[permaculture] mediterranean orchards, terracing and fire protection

Dieter Brand diebrand at yahoo.com
Thu Dec 13 15:16:46 EST 2007


Paul,
   
  You are completely right: The way in which a fire will develop
  is largely determined by fuel load, wind (direction, force) and 
  topography of the land. In general, a fire will burn from the 
  bottom to the top because of the air flow generated by the fire. 
  Which means that you are more at risk on top of a hill than at
  it’s bottom. On the other hand, a strong wind blowing through 
  a valley may well drive the fire through the bottom of the valley 
  where it finds more fuel load, since a valley usually has more 
  vegetation than the drier hill tops. Sometimes it is very surprising 
  how a fire will develop. Depending on the topography, pockets
  of dry vegetations are sometimes left standing, while all else 
  around it is burned down. It obviously depends very much on 
  the force with which a fire enters your property, if a strong wind 
  is blowing from a large fuel load onto your property, than all bets 
  are off.
   
  I’m not sure community building will work here. Most of the 
  land around here is managed by large pulp companies. They 
  have plans of their own. The few remaining homesteaders
  are inveterate individualists who prefer to muddle through on 
  their own. One point is important though: In places like this,
  (where trust in the police and the judicial system is not well
  developed), people will sometimes resort to arson to take 
  revenge on somebody they feel has done them injury. Hence, 
  it is important to cultivate good relations all around, especially
  if one comes from another region or country.
   
  Adding to what Vital has said, here is a partial list of fire retardant
  plants given by Heidi Gildemeister in her Mediterranean Gardening
  (ISBN of the English edition: 84-273-0749-7). She writes:
   
  “Plants cannot stop fire, but hazards are reduced by replacing combustible
  vegetation (cypress, eucalyptus, juniper, pine) by plants with lowest fuel
  content. Water-retaining succulents have the greatest potential.”
   
  Fire retardant plants: Callistemon, Ceratonia, Cistus, Myoporum laetum,
  Rhamnus alaternus, Rhus integrifolia, Campsis radicans, Solanum
  jasminoides, Achillea tomentosa, Agave, Aloe, Arctotheca calendula,
  Artemisia, Convolvulus cneorum, Gazania, Osteospermum, Pelargonium
  peltatum, Senecio cineraria, Yucca.
   
  Just one more comment of my own: mulching around fruit trees can 
  be dangerous. We lost most of our citrus trees because I had mulched
  under the trees with dry leaves prior to the fire. The only ones to survive
  were a few bitter orange trees that I hadn’t bothered to mulch. The 
  flames from the mulch weren’t that high and the trees didn’t actually 
  burn; however, since most fruit trees only have a thin bark that doesn’t 
  provide any protection against fire, the heat from the burning mulch 
  was enough to hurt the cambium layer which caused the trees to die. 
  Now, I’m experimenting with large stones placed around the stem 
  so that the mulch doesn’t come near the stem.

   
  Dieter Brand
  Portugal

Paul Cereghino <paul.cereghino at comcast.net> wrote:
    Thank you Dieter, your practical experience is much better than my book 
learning. Fire ecology predates capitalism, and is something to take 
very seriously (though building soil moisture is a good thing). It might 
be useful to find people who understand fire behavior in your landscape 
first hand who can talk about dominant wind direction during fire 
season, likely sources of fire near your property and how fire might 
move on your land based on landform and aspect. While your strategy is 
based on your parcel, fire operates at a landscape scale. Alignment of 
grazed pasture, or roads can also serve as fire breaks.

In our Washington state, USA dry-side forest I have spent time with 
folks for whom fire preparation has been a source of positive community 
building. We have even had some government grant opportunities for 
communities working toward defensible settlements -- there might be an 
opportunity to get some subsidy for a well developed plan. To live in 
fire country is definately a trick of biologically 'burning' your fuel 
load before you set your self up for a catastrophic burn.

Another thought would be to talk with climate specialists to better 
understand the future. 600-800 years ago during the midieval climate 
optimum, our rainforest region had landscape scale 'stand-replacing' 
fires that whipped accross the landscape consuming the 'fuel' 
accumulated in more moderate centuries... only indigenous 
non-capitalists as witnesses... something else to look forward to in 
global climate change.

Paul Cereghino
Olympia, WA

   

       
---------------------------------
Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile.  Try it now.



More information about the permaculture mailing list