A fire dream team: Rehabilitating federal lands

By: RUTH MARVIN WEBSTER - For the North County Times | Saturday, November 15, 2003 6:58 PM PST ∞

Every fire season, leaders are assigned and teams of emergency rehab specialists are assembled to set up Burned Area Emergency Response, or BAER, operations in communities where federal lands have been destroyed by fire. They worked in the aftermath of the Los Alamos fire in New Mexico and they have been to Southern California before.

But this year is like no other. As with last month's firefighting effort, the work ahead in the aftermath of Southern California's firestorm may be the most challenging ever.Ý

"With the sheer number of acres burned, rehabilitation from these fires will be the first of its kind in many ways," said Matt Mathes, acting regional BAER information officer. "The skill and scale of the effort are unprecedented."

Two teams

As early as Oct. 28, two BAER teams converged on San Diego County to begin work on assessing the county's destruction. One team working through the Department of Interior has concentrated its efforts on federal land management and Indian Affairs lands. The other team, headed by Jim Frazier, is assessing damage to San Diego County's national forests, namely the Cleveland National Forest.

"Our goal is to not leave any piece of federal land left out," said Cathleen Thompson, BAER information officer for the region.

Composed of experts in the field, the two teams number a couple dozen or more. Teams include hydrologists, soil scientists, engineers, biologists, silviculturists, range conservationists, archaeologists and other land-use professionals.Ý

Both BAER teams are hunkered down at local hotels, preparing their assessment reports. The reports are expected to be issued sometime this week.

"What the teams do is truly remarkable," said David Whidmark, media manager for BAER. "The specialists have to look at satellite photos and go out into the field to survey all of the ground destruction. About several hundred thousand acres of land need assessment, so it's a lot of hard work. The report can be several inches thick."

The teams also map the intensity of the burn and issue "burn severity" maps, which delineate the topography affected and the severity of the fires' damage to the ecosystem. Draft severity maps have already been released for the Old and Grand Prix fires by the intergovernmental agency.

While all of the BAER teams try to share information, specialists and experts, Thompson said the interagency teams use local professionals whenever possible. San Diego County BAER teams include local specialists from the Cleveland National Forest, Natural Resources Conservation Service, California Department of Forestry and Fire, the U.S. Department of Interior and local flood-control agencies.

"We try to use local specialists because they know the ground, and that is very helpful," Thompson said. "And they know which treatments work and don't in that special area."

Assessment

The first order of business for the teams has been to go out to the devastated areas and evaluate the condition of the landscape.

"The top priority is to identify those areas in the greatest danger from erosion and flood and prioritize," Thompson said.

Time is of the essence as assessment teams visit watershed conditions and determine appropriate and effective measures to protect lives and property from flooding and the threat of mudslides. They also assess the need for drainage structures such as culverts, spillways and stream channels.

Once the assessment report is completed and released, the implementation process begins. "The treatment team will shadow this assessment group, and when it leaves early next week, they take over with implementation," Whidmark said.

Treatment

Time is critical if treatments are to be effective; a concerted effort to protect people and property against flooding and mudslides is already under way. Barriers have been installed on many of the steepest slopes, but experts are well aware that sandbags, hay bales, silt fences and detention basins are not permanent measures.

This week, the San Diego County Department of Public Works announced it is providing free soil erosion-control devices at its road stations in Julian, Valley Center and Ramona.

"We're giving out sandbags, gravel bags, fiber rolls, straw matting and seeds," said Cid Tesoro, Watershed Protection Program manager for the department. "We are looking to reduce erosion and its impact to water quality. We need to be proactive."

Erosion experts say that silt fences and hay bales are the most effective when placed so they follow the contours of the slope. They add that leaving as much natural vegetation in place as possible is also the most effective way of minimizing erosion. But it won't be easy once the rain falls.

"When I was out there, a lot of the acres are very steep and dry, and even with vegetation and only light rain, the soil was slippery," Mathes said. "These slopes are going to erode easily as many types of soils are extremely erodible."

He said the concern now is that the homes not destroyed by fire will be damaged by the mudflows. "Mud is a brutal force of nature," Mathes said.

Prescribed treatment for fire-scarred land may include culvert and bridge approach clearance of sediment and debris. A great deal of road maintenance is involved, too, such as improved drainage in roads; barring roads in danger of flash flooding; and posting warning signs at stream crossings, at road entry points and at trail heads. Debris in stream channels will need to be removed. Culverts must be cleaned as well, since logs can float on the post-fire floods and act as battering rams on downstream road crossings.Ý

Other projects

Other BAER team projects will certainly include monitoring water supplies at risk from sediments moving downstream and runoff. They also will apply straw mulch to reduce erosion and promote vegetative recovery in burned watersheds. In areas where aerial application of straw is difficult, straw will need to be applied by hand.

The BAER team also plans to make recommendations on a case-to-case basis for decisions on whether re-seeding is used as a treatment; some experts have cautioned that re-seeding can have disadvantages, noting that in Southern California, it may actually hinder the recovery of native plant species and the revegetation of slopes prone to erosion. In any case, the BAER teams have already solicited volunteers for the hard work ahead.Ý

"Potential volunteers need to consider carefully the nature of the project they want to work on," cautions the BAER Web site, at www.baerteam.net. "All rehabilitation projects within burned areas are physically demanding, dirty and hot. Upcoming projects on some of the national forest lands may include road and trail repair and stabilization, tree planting and riparian restoration.

"The main objective of the assessment report is to determine the cost of treatment," said Julie Lydick, regional forest representative for BAER, but whose regular job is assistant director for State and Private Forestry for the U.S. Forest Service based near San Francisco. "And with the magnitude of these fires, we are expecting the BAER cost to come in around the 2 million-dollar mark."

Mathes agrees.

"Typically, we are able to wrap up our BAER efforts by Thanksgiving, but since they burned late this year, we may not be done with the implementation on the ground, the physical rehab of the land, until mid-December," he concluded. "It's not going to be easy or cheap."

What BAER can do:

Trailing blackberry

For more information, contact the Burn Area Emergency Response team at (858) 879-2535.

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