Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

I recently attended a Polk County Commissioners meeting. One concerned citizen voiced her concerns over the debris from the storm not being cleaned up expeditiously. She was extremely concerned about the debris because of the fires in California. 

We don’t have to worry. We should clean and manage our forests without question, but not to the level required by California. One unique factor that we have that California does not is moisture.  Having a fire here remotely close to what California sees almost annually would require a drought lasting more than a few years.  

The problem with California is that they built many properties in and among an ecosystem called chaparral. Due to the constant natural drought, otherwise known as desert combined with rich soil, you develop areas known as chaparral. The problem is that chaparral has adapted to burning and thrives on that burning for many of its seeds to germinate. However, chaparral should only burn once every 50 years. Unfortunately, due to human interaction, specifically in California, it burns an average of once every eight years. This is a topic for another time, but they’re also destroying that ecosystem. If they left chaparral alone, it would survive drought and the occasional fire and be fine.  

Anyway, there aren’t the same concerns here as California, so please don’t panic. We shouldn’t expend resources and money cleaning up wood and debris when it will naturally break down and contribute to the forest’s ecosystem by providing a food source for other plants, animals, and insects. 

I can’t count the number of aged fallen trees in my forest that have contributed to that forest for years—a total and complete 180 from the land I owned in California. 

 

Larry Wright

Tryon