA programs aid UC expert: Fires expose need
producers impacted for better planning, equipment
by wildfires
By TIM HEARDEN
DAVIS, Calif. — The
USDA has set aside $4 mil-
lion to help California farm-
ers and ranchers with their
wildfire recovery efforts
while also offering food as-
sistance to residents in sev-
en fire-ravaged counties.
The Natural Resourc-
es Conservation Service is
issuing waivers for those
interested in the Environ-
mental Quality Incentives
Program so that recovery
work can begin immedi-
ately, according to a news
release.
The NRCS is accepting
applications through Nov.
6 for its EQIP Catastroph-
ic Fire Recovery fund pool
to help with such projects
as creating check dams in
drainages, using damaged
trees to slow runoff, repair-
ing culverts and planting
tree seedlings.
The funding is one of nu-
merous disaster assistance
programs the USDA offers,
including compensation for
livestock death and feed
losses, risk coverage for
specialty crops and repair of
damage to agricultural and
private forest land.
Among the other pro-
grams:
• The Farm Service
Agency’s Emergency Con-
servation Program provides
funding and technical help
for fence restoration and
other rehabilitation efforts
on farmland damaged by
natural disasters.
• Compensation is avail-
able to producers who pur-
chased coverage through
the Noninsured Crop Di-
saster Assistance Program,
which protects non-insur-
able crops including native
grass for grazing.
• The NRCS Emergen-
cy Watershed Protection
Program works with local
governments and tribes to
remove debris, stabilize
streambanks and fix water
control structures.
For more information,
contact a local field office
or visit www.usda.gov.
Meanwhile, fire-affected
households in Butte, Lake,
Mendocino, Napa, Nevada,
Sonoma and Yuba counties
can receive help buying
food through the USDA’s
Disaster Supplemental Nu-
trition Assistance Program.
Approved households will
receive one month of ben-
efits.
For more information,
visit www.fns.usda.gov/di-
saster .
Capital Press
LAKEPORT, Calif. — The
need for better fire planning
and equipment that can traverse
narrow rural roads are among
the lessons that can be learned
from the wine country’s devas-
tating fires, a University of Cal-
ifornia expert asserts.
Thick stands of vegetation,
homes built on steep terrain and
old roads too small to accom-
modate modern firefighting
equipment make it virtually im-
possible to stop a fire driven by
wind, said Greg Giusti, a UC
Cooperative Extension emeri-
tus adviser who specializes in
forest and wildland ecology.
Communities should better
incorporate “fire resilience”
efforts into planning to give
firefighters a better chance of
controlling blazes before they
get out of hand, Giusti said in
an essay on the UC Division
of Agriculture and Natural Re-
sources website.
For instance, UCCE advis-
ers have obtained grants and
helped communities in Plumas,
Butte and Yuba counties mod-
ify homes to improve fire re-
sistance, adopt fuel reduction
programs, clear fuel breaks and
map out evacuation plans, ac-
cording to a recent UC report.
While the fires that started
in Napa and Sonoma counties
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UCANR
Smoke from one of the wine country fires looms ominously over a residential area in Sonoma County,
Calif. A University of California expert says there are many lessons to be learned from the fires, includ-
ing the need for fire equipment that can more easily traverse old, rural roads.
were “extraordinary,” they
were the exception to the rule,
and many other fires could be
quickly controlled and extin-
guished if the right precautions
are taken, Giusti argued.
“There are hundreds of
fire starts a year in California
that never grow beyond a few
acres,” Giusti told the Capital
Press in an email. “These are
the fires that should be consid-
ered as fuel management op-
tions.”
Giusti’s report comes as
fires in Northern California
have killed at least 42 people
and caused at least $1 billion
in damage to insured property,
officials say. The fires burned
several wineries and farms and
threatened thousands of acres
of vineyards just as the harvest
of wine grapes was drawing to
a close.
As Gov. Jerry Brown issued
an order suspending some fees
and rules to speed up recovery,
bills in Congress would loos-
en environmental regulations
for forest-thinning projects on
federal lands, devote more than
$100 million for community
fire prevention efforts and cre-
ate a pilot program to cut down
trees in the most fire-prone ar-
eas, The Associated Press re-
ported. In September, a Public
Policy Institute of California
report advocated more use of
prescribed fire and mechanical
thinning to help build resilience
in the state’s headwater forests.
While the cause of this
year’s fires is yet to be de-
termined, Giusti said most
were likely ignited by 50-mph
winds, which can break power
lines and cause transformers to
explode.
But thick vegetation that
resulted from mid-20th centu-
ry land management practices
and years of fire suppression
had a role in how quickly the
fires spread, as did homes built
in rural areas on steep terrain
and “legacy” roads too small
for fire engines to navigate, he
argues.
“Small rural roads hamper
both evacuations and ingress
for firefighting equipment,” he
said in the email.
To make areas more resil-
ient, Giusti suggests scaling
down firefighting equipment
to use rural roads and finding
resources to widen the roads.
He said rural areas with poor
or no internet service should
re-establish fire sirens to alert
residents of impending danger.
Local statutes should im-
pose vegetation management
standards for land, and com-
munities should fashion land-
use planning so that landown-
ers take actions to reduce the
risk of catastrophic fire, he
contends.
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