More recently the Board of Directors allocated $303,000 of reserve funds toward mitigation of the problem, including tree removal efforts and implementation of fire suppression plans for this summer and fall. Together with a previous allocation of $55,000, District direct funding is now $358,000, plus an additional substantial amount in non-transferable costs in staff time, legal fees, etc. When these are added together, the total exceeds $400,000 or about 9 percent of the District's total tax revenues this year which are available for maintenance and operation of the Regional Parks and Recreation Areas under its aegis. Obviously this is the limit of funding which the Park District can make, short of attempting to close park areas and either lay off park workers or transfer them to the task of cutting down the dead trees. Neither of these possibilities is feasible. In fact, the time spent on the problem by top District staff has seriously curtailed efforts to acquire new parklands and open space. The District has estimated that a five year program will be necessary to mitigate the eucalyptus problem and to implement the program of reforestation and restoration of meadows approximating the original natural condition of the parklands in the Oakland-Berkeley hill area. Such a program is estimated to cost in excess of $6 million-a figure far beyond the ability of Park District funding. A considerable sum of money will be expended this year by the District in fire prevention programs. Our plans include 24 hour ranger and fire patrols during the most critical fire days, plus closing park areas to public use on such days. If permission is granted by city and county jurisdictions, we will also control entry along certain of the streets in those jurisdictions which border the parks. An early warning system via use of helicopter patrol and the manning of weather stations is also part of the plan. The District has 600 acres in the critical fire areas, plus a minimum of another 1000-1200 acres in secondary fire areas. Six parks are included in the above two areas. CONCLUSION There have been earthquake, flood, hurricane, and wild fire disasters in this country. Now the Eastbay area of San Francisco has experienced a catastrophic freeze which presents an imminent fire danger of the gravest proportions. There is nobody who really wants to see such a fire get started, with the resultant loss of life and property which could result. It is still true that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." For the Eastbay area, this means Federal assistance of manpower, equipment, direct funding, and loans. Such assistance is provided in S. 1697. As the late British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, said, “Give us the tools and we will do the job.” We are pleased that this committee has chosen to invite our testimony and we hope that this and the other statements will be of assistance to you in securing the Federal assistance so urgently needed by private citizens and public agencies alike in the calamity which has befallen us. [Telegram to President Nixon re hill area (from Oakland Mayor's office] Hon. RICHARD M. NIXON, APRIL 10, 1973. DEAR PRESIDENT NIXON: Governor Reagan has declared a state of emergency in the counties of Alameda and Contra Costa, State of California, effective April 4, 1973. due to the imminent threat of extreme fire peril caused by the destruction of over two million trees this past winter. We are adding our voices of strong concern and support to the Governor's respectful request that you declare the counties a major disaster area. Our agencies are expending every effort, with the state's assistance, to deal with this extreme fire hazard. In addition to public property, over 11.000 private property owners are faced with either debris and dead trees on their land. or an imminent fire hazard, or both. These property owners are especially hard hit by the massive debris and fire hazard and special assistance, as outlined in the Governor's telegram to you to aid them. is therefore respectfully requested. With the Federal Government's assistance we as public agencies, and the strongly affected private property owners, can deal with this fire hazard without suffering extreme hardship and disaster. Alameda County. Contra Costa County. East Bay Municipal Utility District. [Oakland Tribune] UNIT SUSPENDS FIELD BURNINGS COUNTY BUREAU The Bay Area Air Pollution Control District has suspended all agricultural burnings in May as part of its policy to limit fires during warm weather. But people having to dispose of fire hazards or diseased materials, such as eucalyptus trees, can burn them. The next burn season begins June 1, when farmers can burn off grain stubble for three months to clear fields for double cropping. All permissable burning must be done during favorable weather conditions on district determined days. These are announced over the radio, and may be obtained by calling 771-6000. CLUBHOUSE FIRE AT PARK PROBED Castro Valley-An arson investigation is underway today in the fire which destroyed the archery range clubhouse near the Marciel Gate of Anthony Chabot Regional Park on Redwood Road. East Bay Regional Parks Fire Chief Richard Aronson said arson is suspected because a door was found open. The long wood frame, single story clubhouse, that included an indoor archery range was a total loss. Had there been a favorable wind that night, the blaze might have spread rapidly among about 1,000 acres of freeze-killed eucalyptus trees. [From the Oakland Tribune Editorial Page, Apr. 9, 1973] 10-POINT EUCALYPTUS PLAN REDUCES THE FIRE THREAT Property owners in the Oakland-Berkeley hills can can breathe a little easier now that the state has agreed to cut a 12-mile fire break through the dead eucalyptus forest in an effort to minimize the fire danger. This should prevent any major fire that could break out in the hills from totally spreading out of control. In fact, it may make the hills even safer from fire than they were before that December freeze killed the more than 2 million trees. There is, however, still one important step left to be taken: President Nixon must declare the hills a disaster area so that homeowners can receive some financial aid in removing dead trees from their property. Indeed the 10-point state and local program drafted by Eastbay officials and the Reagan administration is a good start and the least that should be done if the lives and properties of thousands of Eastbay hill residents are to be adequately protected. Because of the protection the fire break provides, homeowners outside the break will not have to cut down dead trees on their property. They will, however, be required to clean up all ground debris, remove dead limbs and bark and generally minimize the threat of fire on their property. The federal loans would be available if private property owners desire to actually remove trees or if the cost to clear debris is virtually prohibitive. The can be but one result. Eucalyptus trees surrounded by dead branches must soon become a torch scattering infinitesimal sparks in all directions, if a tiny match or ember happens to fall in the dry grass or leaves at its base. There is only one safeguard for these groves-removal of every contributing factor to the spread of fire. Underbrush that makes a funeral pyre for trees must not be tolerated. Hundreds of acres of valuable eucalyptus groves, set out to conserve the rain water in the hills, will be burned over this summer just as sure as campers are careless and a spark or two falls into dead brush at the base of these trees-unless remedial action is taken, and at once. Will Oakland and Berkeley permit a repetition of the Tunnel road fire of last summer on a larger and grander scale on the high reaches of the ridge at our back doors? Every tourist who is driven over the Skyline boulevard and who passes along the Tunnel road can not help but view the charred skeletons of what once were eucalyptus and pines dotting the hillsides of Claremont canyon. Many acres of blackened pines, complete except for their needles, remain on the sides of the main divide at the head of the canyon, but none of these fire-blasted trees will ever again be green. They stand as mute protests against utter failure of the Eastbay cities to cope with brush fires last summer. WILL HISTORY REPEAT? The fire last summer that caused the great destruction of trees in Claremont canyon could have been pinched out before it ever reached the tree-covered portions of the hillsides. But our city governments have no adequate means of coping with hillside fires. The sense of co-operation among citizens has not reached the degree which recognizes that destruction of our hill coverings by fire means that undoing of years of effort to reforestate the hills, to say nothing of the esthetic considerations involved by preservation of eucalyptus and pines in order to keep our hills attractive to our citizens and to our visitors. This is the situation in our hills at the end of June, 1922. The solution of the difficulty rests with the two cities of Oakland and Berkeley, aided by various civic organizations and possibly individuals. Conceivably my duty as a hiker and inveterate lover of the hills has been done in drawing attention of the entire Eastbay country to the situation along the main ridge of hills at our back door. In order to silence those who would be inclined to scoff at one who merely points out conditions without offering remedies, I will close with the suggestion that the cities of Oakland and Berkeley employ a small group of workers for a few days cleaning out the eucalyptus groves along the main divide; that fire-building be absolutely prohibited in these hills constituting the main ridge, and the imposition of a heavy fine and imprisonment for those found guilty of building fires in such a zone. Finally, I would suggest the setting apart of a Sunday early in July in which every able-bodied man and boy in the Eastbay region should be invited to climb the main ridge and remove all broken eucalyptus and pine limbs to piles from which the debris could later be trucked out of the hills or burned in open spaces under supervision of firemen or others qualified in such work. ANCIENT HUMOR In the preface to one of the volumes of his "Memoirs of the Poet Moore," Lord John Russell has this to say about wit as it has been developed by society: "There are," he wrote, "two kinds of colloquial wit, which equally contribute to fame, though not equally to agreeable conversation. The one is like a rocket in a dark air, which shoots at once into the sky, and is the more surprising from the previous silence and gloom. The other is like that kind of firework which blazes and bursts out in every direction, exploding at one moment and shining brilliantly at another, eccentric in its course, and changing its form and color to many forms and many hues." Sydney Smith, the great English clergyman and wit, was a notable example of the second class. Lady Holland in her memoirs tells us of one joyous conversation of Sydney Smith's which proves his method of humorous amplification in his table talk. "Some one mentioned that a young Scotchman, who had been lately in the neighborhood, was about to marry an Irish widow, double his age, and of considerable dimensions. 'Going to marry her!' Smith exclaimed, bursting out laughing. 'Going to marry her! Impossible! You mean a part of her. I could not marry her all myself. It would be a case, not of bigamy, but trigamy. The neighborhood or the magistrates should interfere. There is enough of her to furnish wives for a whole parish. One man marry her! It is monstrous. You might people a colony with her, or give an assembly with her, or, perhaps, take a morning's walk around her, always provided there were frequent resting places, and you were in rude health. I once was rash enough to try walking around her before breakfast, but got only halfway and gave it up exhausted. Or you might read the riot act and disperse her. In short, you might do anything with her but marry her.' “Oh, Mr. Sydney,' said a young lady, recovering from the general laugh, ‘Did you make up all that yourself?' 'Yes, Lucy!' Sydney Smith said, throwing himself back in his chair and shaking with laughter. ‘All myself, child; all my own thunder! Do you think when I am about to make a joke I send for my neighbors C. and G., or consult the clerk and church wardens upon it! But let us go into the garden.' "And, all laughing till we cried," Lady Holland ends: "We sallied forth into the garden." Of Lady Holland the poet Campbell wrote: "She is a formidable woman. She is cleverer, by several degrees, than Bonaparte." Rogers told a characteristic story of her manner, we are informed by Everet A. Duyekinek. "When Lady Holland wanted to get rid of a fop she used to say: 'I beg your pardon, but I wish you would sit a little further off. There is something on your handkerchief which I don't quite like."" Mr. TRUDEAU. That fire burned 625 homes, razed 72 blocks, and did $10 million worth of damage, and that has gone up at least tenfold if not more in the years since. In fact, only the heroic efforts of firemen and students stopped the flames at the north end of the University of California campus. Furthermore, the report of the State forester said that if the wind had kept blowing, there would have been 100,000 people homeless. Those are the facts of 1923. These are the facts of 1973. In 1972, the worst cold weather on record in the bay area dropped temperatures as low as 14° in some areas. That freeze lasted for 9 days and left a brown forest of 2 million or more eucalyptus trees on those hills. These same weather conditions preceded the great fire of 1923. And we hope this is where the parallel will end. Admittedly conditions are not totally parallel. For one thing, we have better firefighting equipment now and more sophisticated methods of handling such fires. For another, the citizens of the East Bay area are not ignoring the warnings. We have learned from the great fire of 1923 as well as from another fire in 1970 in these same hills which destroyed 39 homes with a loss of $3.5 million. But matched against this are these negative factors. First, there are many, many thousands more eucalyptus trees today in the OaklandBerkeley hills than existed in 1923 and consequently many more thousands of pounds of ground fuel, which poses the greatest fire threat. Second, the cold weather and snow of 1922-23 did not kill many trees, though it brought many broken limbs and debris. Third, the eucalyptus trees are 50 years older than they were in 1923 and thus taller and fuller, providing more debris and danger. And fourth, today there are many, many more homes in the OaklandBerkeley hills than existed in 1923. Federal Government should provide "forgiveness" loans of up to $5,000 so that the impact on homeowners would be further minimized. This would mean loans of up to $5,000 would not have to be paid back. But generally, homeowners' costs already have been reduced to a minimum because of the state's actions. One of the important factors in keeping these costs down is the provision that calls for the State to haul away debris free of charge that property owners have raked up and stacked beside the road. Provisions to coordinate efforts to fight any fire that should break out also should be of great comfort to hill residents. Local firemen will be backed up by state foresters who will be assigned to the hazard area. State officials say this is the most extensive fire prevention program the state has ever undertaken and it shows in the painstaking preparations that have been made to head off a potential disaster. Another important fact in the state's decision is that it frees much of the $1.2 million the city already had planned to spend on clearing a fire break. It now can be used in other areas to further minimize the fire threat. The response with which our public agencies rallied to the cause has been gratifying. It is this type of concern by our public agencies that instills confidence in the people that their government is ready, willing and able to help them in the time of need. All of those agencies which have joined efforts to meet this dangerous situation headon deserve the commendations of all residents, especially those who live in the affected areas. [From the Berkeley Daily Gazette, March. 23, 1973] STATE, FEDS FIDDLE WHILE BAY EUCALYPTUS MAY BURN With two million eucalyptus trees dead in the Berkeley Hills, East Bay residents are looking up at a disaster of potentially awesome proportions that could cost thousands of lives and will cost millions of dollars. And while state and federal bureaucrats work hard at passing the buck, local officials wish they had a few bucks to pass around and get the job of cutting and clearing those trees done. Lacking a viable regional government to tackle the problem, the feudal hodgepodge of local agencies (there are 35, count 'em, 35 agencies involved) have pulled together rather impressively in an effort to gather technical information on an unprecedented problem, prepare plans and get action rolling. But the sad and surreal truth of the matter is that the jurisdiction with the expertise and the will to do the job is not the jurisdiction with the resources— namely, our devaluated money-to do it. Local officials have had to go begging to Sacramento and Washington who have gobbled up the overwhelming preponderance of local tax money. If local residents had anything to say about it, it would be directly and immediately applied to this highest of priorities. But in Sacramento and Washington we see bureaucrats dickering over whether we really have a disaster on our hands and whether we have to wait until the flames are licking past Grizzly Peak Boulevard before the checks can be written. It would be laughable-if it did not hurt so much to laugh-to realize that our ever-growing government, which claims so much power over our lives and our "health and welfare," is actually wringing its hands over whether it has the authority to remove a clear and present threat to the safety of thousands, virtually all of whom agree that something must be done. Our local state legislators-March Fong, John J. Miller and Ken Meadeshowed the requisite concern over the crisis and even a remarkable grasp of the "Catch-22" quality of this scenario. But although they are the ones who must kick the behinds of their fellow politicians and get the millions of dollars allocated to do the job, nothing has been heard from them since their public hearing made such a splash weeks ago. While Sacramento and Washington are trying to make up their minds, it seems unreasonable that much more could not be done at a local level. The task force coordinating local agencies must begin now to organize actively teams of supervised volunteers and unemployed persons to start cleaning up the tons of ground debris beneath the eucalyptus. Not only does this debris constitute a major element of the fire threat, but it can be alleviated with relatively little expertise and cost. The office of this newspaper and the offices of city and county agencies have received many offers of just such volunteer help from individuals, service clubs, youth groups and neighborhood organizations. |