- Author: DIANA CERVANTES
A menudo subestimamos el impacto del humo de los incendios forestales, pero su efecto en la salud pública es significativo y creciente, especialmente en California. A continuación, te ofrecemos una guía rápida para protegerte a ti y a tu familia del humo de estos incendios.
La División de Agricultura y Recursos Naturales de la Universidad de California (UC ANR) ha producido una serie de videos e información relevante sobre los incendios y los efectos dañinos del humo. ¿Sabías que el humo de los incendios forestales es una mezcla compleja de compuestos químicos, como dióxido de carbono, vapor de agua y partículas finas, conocidas como PM2.5? Estas partículas pueden penetrar profundamente en los pulmones y causar problemas de salud graves. La exposición al humo de los incendios forestales está en aumento, por lo que es crucial estar preparado para protegerte y proteger a tu familia.
¿Qué es la Calidad del Aire?
La calidad del aire se refiere a la cantidad de contaminantes presentes en el aire que respiramos. Durante los incendios forestales, esta calidad puede deteriorarse rápidamente debido al aumento de partículas finas (PM2.5) y otros compuestos químicos en el humo. Comprender cómo se mide la calidad del aire y qué significan esos valores es fundamental para tomar medidas efectivas y salvaguardar nuestra salud.
Recomendaciones del Centro para el Control de Enfermedades (CDC)
El CDC aconseja a las personas con problemas pulmonares o cardíacos que tomen medidas adicionales, ya que son los grupos más vulnerables a los efectos del humo.
Medidas para mantener la calidad del aire
Las quemas prescritas son una herramienta importante para manejar los riesgos de incendios forestales y minimizar su impacto en la calidad del aire. Estas quemas controladas se realizan bajo condiciones específicas, ayudando a prevenir incendios forestales extremos y reduciendo así la cantidad de humo producido.
Consejos prácticos para protegerse del humo:
- Permanece en interiores: Mantén las ventanas y puertas cerradas para evitar que el humo entre en tu hogar.
- Usa purificadores de aire: Los purificadores de aire con filtros HEPA pueden ayudar a reducir la cantidad de partículas finas en el aire interior.
- Usa mascarillas adecuadas: Si necesitas salir, usa una mascarilla N95 que se ajuste bien para filtrar las partículas finas.
Monitoreo de la calidad del aire:
- Utiliza aplicaciones y sitios web como AirNow y PurpleAir para monitorear la calidad del aire en tiempo real y ajustar tus actividades según sea necesario.
Efectos Inmediatos en la Salud:
- Tos
- Dificultad para respirar normalmente
- Ardor en los ojos
- Irritación en la garganta
- Moqueo
- Irritación de los senos paranasales
- Sibilancias y dificultad para respirar
- Dolor de pecho
- Dolores de cabeza
- Ataques de asma
- Cansancio
- Latidos cardíacos acelerados
Posibles efectos a largo plazo:
La exposición repetida al humo de los incendios forestales puede tener efectos a largo plazo en la salud, como el desarrollo de enfermedades respiratorias crónicas, problemas cardiovasculares y una mayor susceptibilidad a infecciones respiratorias.
Recursos adicionales:
- Author: Michael Hsu
Quickly planting trees after wildfires crucial for communities, ecosystems, carbon goals
As the climate crisis fuels more high-severity wildfires, many forests – adapted to bounce back from frequent but less-intense fires – are struggling to recover quickly.
“In a lot of locations, forests in the Sierra Nevada that burn at high severity are not regenerating on their own,” said Susie Kocher, University of California Cooperative Extension forestry and natural resources advisor for the Central Sierra. “They need to have living trees to drop seeds; if everything dies in an intense fire, then there's a high likelihood in those locations that trees might not return for a while.”
According to Kocher, a forest may take multiple decades to grow back on its own, seeding in very slowly from the edges of a burn. To speed up that regeneration process, a pilot program of local “Emergency Forest Restoration Teams,” or EFRTs, have been helping forest landowners rapidly remove dead trees, plant new seedlings and expedite other vital tasks after wildfires.
Kocher is a co-author of a recently released report evaluating the EFRTs, which appear to be effective in assisting often-overwhelmed private landowners navigate competitive funding programs and complicated permitting pathways after wildfire. Small private landowners in California own 7 million acres, comprising 22% of forested land across the state.
“None of our current assistance programs were really designed to rapidly respond to high-severity fire disasters,” Kocher said. “And we're just getting so much more high-severity fire now that there needed to be a different way of helping people, besides business as usual.”
Lead agencies improve coordination of restoration efforts
Drawing from a successful model in Washington, Kocher and other members of the Governor's Forest Management Task Force recommended the formation of EFRTs in 2019 and this recommendation made it into the California Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan of 2021.
Following the Caldor, Dixie and Tamarack fires during that year, disaster relief funds from CAL FIRE and the U.S. Forest Service enabled the establishment of pilot EFRTs in each of the affected regions. A key innovation was designating a local lead agency to coordinate restoration efforts: the El Dorado Resource Conservation District (Caldor), the Feather River Resource Conservation District (Dixie) and Alpine County (Tamarack).
“The idea is that one well-established local agency gets the funds to carry out all the reforestation work,” Kocher said. “They find contractors for the landowners and plan and carry out all the work needed, including dead tree removal, site preparation and replanting; this helps it be more coordinated across the landscape and reduces competition for contractors.”
“Also, for most of that work, there's no cost to the landowner – which is a huge benefit to them, because these things can get really expensive, like many thousands of dollars an acre,” Kocher added.
Although there was an initial steep learning curve for the local lead agencies on the complexities of reforestation and the maze of required permits, they quickly executed a significant number of forest restoration treatments. Within two years, the three pilot teams had collectively completed over 2,500 acres of dead tree removal and 1,400 acres of conifer planting.
“The overwhelming benefit of the pilots was that a lot of work got done on the ground, that otherwise would not have been done – at least not in the timeframe that was made possible by the EFRTs,” said Daylin Wade, a UCCE staff research associate and co-author of the recent report, who synthesized feedback from interviews of professionals involved in the program.
Rapid reforestation better financially, ecologically
Both Wade and Kocher underscored how the EFRTs were crucial in completing restoration tasks in a timely manner. Removal of dead wood becomes trickier and more expensive over time, as the trees decay and are dangerous to cut down.
“A major accomplishment was getting trees out of there while it was both safe and economically viable to remove those trees – and getting trees in the ground before shrubs dominate the site,” Wade explained.
It's also imperative to quickly remove the dead trees to reduce the fuel load and minimize the chances of re-burn in the area.
“If you're not doing this work, then you're actually endangering the investment that you're putting into rebuilding communities that burned, because they're in danger of burning again if you have huge piles of dead trees everywhere,” Kocher said.
Furthermore, expediting those tasks helps restore the forest cover that is crucial for sequestering carbon and achieving the goals of California's sweeping climate action plan – such as attaining carbon neutrality by 2045.
“We have very ambitious carbon goals for our forests in California, and so reestablishing them – even on private lands – is a public benefit,” Kocher said.
Evaluation of EFRTs by UC Cooperative Extension continues
In addition to enumerating the progress of the three EFRT case studies, the evaluation report also lists recommendations to further enhance the program, such as securing rapid and flexible funding for future EFRTs, improving guidance for local lead agencies and streamlining permitting processes.
The authors also stressed the need to expand opportunities for the commercial sale of woody material in the aftermath of a wildfire event. Selling logs and wood chips reduces the volume of material that would need to processed onsite by the EFRTs and their contractors, thereby defraying some of the costs for that work.
But there simply hasn't been a sufficient market for that woody biomass.
“It's a big barrier,” Kocher said. “If we had a healthier timber market, it would be easier to make this stuff pay its own way and be less of a subsidized endeavor.”
UC Cooperative Extension's EFRT evaluation work – made possible by funding from the U.S. Forest Service State, Private and Tribal Forestry, Region 5 – will continue for the next couple years. On the heels of this first report, Wade will next gather and summarize feedback from private landowners on whether the EFRTs are meeting their goals.
And, later this summer and fall, researchers will begin assessing the ecological success of the plantings in the restoration areas, surveying seedling survival and gauging the volume of competing vegetation.
“It's hugely encouraging that we've gotten all these trees in the ground, but it's not the end of the process – it's just the beginning,” Kocher said. “Trees and forests need to be maintained over time, so this next step will let us see how successful that has been, and if there are additional steps needed to actually ensure that these trees succeed and thrive.”
The full report, dedicated to the memory of report co-author and UCCE advisor Ryan Tompkins, can be found at https://ucanr.edu/efrt.
/h3>/h3>/h3>/h3>- Author: Lauren Fordyce
Are you noticing an abundance of cobwebs outside, on plants, fences, homes, or outdoor furniture?
While many people fear spiders or dislike their cobwebs, most spiders are beneficial to have around– even in the home! Spiders are predators of many insect pests and rarely cause harm to people. The only medically significant spiders in California are brown and black widows. While these spiders have the potential to cause harm, it is rare that they will bite, even in areas where they are very common. Like most spiders, they prefer to stay hidden and avoid people.
Some common web-spinning spiders you might encounter outdoors include:
- Funnel weavers: feed during the day and night near the ground in most types of vegetation, including low-growing plants and trees. Spin funnel-shaped webs, often with several-inch-wide, flat extension covering plants or soil.
- Sac spiders: spin silken tubes or sacs under bark, among leaves, and in low plants or on the ground, where they hide during the day or retreat after hunting. They are typically nocturnal, medium-sized, pale spiders with few markings.Female sac spider or twoclawed hunting spider with her eggs. Photo by David Rosen.
- Garden spiders: feed on insects that fly, fall, or are blown into their web. Elaborate silken webs are spun in concentric circles.
- Dwarf spiders: prey on insects that fall, walk, or land in their web. They are diurnal (day active) spiders found in the plant canopy and among litter on the ground. Dwarf spiders produce sheetlike webs on the surface of plants or soil.
- Comb-footed spiders: feed on insects that walk or fly into their webs. They almost always are found hanging upside down by their claws in irregularly spun, sticky webs, waiting for prey. Generally they have a soft, round, bulbous abdomen and slender legs without spines.
Unwanted cobwebs can be swept, mopped, hosed, or vacuumed up. Insecticides should not usually be used against spiders outdoors and don't provide good control anyway.
For more information about spiders in and around the home, visit the Pest Notes: Spiders.
- Author: Bob Niklewicz , MG in the Fuller Park Rose Garden
It has been a great summer, the monster rainfall of this past winter and spring a distant memory, and the yard looks wonderful in May and June. You are pumped up about how well your gardening skills have developed. You are getting a sore shoulder from patting yourself on the back in celebration of the glory of your garden. –You smile to yourself and kickback on your rose care diligence. “Where is my wine?” Then July rolled around. Your “wining” has turned to “whining.” “What happened to my roses? The leaves have turned brown and they look awful.”
Well, you are human, you think when you fix something in the garden, it stays fixed. Well, you are wrong, Buttercup. Mother Nature lives in your yard too. In July she said, “It is time for a little humility for our green-thumbed person. I think I will cook their plants.” What happens when it turns from spring weather to Death Valley weather in your Napa garden? Cooked plants happens. This dose of truth from Mother Nature may hurt, especially when it catches you off guard, even for a day or two. This is the deal, roses do like 6-12 hours a day of normal sunlight–the key word being normal. Roses can take pretty much any amount of sun, but when it gets into the 85-90's things change. It gets even worse if you have some of your roses in containers like I do; you have to be ready for the heat beforehand. You avoid gophers with containers (gopher issues are fodder for another column) but encourage irrigation issues. If you guess wrong, you will find:
#1 Wilting is the first sign of heat stress. It shows up in the older leaves first near the top of the plant. It is a normal protective reflex of the rose to wilt/curl their leaves to preserve moisture. If you have a drip system on a timer, but you have not adjusted for the hotter days, you will get wilting and dropping of leaves sooner as the root ball is probably too dry and water will not penetrate to the drying roots. When the roses start to wilt, they also become susceptible to diseases too. Black spot, rust, and other fungal infestations can attack the leaves. Even spider mites or scale can take advantage of the problem. Deal with these threats quickly or you can lose all the leaves which will take weeks to regrow.
#2 Browning of edges as the picture above shows, the edges / tips turn brown. It is a different brown than fungal infestation; it is clearly a leaf that is baked. You have to remove these as they will not come back. Soak the root ball and make sure that it does not dry out again. Spray the leaves as needed. Use a meter if necessary. If the rose is in a container, you may have to soak the whole container into a tub filled with water, to fully rehydrate the ball–don't drown the ball, just get it thoroughly wet. If it is too big to lift of move, run a hose at a low rate into the container until it is saturated. If the ball is in the ground, using a shovel or trowel to loosen the soil will help get the water down deeper.
#3 Cover if possible when it gets over 95 degrees, placing a cover, shade cloth or umbrella over the plant. This is needed as the bush will no longer be able to go through photosynthesis and it no longer can efficiently respire. Blooms stop or become smaller, the leaves weaken and evaporation through transpiration speeds up and recovering from wilting becomes less likely.
#4 Mulch: If the damage is done or if you are ahead of the problem of heat stress, you should consider mulching. A layer of mulch about 2-3” thick around the plant will protect the bush. This will protect the root ball from the drying effects on the soil and prolong the retention of what water is available. The mulch will hold water between watering cycles and it will reduce the amount of weeds below the plant. Using a moderate spray of water in the mornings will get the bush ready for a hot day, but it will also remove dust as well as pests from the plants. In normal weather situation, it is not recommended to spray the leaves of roses due to fungal disease issues. However, in the scorching hot days, keeping the leaves cool is the lesser of two evils.
Remember to toss plant debris into your city compost bin and not your own compost pile. The Napa City compost center produces higher temperatures to destroy the spores while your backyard pile will not do so. When it comes to add mulch, consider getting it from the Napa recycling center.
If you have questions about the Fuller Park Rose Garden and the Master Gardeners (MGs) who maintain that Rose Garden, the MGs are usually in the garden the first Sunday and third Thursday of each month between 10:00 and noon, weather permitting.
Napa Master Gardeners are available to answer garden questions by email: mastergardeners@countyofnapa.org. or phone at 707-253-4143. Volunteers will get back to you after they research answers to your questions.
Visit our website: napamg.ucanr.edu to find answers to all of your horticultural questions.
Photos by Bob Niklewicz