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  • From: Dieter Brand <diebrand@yahoo.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] mediterranean orchards, terracing and fire protection
  • Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 12:16:46 -0800 (PST)

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@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




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