Pepperwood Preserve tests new tools to combat wildfires

After epic fires raged through Lake and Sonoma counties this summer, local nonprofit organizations and government agencies are teaming up to experiment with some innovative - and potentially controversial - tools to combat wildfires in an era of climate change and drought.

The Pepperwood Foundation, owner of the 3,000-acre preserve in the Mayacmas Mountains, has secured a federal grant of up to $250,000 to study new ways to restore areas ravaged by flames and prevent future fires.

“Fire tends to change everything,” said James Weigand, state ecologist for the federal Bureau of Land Management. “This process that we thought would be more gradual, we’re being confronted with right now.”

While the BLM has supported research on climate change in other parts of the state, this is the first time it is focusing on the issue in Northern California. The agency plans to adapt the practices tested on the Pepperwood property to its lands throughout the state.

The grant is part of a national mandate to plan for climate change utilizing public-private partnerships, like the one with Pepperwood. BLM “might be risk-averse” as a government agency and a steward of natural resources, Weigand said. “But we can learn from other landowners who are less risk-averse and have more flexibility in their management.”

The Pepperwood Foundation will investigate how rising temperatures and more arid conditions can help predict fire. The Santa Rosa nonprofit group also will conduct experiments on the preserve to test fire risk mitigation techniques, like replanting native plants and conducting prescribed burns.

“Climate change is going to make Northern California drier, which is going to increase the risk of fire,” said Lisa Micheli, president and CEO of the Pepperwood Foundation. The nonprofit raised $300,000 from donors to match the BLM grant and position it as an experimental platform for the rest of Northern California.

The Pepperwood team, with partners like the California Coastal Conservancy, the North Bay Climate Adaptation Initiative and county water agencies, has developed innovative tools that can gauge the risk of fire. One, named the “water deficit,” measures how much water will evaporate from soil and vegetation with increased temperatures over the course of a year. This can be an excellent predictor of fire risk because plants and soil store less water when temperatures increase, making them drier and more flammable, Micheli said.

To reduce the amount of fire fuel on its lands, Pepperwood will continue to clear and manage native and non-native plants like Douglas fir and yellow star thistle. With support from the BLM, it will also experiment with aspects of “assisted migration” - a practice that has its supporters and critics within the field of ecology.

Scientists will consider, for example, taking native plant species from drier and warmer areas and replanting them at Pepperwood to see if this relocated population might thrive in an area that is newly experiencing higher temperatures and aridity.

“As much as possible, we try to put back those species we know have thrived there or in similar situations nearby,” Weigand said.

Because it has no precedent, this kind of experimentation is too risky to be done on public land, he said. “That’s why having a lot of different partners (like Pepperwood) is a way to essentially hedge your bets,” Weigand said.

Currently, Pepperwood has 7,000 individual plants representing five different species of native perennial grasses in its greenhouses. These are drought-resistant plants that will be used in replanting efforts to help with erosion and fire prevention. Currently, the organization is using seeds from nearby areas to try to preserve local population genetics. But, as Micheli explained, Pepperwood would like to launch a more massive seed-collection initiative using grant funds that will expand the areas of seed collection.

But not all ecologists support the idea of moving around plant populations based on climate change projections, even if they’re native species. Tony Nelson, Sonoma Valley program manager for the Sonoma Land Trust, believes there is a great deal of risk in assisted migration because there are many unknowns. For example, Nelson explained, if you use climate change projections to predict that an area will be 5 degrees warmer 50 years from now, how do you know relocated plants will survive that long?

“A mantra of conservation work is to use local species,” Nelson said. “Now all of a sudden, because temperatures are changing, we have no idea what including novel species in that area is going to do to the rest of the ecosystem.”

It’s fine for small experiments, Nelson said, but should not be applied on a large scale.

“What about diseases and pathogens?” he questioned. “History is rife with examples. Now, I think, people are forgetting these things.”

In addition to relocating plants, Pepperwood also will test the effects of small, controlled fires to manage fire risk on its lands. These fires, known as prescribed burns, are supported by scientists and firefighters but historically have not been widely accepted or understood by the public.

“Prescribed burns are needed more during the drought, even though it’s more dangerous,” said Mike Wilson, vegetation management coordinator for the Sonoma-Lake-Napa unit of Cal Fire.

In the past, natural fires removed excess fuel from the forest. But in recent decades, public agencies have sought to aggressively suppress natural fires, allowing fuel to build up to dangerous levels and increasing the risk of a catastrophic fire.

Controlled burns were done more often in the past, but have been underutilized because of increased air quality regulations and more homes in wildlands, Wilson said.

“It’s something that really should be looked at,” Wilson said.

Cal Fire and Pepperwood are planning two prescribed burns on the Pepperwood Preserve in the next year to educate the public about the benefits of this method of fire prevention. It will also require overcoming other hurdles, like the fact that Cal Fire must focus on emergencies and the protection of life and property first.

“It may take a change in paradigm,” said Nelson of the Sonoma Land Trust, who is certified in conducting prescribed burns. “If we can continue to change the attitudes that fire itself isn’t evil and accept it in these little bites, maybe we would have fewer of these catastrophic fires.”

You can reach Staff Writer Ariana Reguzzoni at 521-5205 or ariana.reguzzoni@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @arianareg.

Editor’s note: This story has been revised from an earlier version to reflect the fact that the final amount of the BLM grant to the Pepperwood Foundation has not been determined.