UC/FEMA East Bay fire control project generates huge reaction

There are two key assumptions underlying the East Bay projects: 1) native plants are less flammable than non-native plants, and 2) native plants will fill in the cleared areas, without replanting.

Native plants are just as flammable as non-natives. The spectacular fires in southern California that we see on TV each year are burning native brush. The large fires we see in the Sierra are burning native firs. Advocates for these projects often say, as does this article, that “natives have evolved to live with fire.” How this makes them less flammable is left unexplained. Just remember eucs have also evolved to live with fire. Consider the experience of Angel Island. Eucalyptus forest existed for 100 years on Angel Island without ever burning. In 1996 the island was clearcut of most of its eucs in pursuit of native plant restoration. Then, in 2008, the island burned, with the fire roaring through the native vegetation on the cleared land and stopping on its own at the edge of the remnant euc forest.

The automatic return of native plants to the cleared areas is just a fantasy, and the 3000 page DEIS offers no evidence to support that fantasy. There are already efforts to return native plants to parts of Claremont and Strawberry Canyons. But they require intense, ongoing effort to nurture the natives and repeatedly remove the non-natives on relatively small areas. The landscape surrounding the project areas and the seedbank in the areas are primarily non-native. That’s where “recruitment” will come from. A landscape even more dominated by broom than now is far more likely in the cleared areas than an oak-bay forest.

You provide a link to the Claremont Canyon Conservancy as a “must read.” I consider the Million Trees blog a must read. http://milliontrees.me/ There are recent posts there that give a close reading of the DEIS. Many posts provide citations to scientific studies, which many participants in this discussion do not do. Million Trees also posts many replies from committed supporters of the East Bay projects. Supporters of the projects generally do not post dissenting views on their blogs.

There are other reasons to oppose the East Bay projects, e.g. carbon dioxide release from tree destruction, use of toxic herbicides, and the dismal prospects for oaks in an epidemic of Sudden Oak Death. But I’ll stop for now.

Value of the views I imagine. Perhaps more communitarian concerns should be brought into the zoning process.

There are several features of this project that need to be taken into consideration before deciding if you support it. Please consider that the project will remove over 85,000 trees on about 500 acres owned by UC Berkeley and the City of Oakland. Both projects will remove all non-native trees, not just eucalyptus, but also Monterey pines and acacia and as well as all non-native vegetation.

The eucalypts and the acacia will resprout if their stumps are not poisoned immediately after the tree is cut down. The Draft Environmental Impact Study for the project says that 5% of the trees will require retreatment and 1-2 ounces herbicides will be needed for each treatment. That means that between 700 and 1,400 gallons of herbicides will be required to kill the roots of the trees.

The herbicide that will be used to kill the trees is Garlon which is far more toxic than Roundup. Many people are reacting to the use of Roundup to foliar spray on the non-native vegetation, which is also a part of the project. Although Roundup is less toxic than Garlon, people know more about it because it is so widely used and there are more studies about its impact on our health. They would be more concerned about Garlon if they knew as much about it.

The dead wood from the 85,000 trees will be chipped and distributed on the ground to a depth of 2 feet on 20% of the project acreage. The bigger pieces of wood and the logs will be cut into pieces and just lie on the ground. Dead wood is more flammable than any living plant or tree. The claim that native plants will emerge from 2 feet of wood mulch seems fanciful.

These trees are storing tens of thousands of tons of carbon that will be released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide as the wood decays on the ground. This is the predominant greenhouse gas that is causing climate change. Climate change should be our highest environmental priority and will do irreparable damage if we continue to do nothing about it.

Given the environmental damage that will be done by this project, it doesn’t seem appropriate for supporters of this project to call themselves “environmental activists.”

Look to the hills and know that most of what we see there -- all those beautiful trees -- will be gone if we don't stop this project, which is based on greed and lack of understanding the local ecology.

Most people have no idea that, except for a few small areas with redwoods and oaks and bay, the majority of the East Bay hills parkland is non-native forest. Not one pine in the hills is native. Neither is the magnificent Monterey Cypress. The pines alone create beautiful habitat for plants (including mushroom species) as well as animals, from their beginnings as young trees to the dead snags that raptors and acorn woodpeckers love to perch on.

We should be grateful for having these resistant, long-lived, beautiful trees because we have no idea how extensive the deaths of native trees will be from Sudden Oak Death. We may end up with only non-native forest. We need more tree diversity, not less.


The beautiful tall exotic Monterey pines, Monterey Cypress, Eucalyptus, Acacias, etc., are not only NOT a fire hazard, they precipitate inches of water from the fog during the dry season, preventing fires, and providing moisture for native animals and plants, feeding the creeks and reservoirs. Some people whose homes were in danger during the 1991 firestorm saw the flames come right to their eucalyptuses and stop, with the trees protecting their homes, while their native trees burned, and nearby homes without eucalyptus protection burned. (Go under these trees even in the summer and see how green the ground is with plants supported by the non-native trees.)




Fires typically begin in grasslands, which is where the 1991 firestorm started. This project will result in extensive new dry non-native, highly flammable grasslands in the East Bay hills, instead of the beautiful trees. The erosion and resulting landslides will be catastrophic. At that point, FEMA money really WILL be needed.



We have an established eco-system which our native animals have adapted to. The trees are alive and feel and give us so much. Ask our native raptors what they think. Red-Shouldered Hawks, Great Horned Owls, etc. PREFER nesting in the tall Eucalyptus, while ignoring the oaks and redwoods. Monarch butterflies also use Eucalyptus. (The brilliant website Death of a Million Trees says that a survey of 173 ornithologists reported that 47% of birds eat from non-native plants.)



Another aspect is that the Monterey Pine greatly enriches the soil, creating thick humus which does nurture oak, bay, etc. seedlings. But under the drier areas with eucalyptus and oak/bay forest, the soil is less conducive to encouraging new growth, which leaves dry, barren hills where the trees have been killed.



Once the trees are destroyed, the already-burdened wildlife will die from hunger and loss of habitat. We are also not seeing any mention of the harm done to the environment from eliminating so many oxygen-producing trees, and how much sequestered carbon will be released by their corpses. We're not only horrified by the plan to kill extensive acres of trees in an environment that desperately needs more trees, but also by the apparent lack of awareness of our local eco-system.



Most of the few people who know of the plan believe that only a few dead or dying trees will be eliminated, and do not know the actual plan is to clear cut much of our beautiful wilderness, so close to our cities in the East Bay hills. The devastation from the heavy equipment that will be used is being ignored also. The effects of a planned decade or more of highly toxic herbicide spraying is also being ignored. (Monsanto must be thrilled at this project.)


Most people also don’t even seem to know the plants involved or the local environment. They haven’t seen how raptors, woodpeckers, and other birds use the dead trees for their survival. They haven’t watched how young pines are growing up from the base of their dead mothers, keeping the hills green with new trees. (Some say the Monterey pines are short-lived, yet I've known pines who were full grown and enormous more than forty years ago and who are still alive. They live to a hundred and twenty years, and their babies grow up as they die, completing the ecosystem. I have not heard one of the myths about the tree dangers that are true.)



Most people also don’t know that large sections of our parks in the East Bay hills are almost entirely exotic trees and that their clear-cutting will leave bare, ugly hillsides with poisoned stumps, impending erosion and landslides, the wildlife left homeless, many native plants destroyed, the topsoil damaged, and the beauty gone forever. Few urban areas have such amazing wilderness. What a tragedy to mindlessly destroy it. We should all be grateful for what we have here. No non-native human should disparage non-native plants.



We’ve seen re-planting of native trees in parks, but have yet to see these trees doing very well. Many die, wasting more money and creating more habitat for exotic broom that people so hate.





We believe most people would object to this clear-cutting plan as well as the plan to continuously apply herbicide to the stumps of the butchered trees, if they knew the details. Eucalyptus will take an enormous amount of poison to stop its attempts to stay alive and resprout. And what about the acacias? You cut one down, and you have dozens sprouting along the ground, yards away from the original tree. They continue to try to live years after their mother tree was killed.


No herbicide or the other petrochemicals added to it are safe. Every banned pesticide was once declared safe from studies funded by the pesticide industry.


The experts who once assured us that DDT, Dieldrin, Chlordane, etc. were safe and saying newer poisons are safe. But the cancer rate continues to rise, as does birth defects, neuological illness, and auto-immune illness, etc. all associated with herbicide use. Meanwhile, how many animals are dying? Once the herbiciding begins, we don't really know what will happen. We've seen how vulnerable areas of the EBRP have been destroyed because someone made a mistake with clearing all vegetation to the ground in an area with rare plants.

Knowing how toxic chemicals work, we also can't believe that the herbicides will not make the poisoned plants more flammable.

We've seen California Newts dying horrible deaths after crawling through roadside areas sprayed with “safe” herbicides. Applying herbicides across the hills will result in incalculable deaths of native animals, including protected species, as well as contaminating the earth, reservoirs, groundwater, streams, and bay. Some of the poison will evaporate into the air, adding to our air pollution problem.

How many cases of cancer, auto-immune and other illnesses, and birth defects will result from the use of these poisons?


We also believe this plan won’t work, knowing the amazing regenerative capabilities of these magnificent trees. So the use of poison will be far more continuous than planned.



Another aspect of the plan which shows the illogic is the plan to mulch the chipped trees two feet deep, which, beside increasing air pollution as well as fire risk, will eliminate the bare ground needed by native bees, wiping out the native bee population. This is seriously confused planning because with the non-native honeybees dying, we may end up depending on native bees for pollination.



We ask, “Why the selective logging?” For those who want our parks and UC Berkeley lands clear-cut, we suggest they start with the expensive ornamental non-natives that are the majority trees at the UC Botanical Gardens and campus, the landscaping of businesses and federal, state, county, and city buildings, people’s private gardens and yards – which, like the hills, would leave almost no vegetation since most of the green we see are from non-natives. (Hypocrite UC even has a book about their many exotic trees on campus.) Why the inconsistency – why are the non native plants in the cities being spared while the wild animals' homes and food will be destroyed?

At the East Bay Regional Park headquarters where the meeting with FEMA was held, there were many non-native ornamentals. Those Olive trees, Liquidamber, Arbutus Unedo, etc, aren’t going to be eliminated, so why destroy the trees on trails that many of us know personally and love?


We ask every human who is against the beautiful exotic trees, what do you have in your own yard? If you don't want to be a hypocrite, first cut down your olives, roses, magnolias, wisteria, jasmine, apples, peaches, plums, etc. before you deprive wild animals of their homes and food. Most people don't even know which trees are native and which are not. But 99% of what is in people's yards and gardens are not native.



To not have a double standard, we recommend first eliminating all non-native street trees, local park trees, multi-million dollar landscaping of businesses and on federal, state, county, city, etc. lands. There is a reason that the vast majority of city plantings are with non-natives.

We personally love the non-natives, but want the double standard of human versus wild animals to stop. Why should only the native animals suffer? No non-native human should be giving a death sentence to the native animals who will die as a result of this planned environmental devastation.


There will be many persuasive arguments for committing this irreparable environmental devastation, but please don’t believe them. We’ve seen terrible harm already done in the name of environmentalism in the Bay Area, such as when UC Berkeley "experts” told Audubon to cut down every plant (they didn’t know native from non-native) in the tiny Burrowing Owl habitat at Cesar Chavez Park in Berkeley. Those of us who had been watching the owls for years knew that directive was the opposite of what the owls need and want. When the owls arrived for the winter, one left immediately, while the other two stood forlornly by the stumps of their shrubs from the previous year. (The last two burrows have since been destroyed by being paved over and covered with an "art project" bench, while the ground squirrels who create the burrows are being harassed into making fewer burrows.) Weeding the water plants in the Japanese pool at the UC Berkeley Botanical Gardens several years ago resulted in almost the entire year’s eggs of California Newts being killed. We have yet to see the numbers of newts there as there were previously. A few hours of well-intentioned work can result in permanent ecological damage.



For those in the hills who do want the trees cut, I suggest we trade houses and they live in the tree-denuded wasteland that is much of the East Bay cities.



For those who insist on eliminating non-natives, I suggest we start with the humans, and then the introduced non-native animals who kill millions of native animals each year. And why not kill all the honeybees as well since they’re from Europe?



There are so many problems and contradictions with this and other projects. I see notices for organized broom removal, yet broom doesn't directly harm the environment, unlike Hedera Canariensis/Algerian ivy, which can be seen along HWY 13, 580 and elsewhere, completely covering plums, redwoods, and other trees. Those dead trees will make serious fire risk, yet I've been pleading with those responsible to cut the ivy, which is easy and quick to do, and they say they don't see it or are too busy. In many parks, ivy is destroying everything, including the attempts to restore Sausal Creek. As the bird eat the fruit and spread the seeds, ivy will continue to spread into the parks, eventually killing everything. Why does this project not focus on removing the ivy?



The animals, as well as the trees, are not just “things” in humans’ territory. te killing of living, feeling beings is being planned. When people are often depressed from the dark and rain in winter, the gorgeous acacias bloom brilliant golden for two months. The broom with their yellow, exquisitely fragrant blossoms bloom for months during winter and spring.



Please learn who this project will actually benefit. Find out the details before it’s too late.



Please know that if this “project” begins, it will be far more destructive than they have told anyone. Expect the worst.



Expect to look up into the hills and see burnt grass where we now see extensive woodlands. Recognize the trees in the parks you love and realize some parks will be completely empty of trees. Expect catastrophic fires and terrible landslides when the trees are gone. Expect damage to the waterways from the erosion.



The FEMA money is desperately needed elsewhere. Please do not waste this money by making a few people rich at the expense of the people, animals, environment, beauty of our parks. Please don’t create a new environmental disaster under the guise of preventing one.



This site describes the planned devastation: Death of a Million Trees

FIRE!!! The Cover Story








Here is a condensed version highlighting the most important points:



1. The proposed plan of eliminating exotic trees will cause more wildfire danger, not less, by leaving tons of dead wood on the ground, by causing more flammable grasslands, which is where fires start, by eliminating shade and fog drip which moistens the forest floor, by destroying the windbreak barriers, and by killing the trees who help prevent fires. There are much cheaper ways of reducing fire danger.


2. Many native trees are extremely flammable, but Eucalyptus are NOT a fire hazard, and have been demonstrated to help forests prevent and contain fires. (A member of the Hills Conservation Network testified at the first FEMA public comment meeting that the 1991 fire came close to her house, but stopped at three tall eucalyptus trees up the street that did not ignite and may have blocked the fire and the wind, which changed direction to go up the street, burning all the houses in the wind's path. She also told of a neighbor's tall eucalyptus and redwood that grew beside each other. The redwood ignited and burned to the ground, but the eucalyptus did not ignite, even though it was cut down after the fire.)

3. Why would anyone kills hundreds of thousands of huge trees, some over a hundred years old, when we desperately need them for cleaner air and to prevent climate change?

4. The eco-system is already changed to where native animals rely on, need, and often prefer non-native trees for survival. Killing those trees as well as the horrific use of machinery will destroy the land and kill millions of native animals, including some endangered, who will die as a result of being deprived of their food and homes.

5. The clear-cutting will destroy the East Bay forests from Richmond and El Sobrante through Berkeley to Castro Valley. Almost 600 acres are proposed, so that some parks will have almost no trees left.

6. Ten years of using thousands of gallons of toxic, dangerous herbicides in the parks are planned, which will cause cancer and other illnesses, as well as killing native animals and making the parks unsafe to use. We believe the poisons will increase flammability also.

7. Sudden Oak Death is increasing and spreading throughout the native forest, killing the many Oak species, unrelated Tanoaks, and other trees. No one knows if all the native trees will die as a result. Every non-native tree who is not vulnerable to this disease should be treasured and not killed.

8. Without the tall trees gathering moisture from fog, there will be less water for all the plants and animals and increase fire danger.

9. The project involves massive burning, which will add to air pollution and global warming, and could spark wildfires.

10. The planned chipping and mulching of 2 feet will destroy native bee populations.

11. The clear-cutting of hundreds of thousands of trees will eliminate the shade canopy which people need when going to parks, as well as destroying the beauty of the parks.

12. Most of the people affected have no idea they will be losing their beloved parks.

When our trees are gone, so will the animals and our parks be gone. WHY is desperately needed money being spend on such a disaster?

Bev Von Dohre

It's important to realize that there is a fire risk issue in the East Bay Hills, and our organization, the Hills Conservation Network is concerned that it isn't being addressed. The major source of the problem is UC, who have failed to maintain their wildlands, allowing for large accumulation of understory to accumulate. How to address this problem without spending your own money, and while clearing land for development, and while appeasing the Native Plant Restoration community? Simple. Apply to FEMA for a pre-disaster mitigation grant, use it to cut down only 3 species of non-native trees, irrespective of their real fire risk, build faculty housing in what's still a wilderness area, and spend almost none of your own money doing it.

While the public is being told that there is some connection between eucalyptus and fires in the east bay hills, it's simply not true. The reality of the '91 fire is that it was caused largely by the ineptitude and poor preparation of the Oakland Fire Department and the City of Oakland. This according to the grand jury inquiry and the official report.

The sad fact is that cutting down and poisoning all the eucalyptus, pines, and acacias in these hills will definitely eliminate raptor habitat, will definitely eliminate shade and the moist climate we enjoy here, will definitely result if 10s of thousands of gallons of herbicide being applied in a sensitive watershed, but it will not reduce the risk of fire.

Some facts. Eucalyptus (actually the ground litter, because the trees are almost impossible to ignite) has a flame length of 6-21', while pines are even lower at 2-16'. But what about the native species that the project proponents want to replace the non-natives with? Bays have flame lengths of in excess of 30', and chaparral has flame lengths of up to 69'. To make matters worse, these species have foliage at or near ground level, have very high oil content (higher than eucs), and in the case of chaparral reach their peak of combustibility at almost exactly the time when we get Diablo winds, the driver for all the serious fires in the hills here.

In fact, if UC were to simply remove the ground fuels from their wild lands every few years (as EBMUD does and EBRPD is increasingly doing), the fire danger would be negligible. So, since this is far cheaper than cutting down 100 year old trees and chipping them, doesn't require any herbicides, and doesn't destroy habitat, why aren't they doing it? Simple, money and ideology. If your objective is to clear land for development and achieve native plant restoration, then simply maintaining your lands is not a good option.

So, that's the reality of what's going on here. Yes, there is a lot of misinformation floating around, and we urge folks who want to learn more to check out the Hills Conservation Network website at http://www.hillsconservationnetwork.org

I agree with today's excellent well-informed responses which detail what’s wrong with the proposed project. I also encourage anyone who, like me, wasn’t at the May 18th meeting for public commentary to FEMA, to watch the video of the meeting (see link below). There’s a special vivid immediacy to seeing and hearing the variety and depth of different people’s knowledge, perspectives, and personal experiences—something that’s difficult to convey on the printed page. I was very moved, and I learned a lot even though I’d already read a great deal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWXLFVtqKv8

The following is what I wrote in my comment to FEMA. I wanted to keep it short, so I didn’t comment on possible alternatives.

As a longtime resident of Oakland (since 1973), I oppose this project. It would have devastating long-lasting environmental consequences. It would greatly increase the risk of fire: by removing the shade and fog drip of thousands of trees and thus increasing dry heat; by placing tons of dead wood onto bare ground; by leaving space for non-native grasses and brush to fill in and become a true fire hazard; by destroying wind breaks; and by doing prescribed burns that could easily get out of control. Most fires start in dry grass and brush, not under moist tree canopy where captured fog often drips down even in summer. Even the maligned eucalyptus trees have been documented as resisting raging brush fires.

As if increased fire hazard is not bad enough, the toxic herbicides used in this project would poison the woodlands and surrounding areas—earth, air, creeks and ultimately the Bay—damaging the health of exposed humans and animals for many years to come.

Killing thousands of trees would destroy vast areas of bird and animal habitat. It would also release the carbon sequestered in those trees into the atmosphere. Not to mention the destruction and pollution inflicted by the machinery used to kill the trees.

This project would be a shameful use of tax money, resulting in the opposite of its stated purpose and causing only enormous harm.

“Environmental Activist” says that eucalypts are not well adapted to our climate therefore they die back during droughts and freezes. I had never heard the claim that they have died back during droughts, so I asked Joe McBride, the local expert on our urban forest. Professor McBride is in the School of Landscape Architecture at UC Berkeley and his academic specialty is urban forestry. Here is how he answered my question: “I do not recall any eucalyptus dying of drought in the East Bay. The trees above campus held up very well during the drought in the mid-1970s as I recall. I also do not recall any literature references to eucalyptus dying of drought.”

Although Blue Gum eucalyptus does not tolerate deep, sustained freezes, such freezes are rare in the San Francisco Bay Area. There was one in 1990, the winter prior to the 1991 wildfire and the FEMA Technical Report on the fire identifies the dead litter resulting from freeze as a factor in the fire. Responsible fire hazard mitigation would have cleaned up after that freeze, as the FEMA report observes. However, there has not been such a freeze since and the prior freeze was in 1972. The climate has warmed here, as it has around the globe and scientists anticipate that the climate will continue to warm. It is ironic that the proposed project will contribute to climate change by releasing tens of thousands of tons of carbon stored in the trees that will be released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide as the tons of dead wood from the destroyed trees, which will be left lying on the ground, decays. Carbon dioxide is the predominant greenhouse gas that is causing climate change.

Native plant advocates should step back and look at the big picture. How much damage will be done to the environment by these projects? Will the resulting landscape be less flammable than the existing landscape. Since most of the fires in California start in grass and become wildfires in chaparral, it is very difficult to see how fire hazard will be reduced by this destructive project.

Environmentalists, including many of us, even those of us involved with Earth First!, were duped many a decade ago into accepting what turned out to be so very wrong, ideas that 1) if it didn't originate here, it should be destroyed; 2) eucalyptus is a fire danger. I'm sorry to say I heard no questions of these assumptions. Redwoods did not originate here; I guess we've been mistaken in continuing to protect them! Many of us have spent years now working to reverse damage done as we came to understand that Invasive Species Councils and Exotic Pest Councils were developed and funded by massive pesticide companies. The message is a crystal-clear formula which goes like this:

1) Put on a symposium gathering innocent young college students and newly-hired young people working in county agricultural commissioners' offices, alongside major players in the pesticide world

2) Claim massive fear about damage being done to the environment, or say people might die, yell that there is an emergency, and "realize" that to reverse said damage (which we have demonstrated repeatedly by bringing out the voices of independent biologists and biodynamic and organic farmers, and nurses and other healthcare people, does not exist and would be unlikely to do so) requires toxic pesticide use, and NOW. The line always is: We have to use some now to avoid using more later (because Monsanto; DowElanco; Bayer, et al care about us)

3) Continue to make statements saying you are concerned about human health (and PAY A DOCTOR to say the pesticides planned for use are safe), biological diversity, wildlife, all the trigger words, and use phrases such as: We will only use what's necessary; We will only use a bit; We will not spray, we'll only spritz; We will not aerial spray; We will use least toxic options; and the list goes on of words with no legal meaning but misleading, as though any exposure to toxic pesticides could be safe

4) Get all those concerned and often naive young people to go back into their communities babbling about emergencies. Apparently many never absorbed even high school biology, let alone any college-level biology or chemistry

5) Get the state and then feds to say there is an emergency which triggers the spilling of the pork barrel from feds to the state, from the state to the counties, from the counties to cities and other agencies such as UC, East Bay Regional Parks District; City of Oakland; East Bay Municipal Parks District, Pacific Gas and Electric, etc.

6) Get county Boards of Supervisors to accept the dirty money to be given to the county Agricultural Departments

7) Put out media everywhere about the insects which they say will devour our food supplies or vegetation that will take over the world

8) Insist, at all times, that the sky is falling and people need to see the light and make sure that no one questions that the reason it's so dark, literally, is that, the most basic understory management has not been done (in private circles this would be called negligence but we suppose that since we're talking publicly funded agencies which are jobs works programs funded via taxes, this would be called daily life)

9) Insist that widespread sickness and people dying worldwide; bee decimation around the world; other wildlife die-offs such as goats, cats, dogs, moles in Sonoma wine country; dead soil where normally there would have been a riot of shades of greens, grays, reds, browns, and brighter colors; that, all of this is some coincidence

10) Get people to accept anything if you agree not to aerial spray. Anything.

That's it in a nutshell, folks, and to read hundreds of pages of the nitty gritty, cited, go to http://www.dontspraycalifornia.org. We have updated info on the wildfire and clearcutting page, and oh, so much more. Share the link. Same site as http://www.eastbaypesticidealert.org, a longtime (20 years) resource orginally based in Sonoma Pesticide Alert working alongside Californians for Alternatives to Toxics. No one funds us so no one can pull our strings. Just the facts and citings (okay, and thoughtful analysis).

This will be a tragic decision if this goes through.It seems to have been proposed without any responsible awareness of the enormous destruction of life that this bludgeoning will do.The fire department is now gaining a better understanding of the specifics of fighting these fires and that will reduce danger.I have read and seen from a video of the meeting so many knowledgeable people that know and love these parks and forests I hope UC/FEMA works with all this knowledge and saves the forests and parks.

A follow up article with more links is at:
UC/FEMA East Bay fire control project generates huge reaction, part II
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/06/02/18737804.php

Also see: Claremont Canyon Firestorm
http://ccfirestorm.blogspot.com/2013/06/there-is-firestorm-building-in.html
Video links there, too.

I mistakenly wrote East Bay Municipal Parks District rather than East Bay Municipal Utilities District.

See website wildfire page to get info on Invasion Biology or Integration Biology slideshow/talk by David Theodoropoulos 7/14, 6:30 pm, in Berkeley. Flyer is near the top of the page, and you can get history of this project and toxics info on the same wildfire page.