Destructive Force in a Small Package: Four Years, $120 Million Later, Much Remains to Be Done Beetle Damage Remains Despite Federal Efforts

By Hillary Borrud, Daily Press, Victorville, Calif.

Jun. 29–RUNNING SPRINGS — Drive up through shady, tree bordered roads in the San Bernardino Mountains and it soon becomes apparent what is at stake in wildfires, such as the Old and Grand Prix fires that raged through the forest in 2003.

Homes are built so close in some places that they resemble dense urban neighborhoods, except for the clusters of conifers wedged in between them and sometimes even growing through the center of a backyard deck.

The San Bernardino Mountains have more homes per acre than any other forest area in the nation, said Elliott Graham, a forester with the San Bernardino County Fire Department.

In 2003 drought and bark beetle damage extended across 361,000 acres in San Bernardino County and provided fuel for the Old and Grand Prix fires, said Rick Aguayo, district conservationist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, or NRCS.

As the four-year anniversary of the fires approaches this October, a federally funded effort to clean out bark beetle damage has led to the removal of dead trees across 25,500 acres, Aguayo said.

That program, funded with $120 million through the NRCS branch of the Department of Agriculture, is now winding down and will likely end in 2008. Dead, brown trees are more difficult to spot than in 2003, but they are still there.

“There will still be dead trees when the money is gone,” Aguayo said.

The danger posed by dead and damaged trees continues, as residential development expands in the forest and the area experiences record dry seasons.

The mountain area is experiencing a drought with only 4.09 inches of precipitation this weather season, which wraps up at the end of June, said meteorologist Steve Vandergurg of the National Weather Service in San Diego.

This will likely be the driest year on record for the mountains, since the previous record set in 2001-02 was 5.20 inches.

At that point, residents with dead or damaged trees will no longer be able to appeal for help to NRCS, although the county can still require them to remove the trees.

Bark beetles are native to the forest and can be found in forests across the nation. Back in 2003, drought stressed trees were more susceptible to the beetles. Without adequate water, they could not produce enough sap to force out beetles that had burrowed their way through the bark.

Once the beetles eat a complete ring around the tree’s cambium layer inside the bark, the tree can no longer bring up nutrients and water.

Overpopulation of trees also contributed to stress on the trees when they had to compete for water, said Adam Lerner, lead forester with NRCS.

Logging in the forests stopped in the 1970s, said Elliott Graham, a county forester with the San Bernardino County Fire Department.

Meanwhile, the level of development in the mountains has created an imperative for fire suppression.

“Primarily, our problem is we have an urbanized forest and they have to suppress fire here,” said Steve Farrell, an activist with the Sierra Club who lives in Crestline. “There’s almost no opportunity to let fire go its natural way.”

The federal funding provided temporary aid for the bark beetle damage, but private property owners and the U.S. Forest Service will continue to bear the costs of the interface between neighborhoods and the forest.

A 2006 audit by the Department of Agriculture found that the escalating cost of fighting wildfires is largely due to its increasing need to protect private property.

As long as the Forest Service is the lead federal agency on fighting wildfires and provides those services, it creates an incentive for people to move closer to the “wildland urban interface,” the audit said.

“Essentially what happened is they introduced homes right next to federal lands, forcing the Forest Service to maintain fuel buffers indefinitely,” Farrell said.

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