One of the unforeseen
results of many decades of successful forest fire prevention in North America
has been thousands of square miles of overmature, tightly packed, highly
combustible conifers, particularly in National Parks – a perfect storm of
wildfire hazards as climate change worsens conditions around the world.
Beginning about a
hundred years ago, firebreaks such as the one in this painting were cut to
protect inhabited areas. This firebreak is now pretty well filled in, and can
no longer be easily seen, and a multi-year plan to improve and expand it was
launched in 2020.
The original break was
a clear-cut on the north face of Sulphur Mountain, with no replacement of
trees. I understand the new one will extend over a much larger area on
the west slope of the mountain, with some thinned clusters of trees left in
place, and additional deciduous plantings, so that’s the way I’ve painted
it. Deciduous trees provide shade for groundcover as well as acting as
fuel breaks because they ignite much less readily than conifers.
I first wrote about this situation and the
beginning of a solution a year ago, on August 15, 2021. The part about
deciduous trees may have been just optimistic whimsy on my part. I hope not, but I have not been able to find
any recent report of progress on the new firebreak.
I’ll write about another possible ‘dual’
solution to climate-change problems in a blog post about Agroforestry next
week.
