A drive through Sacramento on Monday and Tuesday left many commuters wondering where the fire was. The smoke filled skies left many struggling for air and blinking watery eyes. The series of recent fires along the American River Parkway, including one on Monday near Cal Expo that jumped the river to Sutter’s Landing Regional Park is causing some officials to wonder if prescribed burns might be an option.
The string of fires along the 23 mile Parkway this summer have left over 10 different areas singed and charred. This summer, residents have seem more fires than usual due to the on going drought that has left the area vegetation so dry. Monday’s fire required 150 firefighters as winds reaching 30 mph fanned the flames even higher. The blaze destroyed 16 acres of grass field north of the River and another 7 acres in an orchard.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation. Officials say it could be something as simple as someone throwing a cigarette from their car on the overpass.
Prescribed burns along the American River Parkway have been historically controversially. The area is home to abundant animal life and sees a million visitors a year. Controlled burns would leave areas of the Parkway blackened, taking away from the natural beauty that visitors have some to expect. Proponents argue that if fire experts don’t do the job themselves, arsonists will see to it, and the outcome will be far less aesthetically pleasing and could result in significant damage.
Lloyd Ogan, a deputy chief with the Sacramento Fire Department says there are specific areas fire fighters would target. “It would require an ongoing effort. It’s a forestry management issue”. The prescribed burning and thinning of scrub brush would help to clear the “ladder fuels” that carry the fire into the tree canopy.
One of the many difficulties that needs to be considered in this decision is the required cooperation that would be needed from so many organizations. Because prescribed burns have not been an option for so many years, the policy would need to be changed. Another factor to consider is air quality control.
As of now, the only prescribed burns along the American River Parkway are completed for training purposes. The Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District answers calls along the Parkway east of Howe Avenue and completes annual burns in Rancho Cordova, but only for training purposes. As of now, there are no plans for controlled burns in the area.
Captain Jeff Lynch mirrors the views of many Rancho residents. “The American River is a pristine jewel of the the Sacramento area and there are many citizens that utilize that area”, Lynch goes on to say, “Other than training purposes, we do not want to intentionally blacken and take away the beauty of that area”.
Advocates of prescribed burns say that controlled conditions might be the best answer, claiming that fires spurred by arson can get out of control and can cause far more damage. Guy Galante, the education director for Soil Born Farm, an organic farm that borders the Parkway in Rancho Cordova, says that a fire in July would have destroyed the farm had it not been for the quick thinking and water hoses the staff members had grabbed to douse the grass along the farms perimeter.
Many Rancho Cordova residents spend a great deal of time enjoying the Parkway. For some it was the reason to move to the area. Because it is so prominent in our community, what do you think should be done along our section of the American River Parkway?
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An interesting topic and a challenging debate looms I think. Is it man versus nature or man versus man as arson has become a common occurrence lately.
I do see the need but all other options need to be emphasized too. Here’s an un-thoughtout idea. This is just an idea to get someone thinking outside the box.
On a scale of 1 to 10 we could grade various attributes of the parkway and determine an overall score to establish its value. Then if the burning lowered the score too much burning could be denied for that time period/year.
For instance, beach erosion might be rated a 9 one year and and a 5 the next. If burning was being discussed during a 4 erosion year, then lowering the value of the parkway further by burning would not be permitted.
It seems to me that these decisions really need to result from some sort of quantified judgement scenario to establish the parrkway’s value to the communities that it passes through. After all, establishing hard and fast policies for a living thing (the parkway) is bound to fail
Just thinking out loud.
The only reason the extreme option—of conducting controlled burns in the Parkway to reduce overgrowth—is even being considered is due to a lack of effective management of the Parkway.
Overgrowth issues in our urban/suburban Parkway would be ideally handled by a regular maintenance program that keeps the situation in check so that extreme measures with a very dangerous potential downside (like controlled burns accidently igniting fires on the many wood-shingled roofs of homes lining the Parkway and severely degrading air quality) do not have to be resorted to;.
Also, the illegal camping by the homeless, from which several fires have reportedly begun, has to be reduced substantially.
However, the Parkway has been running a maintenance deficit every year for several years and overgrowth control has not been done (let alone substantially reducing illegal camping) creating the dangerous situation we now have, of tinderbox vegetation and the consideration of potentially dangerous alternatives.
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