$US100 billion forest fires

Press, 24 September 1987, Page 14

$US100 billion forest fires

From

JOHN N. HUTCHISON,

in San Francisco

Fighting the wildfires sweeping California cost SUS 4 million a day and stretched the firefighting resources of the nation. Now the long-range costs are being tallied. Forestry authorities estimate that more than 224,000 ha had been burned at the end of two weeks, when more than a thousand fires had been “contained” and nearly 200 more were still raging out of control. Containment establishes limits within which a forest fire can finally be halted. The loss in saw timber was then put at 800,000 board feet — enough to rebuild a city the size of Wellington. Much of the timber was Douglas fir and ponderosa pine, prized for construction. Restoring the forests, said one expert, "will take from five to eight decades” and in some cases, a century. The cost of reforestation is staggering. At an

estimated SUS44O a hectare it would exceed SUSIOO billion — a figure that appears to be unmanageable in the near future. Even practicable planting cannot begin until huge amounts of killed but salvageable trees can be logged out to the mills. The rush to rescue such timber before it is spoiled by rot and insects is expected to seriously disrupt the industry, with an overload for a year or two followed by years of short supply and unemployment. The biggest reforestation programme in the state’s history finds tree nurseries short of seedlings for such massive replanting, even though the total stock in private and Goverment nurseries stands at some 21 million. At least 40 homes and large numbers of other buildings were destroyed. Property loss passed the SUS2SO million mark by the

time 13,000 firefighters and 1500 soldiers from the California National Guard got the upper hand on the majority of the blazes. Thousands of evacuated residents began to return from Red Cross and Salvation Army shelters. Loss of life was low, although there were three deaths and - many injuries and smoke-inhala-tion illnesses. Smoke dimmed the sun and scented the air over almost the entire state. Poor visibility in smoky air almost 200 km from the nearest fires caused two mid-air near-colli-sions of aircraft. Desperate work saved some small mountain towns in northern and eastern sections of the state from being burned out, and a fire was halted within 2km of a protected stand of rare, 3000-year-old giant redwoods.