HAVILAH, Calif. (KERO) — The Borel Fire left behind thousands of acres of burnt soil – but it isn't all burned to the same degree. Some soil is severely burnt and reduced to white ash. These are the areas that will take longer to restore to pre-fire conditions.
- Rich Casale assesses burn scarred areas and meets with residents to discuss best practices to avoid harm from flooding and debris flows.
- On July 26 the Borel Fire destroyed large parts of Havilah. The fire ultimately burned roughly 60,000 acres, making it the largest in Kern County history.
- The specialized team singles out Havilah Canyon, which Caliente Bodfish road runs through, as a place at higher risks for flooding and debris flows.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
“Only nine percent of the sixty thousand acres was considered high burn severity,” said Rich Casale.
Rich Casale is a post wildfire restoration specialist.
He’s talking about the soil burn severity map created by a specialized team at the US Forest Service.
“Fifty percent is in the low intensity low soil burn area, that’s to our benefit.”
On Wednesday he spoke to a group of residents at the schoolhouse in Havilah to give them information about the upcoming risks of debris flow and flooding.
“If there are evacuation alerts, and people need to heed those alerts,” Casale said.
He says residents should prepare to evacuate if needed and remain alert.
For those considering mitigation efforts on their own property, sometimes the best option is to do nothing at all.
“My first practice is nature, which is usually to do nothing, which becomes a best management practice after a fire, particularly on the larger acreages.”
The landscape should largely remain undisturbed so plant life can grow back naturally. And if a property owner is eager to do something..
“Don't be too quick to throw everything but the kitchen sink at the landscape thinking that Anything's better than nothing,” Casale said.
He says to get professional guidance from an erosion expert before installing mitigation measures.
“Those measures might be as simple as loose straw, no deeper than two inches, probably no use for a lot of the common practices that we see on the landscape following fires. I don't see it used for plastic sheeting, erosion control, blankets, jute netting.”
Casale says if done improperly, efforts to mitigate damage can end up causing more problems.
"I don't think this is these are homeowner projects that you should just sprinkle all over the landscape and call it good, or feel like you've done something to help the situation, because most often, these practices that are put in by property owners without that professional guidance are done wrong or misplaced or mainly create a greater hazard or a new problem.”
“This culvert here is backs up anyway unless the county comes and does some extra work on it, it's going to wash away,” said Dennis Fluhart.
Dennis Fluhart, a Havilah Residents attended part of the talk and said he hopes the county is more proactive in addressing issues local culverts will face in the case of debris flows.
"They can either do it ahead of the rains, or they will be replaced after the rains.”
Casale says whether debris flows and flooding will happen depends on a variety of factors, including the intensity of the rain.
However, he said plant restoration in less burned areas should happen in the next few years.
“It doesn't require us to be overzealous in terms of doing a lot very quickly and for a long time we want to work with natural processes that are in place."
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