Slow the spread of fire? ‘We have?to get rid of the palm trees’
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Kathryn Barger’s mother used to tell her that “trees do make a community.”
But given the flammability of Southern California, which will soon be rebuilding and replanting after massive destruction from the recent fires, what kind of trees are safest?
I have some answers, because tree-loving readers have been responding to my column in which Barger, a member of the L.A. County Board of Supervisors, said treeless neighborhoods can be sterile, and I said better sterile than reduced to ash.
Steve Lopez
Steve Lopez is a California native who has been a Los Angeles Times columnist since 2001. He has won more than a dozen national journalism awards and is a four-time Pulitzer finalist.
My intent was to suggest that given climate change, wildland proximity and the horror of wind-driven blazes that routinely devour neighborhoods, we need to be smart about how and where we rebuild and replant. But I didn’t articulate that very well, and I’ve since learned a few things, thanks to readers and experts, including my colleague Jeanette Marantos.
“You ruffled the feathers of tree advocates,” said Diana Nicole, an ecological horticulturalist.
She and others I interviewed were in general agreement about several things:
Structures, rather than vegetation, served as the primary fuel for spreading fires that were ignited by windblown embers.
Hardening structures against fire is critical, but fire-resistant landscaping is also important, and can help protect homes.
Brush clearance is a term that can be misunderstood; the best strategy is to have more of the right kind of vegetation and less of the wrong kind.
California chaparral and coastal sage scrub tend to be less flammable than the non-native grasses that replace them after they’re cleared away, said Alexandra Syphard, a research scientist and fire ecology expert at the Conservation Biology Institute.
“Most people have always thought you need to reduce vegetation, and I’m not suggesting that you don’t. Around your property, firefighters need a safe place to be able to get in and protect houses,” Syphard said. “But you don’t need to moonscape your property,” she said, and there’s growing evidence that the right kind of greenery serves as a protective barrier.
Having healthy, irrigated California live oak and sycamore trees on your property can save your house, Syphard said. They contain a lot of moisture and can be more fire-resistant than structures, and can intercept flying embers before they reach buildings.
Syphard said many homes are destroyed by fires that are ignited inside the house, rather than on the roof or outside walls. Those embers get in through vents, under garage doors and often through windows. “Window panes will burst readily under radiant heat and that’s a very common source of entry for embers,” said Syphard, who recommends double-pane windows, along with fine-mesh screens on vents.
Eaton Canyon biologist Cristhian Mace told me the Eaton Canyon Natural Area and Nature Center was destroyed by the fire, but oak and sycamore trees survived in pretty good shape, with some leaves singed but trunks and limbs largely intact.
When she visited center headquarters after the fire, Mace said, “the concrete walls were still standing ... the metal fireproof doors were still standing, but all the windows were gone and the roof had caved in. I think the fire ... melted the glass, made its way in ... and boom!” The auditorium, the gift shop, a classroom, park offices and several snakes and lizards used for educational purposes were gone. But Mace took note of one living survivor.
“One wall was ... leaning against a California lilac,” Mace said, calling it a particularly fire-resistant plant. “The building burned around it, and yet this shrub remains standing so tall it could hold up a wall.”
But just as some trees and plants withstood the Eaton and Palisades fires, others went up like kindling.
“Mexican fan palms should be removed and prohibited from being planted in California. And Italian cypress interior canopies must be kept clean or be removed from any neighborhood,” San Diego landscape architect Kay Stewart wrote.
She added highly flammable eucalyptus trees to that list during a phone call, explaining that her roots are in Altadena, where she lived in two houses, both of which had Mexican fan palms nearby, and both of which were lost in the Eaton fire. Stewart said she saw firefighters on a newscast talking about how those trees were throwing off large chunks of flaming fronds.
Nicole told me she studied hours of TV news coverage of the fires and noticed that in the Palisades, palm trees “started to burn like tiki torches,” throwing balls of sparks, like firecrackers, “so we have to get rid of the palms and other flammable vegetation.”
In Los Angeles, that’s like saying we should get rid of the Dodgers, or surfing, or food trucks. Feel free to send me your thoughts, because I’m happy to poll L.A. on the topic of palm tree prohibition.
I asked Syphard, Nicole, Mace and Stewart what they would plant if they were rebuilding in the Palisades or Altadena.
“I would feel safer having a green oak tree” than not having one, Syphard said. But she added that even fire-resistant trees can burn, and she recommended removing dead limbs, leaves and debris from all vegetation.
Nicole recommended California live oak and toyon, and even some non-natives, including bird of paradise. “If you cut into that, water flows out of it,” she said.
Mace said she’d build a concrete house and the yard would have oak, sycamore, toyon, lemonade berry and lilac.
Stewart recommended cactus, succulents and an evergreen shrub called an African boxwood.
If you’d like more information on house-hardening, smart gardening and wildfire resilience, take a look at the Theodore Payne Foundation website.
steve.lopez@latimes.com
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