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| California
on Fire By Dianne Kochenburg Every year, thousands of acres of California wildlands are burning and firefighters are working overtime to put out the blazes. Bucks Lake is located in the Sierra, just a few miles southwest of Quincy, California. It's a reservoir lake, a smallish one as alpine lakes go, nestled in the Plumas National Forest. It's beautiful in the summer with an old-fashioned lodge, a camping area and summer cabins surrounding part of it. And trees -- tall pines, cedars, aspen -- the usual stuff of mountain forests, and bears and forest wildlife, skittering rodents, birds, summering geese and ducks. There's fishing, boating, hiking -- all the things associated with summer on the lake. |
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| We always make a summer trip up to Bucks Lake to visit with relatives. This year we scheduled our week in late August, a good time to get out of the California valley heat and head for the cool mountain air. |
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Our route to the lake takes us through the town of Oroville, which is located in the Sierra foothills off Highway 99 south of Bucks Lake and Quincy. We took the backroad that's only open in the summer. It's just outside of Oroville. It's a much shorter drive than the Feather River Highway. Even before we reached Oroville we began to notice the distinctive hazy smoke of forest fires in the area. The newscast reported local fires near Oroville, Paradise and Chico. There were hundreds of firefighters in the area and the reporter cautioned that things could get worse. The smoke got stronger as we started up that backroad. We even noticed small trails of smoke in the trees along the way. |
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When we reached the lake we were quite surprised. A thick blanket of smoke hung over it, dimming the outline of the far shore, which isn't really that far away. We could smell the smoke and feel it when we got out of the car. There were no campers in the campground and very few boats out on the lake. |
 There was so much smoke hanging over the water, I couldn't see the far shore. |
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| Nevertheless, we spent a few
hours out on the lake that first night, fishing and meandering around. The fish were not
biting, and the usual Bucks Lake sunset was obscured by the smoke. By the next morning, the smoke was even heavier. There are bird feeders with seed and hummingbird food hanging right beside the deck. I always enjoy watching the birds in the morning. But there were no birds our first morning. The forest was strangely still, nothing moved, not even the trees. There was no wind, just the prevailing layer of smoke pressing down on us. As I sat there watching the feeders, eventually I noticed a little movement. A tiny chipmunk appeared, found its way to the feeder, and proceeded to fill up on birdseed. |
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| A few Canada geese swam by. The neighbors feed them. The geese were on patrol but there was no sign of life at the neighbor's cabin, so they moved off. A small fleet of ducks landed by the boat dock and began bobbing around and sifting the water near the shore. Then they too moved off. Still no song birds. Did they leave the area or go into hiding when the smoke got too thick? |  Usually at sunrise you can see the far shore, even when the morning mist still rests on the water. |
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We walked over to the lodge to get a newspaper and to check on the fires. We wanted the lodge people to know we were in residence. They told us if the fire got too close they'd come around and knock on the door. The newspaper printed guidelines for surviving a wildfire. We should stay indoors, park the car headed toward the road, leave the front door unlocked at night. If things get real dicey, pack the car with essentials, valuables and pets! All good advice, but rather disconcerting when you're on vacation with the idea of breathing fresh mountain air, hiking in the woods and boating on the lake. Cabin fever sets in quickly with those kinds of restrictions. A couple of days can seem like a month. One night as we tossed and turned in fitful sleep, we heard what sounded like rain on the roof. That too was a little surprising. First off, it rarely rains in California during the summer, and second, it was a summer rainstorm with lightening that had set off the forest fires in the first place. Would lightening strike nearby and make things even worse? |
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The next morning out on the deck, the air seemed fresher, cleaner. My eyes didn't sting so much and the smoky haze was gone. I could see the far shore. There had been gentle rains in the night, but no lightening. The chipmunk was sitting in a nearly empty bird feeder. Then I noticed another movement in the tree branch. A bird, then another, were heading for the feeder. |
 No birds visited the feeders this day. |
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Next I heard that distinctive hummingbird click and finally noticed two of the smallest little hummers I've ever seen, heading straight for their feeder. Birds seemed to be everywhere, the bushes were alive with them, and there were more ducks than ever on the lake. The sun was shining, the air was clear and it seemed like things were returning to normal. Over the past few days we had heard various fire rumors from the lodge. The backroad had been closed, then opened and then closed again. Now it was once again open, but the word was that only local residents would be allowed to use it. We decided it was time to go home. We hurriedly packed up the car. The windshield was covered with soot and the smoky smell lingered inside the car. The road was deserted so we made good time. About halfway along the hour plus drive to Oroville we came onto the fire trucks parked alongside the road, and then we saw the burn area. The foothills are truly fire hazards in the summer because the vegetation -- dry grasses, scrub oak, stumpy pine trees and manzanita -- are all dry and burn fast, like kindling. We could see the pattern of spot fires along the slopes. It had been a quick fire that burned and jumped, scattering the fire over large areas, burning right down to the road before stopping. No wonder the road had been closed. Then we saw power lines down along the ground, another problem waiting repairs. We must have passed over fifty pieces of fire equipment along that road. When we were finally able to pick up a news broadcast on the radio, we heard that the national guard had been called in to help with the blaze, but that things were looking good and they expected the fires to be contained before too long. Good news. California is just beginning its annual "fire season" but already there are fires blazing up and down the state. Thousands of acres have already burned, and thousands of firefighters are working diligently to put them out. The newscasts usually limit their fire coverage to reports of numbers of acres burned, numbers of firefighters involved, the number of structures burned and lives lost, and of course, the dollar amount spent fighting them. Sometimes we forget the other invaluable losses we sustain in forest fires. We lose trees,of course, and vegetation and watershed. We lose insects, reptiles, rodents, bird habitat, and small and large animals. And these losses especially devastating when firefighters must resort to back fires to contain blazes. Animals become trapped within the circle of fire with no escape -- a dreadful end for those unacknowledged innocent victims. Forest fires are a natural fact of life, something that we always have to contend with. Fire-fighting technology has helped control and limit the extent of damage done by them, but there is only so much they can do. We take it for granted that the forest will recover and that eventually life will go on. But, as more people move into the rural mountain areas, the danger increases, for both humans and wildlife alike. Environmentalists claim that droughts from global warming, acid rain, increased human settlement, logging, and increased water use have all placed enormous pressures on wildlands. Some even claim that these pressures weaken forests to the point where their survivability can no longer be guaranteed. These claims have not yet been supported by scientific certainty, of course, but the fact remains that our forests are in danger, both from fire and from human impact in a variety of ways. We must give some thought to what is important to our planet and as well as to our society. As the old saying goes: we should think locally and act globally. In the meantime, we owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to the men and women who work on the fire lines to protect our beautiful natural world. |
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