- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
‘We Have Fire Everywhere'
(New York Times Magazine) Jon Mooallem, July 31
…Those towns grew into cities; the land around them, suburbs. More than a century of fire suppression left the ecosystems abutting them misshapen and dysfunctional. To set things right, the maintenance once performed naturally by fire would have to be conducted by state and federal bureaucracies, timber companies, private citizens and all the other entities through whose jurisdictions that land splinters. The approach has been feeble and piecemeal, says William Stewart, a co-director of Berkeley Forests at the University of California, Berkeley: “Little pinpricks of fuel reduction on the landscape.” We...
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
Inside The Lives Of Farmworkers: Top 5 Lessons I Learned On The Ground
(NPR) Dan Charles, July 15
Philip Martin, an economist at the University of California, Davis, who's spent his professional life studying farm labor markets, says employers are adapting to the worker shortage in four different ways: offering incentives to workers and treating them better; bringing in technologies (like conveyor belts in the fields) that allow fewer workers to do the same amount of work; replacing workers with machines; and bringing in foreign workers using special visas, called H-2A visas, that are available for seasonal farm labor. The number of these "guest workers" has been increasing sharply in recent years....
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
A major expense in producing winegrapes is labor. Two UC Cooperative Extension experts appeared on the Jefferson Exchange radio program to explain how mechanization of pruning, leaf removal and shoot thinning, combined with mechanized harvesting widely implemented decades ago, will dramatically reduce the need for labor in California winegrape production.
"The minimum wage is going to increase to $15 per hour in 2022," said George Zhuang, viticulture advisor with UCCE Fresno County. Besides, it is getting...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
All vegetation can burn, but some plant species may pose less risk than others in a wildfire-prone community, reported Noah Bemer in the Calaveras Enterprise.
In the first five feet around buildings, stone walls, rocks, patios and gravel mulch can enhance fire safety. In areas that are landscaped, high-moisture plants that grow low to the ground and contain little sap or resin also decrease fire risk.
Susan Kocher, UC Cooperative Extension natural resources advisor in the Central Sierra, said home fire safety “usually means taking away vegetation, rather...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The Federal Government has proposed spending $55 to $192 million to clear large swaths of land in the Western U.S. to create fuel breaks that slow the spread of wildfire, reported Brady McCombs of the Associated Press. The fuel breaks will be managed by the Bureau of Land Management in Idaho, Oregon, Washington, California, Nevada and Utah.
Fuel breaks are a useful tool if used along with other wildfire prevention methods that can keep firefighters safer and potentially help out in broad scopes of land because they are long and thin, said Lenya Quinn-Davidson, the area fire...
