Reposted from the UCANR News Blog
Northern California's Rocky Fire is roaring through shrublands that have no previous recorded history of wildfires, reported Kirk Siegler on All Things Considered. It has already burned 65,000 acres and is 12 percent contained, according to CalFire's Incident Report.
The area has been protected from fire for decades, primed for the type of catastrophic blaze California officials have been predicting.
Siegler spoke to UC Agriculture and Natural Resources Cooperative Extension wildland and forestry advisor Greg Giusti.
"We've got miles and miles of contiguous chaparral vegetation and literally there are no breaks in the vegetation," Giusti said. "It's extremely steep and, in many cases, it's a roadless area."
Four years of drought has left the vegetation bone dry.
'When these fires get to an intensity we've seen, because of the fuel loading, because of fire suppression for the last 50 or 60 years, it allows the plant communities to get so dense, so thick and so expansive that, once a fire starts, it's beyond the capabilities of human control," Guisti said.