California Burning, A Special Series on Wildfires, Part 2: Big Fire Is Big Business

  • [photo by Chuck Noble]

    [photo by Chuck Noble]

Federal fire managers must shift priorities from fighting fires in fire-adapted ecosystems in backcountry wildlands to protecting fire-vulnerable homes and communities.
—Tim Ingalsbee, forest ecologist and former firefighter

By Patric Hedlund and Marcy Axness, TME

The president of the United States came to California on Monday, Sept. 14 to tell the nation once again that California needs to do a better job of raking its forests.

This Mountain Community is totally surrounded by the Los Padres National Forest.

He was talking about us.

President Trump had first mentioned raking while visiting Paradise, CA in 2018, where 86 people died in a wind-driven firestorm that destroyed the town. Some were killed while in vehicles trying to flee in bumper to bumper traffic on the…(please see below to view full stories and photographs)

Photo captions:

Above: An air tanker drops fire retardant on a chaparral hillside burning in Lebec in 2018.

DAY FIRE 2006 – Lockwood Valley. Much of what burns is grasslands and chaparral.

Above: More than 80% of mountain residents evacuated during the Day fire

Climate scientist Dominick DellaSala sent photos of the western side of Talent Avenue (above, left) and then swiveled to photograph the other side of the street (right).

Wildland firefighters in Neenach on July 1, 2018 photographed by Jeff Zimmerman

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This is part of the September 18, 2020 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

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