Conversation with a firefighter
The California Department of Water Resources announced on June 27, after the largest fire in Northern California history had been raging for a week:
USFS will use a Martin Mars aircraft from British Columbia’s Coulson Flying Tanker Company to scoop up water from Oroville or several other lakes, depending on firefighting demands. The world’s largest flying boats ever used operationally, the four-engine giants have a 200-foot wingspan and a maximum capacity of 7,200 gallons of water per trip. If the plane does use Lake Oroville, it is not expected to significantly decrease the amount of water in the reservoir (currently 1.5 million acre feet, 44 percent of the lake’s capacity). … Firefighters working more than a thousand wildfires across Northern California are bracing for weekend winds and lightning that threaten to spread the blazes, touch off new ones, and force evacuations. As of late Thursday, More than 12,500 firefighters were battling 1,088 fires across the north state.
We were fascinated by the sentence:
If the plane does use Lake Oroville, it is not expected to significantly decrease the amount of water in the reservoir (currently 1.5 million acre feet, 44 percent of the lake’s capacity).
About the time we finished the article, the telephone rang at the Badlands office and a gravelly voice on the other end launched into conversation. We did not know the voice, which sounded like a bar fly who’d spent a week on the floor of some remote mountain tavern, and demanded to know who was calling. It turned out to be former neighbor of a Badlands editor, a resolutely sober individual. The strange voice and torrent of pent-up thoughts were the results of the veteran firefighter’s week. He said he was at his lookout post when the lightning struck on June 21 and as he spun around his lookout trying to count the number of fires starting north, east, south and west of his position, he’d said to himself: “Holy Shit! How am I going to report this?”
After that day in the lookout he was reassigned to drive supply trucks to fire lines and camps and to pick up smoke jumpers for a week because you can’t see anything from a lookout if you are surrounded by thick smoke. And then there are the fires that might surround you, too.
We asked him about how it compared with 1988, the previous record fire year in state history. Having fought that one too, he said this one is much larger.
So, what’s the thinking now? we asked.
He said firefighters were just hoping for a couple of weeks respite to prepare for the real fire season, starting in late July. Personally, he added, he’d put his most important possessions in his truck, just in case the fires came down to the floor or the valley where he lives.
“Not a funny business,” we said sympathetically.
“No, NOT funny,” he said.
“But, perhaps one thing …” we replied, reading him the DWR press release and the line:
If the plane does use Lake Oroville, it is not expected to significantly decrease the amount of water in the reservoir (currently 1.5 million acre feet, 44 percent of the lake’s capacity).
“Whaaaa?” he croaked.
“We are in a drought,” we replied. “The Hollywood Hun our Governor declared it several weeks before you were in your lookout trying to count fires that multiplied every time you spun around. The Hun wants two new dams and a peripheral canal. Being a Hollywood Hun, he’s bought himself his very own DVD copy of 'Chinatown,' and is following the script, trying to scare the whole state into voting for his Egyptian-style water projects.
“So,” we continued, “it doesn’t look too good if the Forest Service might just swoop down upon Lake Oroville and swallow 7,200 gallons a gulp. See? Could make downstream water users nervous.”
“Huh?” he gasped.
“Now, I want you to be clear on this,” we continued, “as responsible journalists of Northern California natural resources, we are not saying that there just isn’t enough water to fight forest fires up there, but the numbers might get a little tricky as the season goes on.”
The firefighter coughed.
“According to Badlands calculations, one Forest Service flying boat load of water from Lake Oroville doesn’t amount to more than 1/45th an acre foot of water,” we reasoned. “However, to quote Lois Henry, managing editor of the Bakersfield Californian and Lloyd Carter and Dorothy Green of California Water Impact Network, in January the State Water Resources Control Board released a report finding that
current permitted water appropriations, amount to about five times California's average annual surface water supply.
“So, actually, every one of those flying water scoops might take a load from Lake Oroville that would represent 1/9th of an acre foot. Nine loads means a whole acre foot, given, of course, that 80 percent of it is paper water,” we continued. “But paper water in a drought is real important. We have to count every drop of water, see, even if four out of five of them are confetti.
“Paper water burns just like anything else, I guess,” the firefighter whispered. “We live in a VERY crazy state, don’t we. What are we gonna do?”
“The Badlands editorial board is studying the manifestos of the Scottish National Party right now,” we said. “We are quite interested in the SNP’s advocacy for secession from the United Kingdom for the sake of protecting their fishery, oil, culture and environment. Replace water for oil and add in forests and it looks like a ready-made argument for a state of Northern California seceding from a state government whose Department of Water Resources feels compelled to apologize for even thinking about letting the Forest Service get water from a reservoir to fight forest fires in Northern California to placate downstream users and the finance, insurance and real estate special interests that own the present state Legislature. In 1982, the last time the peripheral canal came up for a vote, was the last time people in California thought seriously about splitting the state – as many as three ways. We think it’s time to send Hollywood Hun and Northern California legislators selling out Northern California interests the same message, again.”
“Hey, sounds good,” the exhausted firefighter said. “I’ve gotta go heal up some more before the next one. Talk to you later.”
“Be well,” we said.