As climate change and years of avoiding aggressive forest management put more areas at risk for catastrophic wildfires, the struggle now underway in Big Bear is expected to play out in communities …
Big Bear just had a close call.on Sept. 5. But while the blaze triggered hundreds of evacuations and consumed more than 1,000 acres of San Bernardino National Forest south of town, a combination of aggressive firefighting, shifting winds and a monsoonal storm meant none of the mountain community’s 20,000 residents lost their homes.
“The sad part to me is that they seem to be looking at the forest as fuel rather than as habitat. And there’s a lot more to the forest than just seeing it as fuel that needs to be cut down,” said Sandy Steers, executive director of the environmental group Friends of Big Bear Valley.“The eagles are there because they like a forest,” Collier said. “They don’t like bare, open land with a bunch of black sticks laying on the ground.
Steers says she’s well aware of the risk from wildfires. She also supports clearing trees and vegetation within 100 feet of homes. But she said, “I don’t understand the need way up into the forest.” And she fears there hasn’t been enough careful analysis of how this plan could affect the area’s entire ecosystem.
In some stretches of the forest, north of the lake, Collier said there are about eight times as many trees as there should be, with 300 to 400 trees per acre now when it should be closer to 50 to 80. That’s creating a string of problems for the forest, for wildlife and for nearby humans. “It would most likely be catastrophic,” he said. “It really boils down to just too many trees per acre and too much fuel out there.”
A San Bernardino County firefighter looks on as the Radford fire burns on a mountainside near Big Bear on Monday, Sept. 5, 2022. That scenario has already created more frequent and more intense wildfires across the West. Collier pointed to last year’s Dixie fire as an example, which was the first in recorded history to burn from one side of the Sierra Nevada to the other.
The plan also caps thinning to a maximum of 2,500 acres per year. So Collier said it’s not like 13,000 acres of forest will be transformed in a matter of months. That’s why Loren Hafen, who’s president of the tourism group Visit Big Bear, said he’s “very supportive” of the Forest Service’s plan. Kat Shay, manager of the Big Bear Trails Program with the Southern California Mountains Foundation, walks along the Woodland Trail in Big Bear, CA, on Friday, August 26, 2022.
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