Duff fires in northern CA: A tanker pilot's story from 1978

My friend, Tom Janney, wrote me a couple of days after I wrote about peat fires two weeks ago. He thought that you'd like this story that his told him, giving me permission to share this with you. Thanks Tom! He said:

Your writing about peat fires reminds me a lot of duff fires, particularly in the Northern California coastal areas. This story was related to me by my Father during his assignment in Northern California during the summer of 1978.  Dad and I only talked about it once...and that was 33 years ago, thus with age and time, I can't claim 100% accuracy

Back in 1978, my Dad was sent to Rohnerville Air Attack Base (about 100 miles South of the Cal/Oregon border, on the coast) for that fire season.  Having never been stationed that far North before, he realized it was a different world when it came to fighting fire.

As the thunderstorms would roll in off the ocean, they'd hammer the Redwood forest from the shore to about 150 miles inland.  I remember my Dad telling me of his first night of storms up there.  They woke him up about Midnight and continued for a good 2 or 3 hours, then subsided and cleared out.  Still in the SoCal mode of thinking, he was at the airport shortly before sunrise, ready to fly.  After about a 3 hour wait, everyone slowly started flowing onto the base.  At first, Dad had a hard time comprehending why there was no immediate action like there was down South.  Welcome to duff fire.

As the coastal moisture and daily rain keeps the top 12 -18 inches of soil wet and damp pretty constantly, everything below that is dry.  When I say everything below, I'm talking in feet - sometimes maybe 30 or 40 feet.  Duff is the accumulation of Pine needles under the trees that pile up over time.  As they eventually start to mulch out, the Pine oil that is resident within the needles themselves leaches out and forms in little pockets that crystallizes.  As the lightning strikes the trees, most of the electrical charge follows the sap down to the roots and discharges there.  I think you see where this is going!

Anyhow, the morning after these thunderstorms, usually an air attack or spotter plane will fly a certain route through the inland forest range, noting the smokes on the ground.  The lumber companies paid for these flights to keep check on their harvest areas.  Unless there was visible flame, nothing was ever done...as the fire was burning deep down in the duff.  Duff fires usually put themselves out over the course of a day or two, so there was not an immediate rush to scramble tankers or ground crews.  Occasionally, a lightning strike would drop a limb or two and ignite the top layer of duff.  One or two tanker drops and it was a done deal.  Fires burn very slow in that area.  I don't think Dad ever got over how slow everyone reacted to reports of fire up there.  A call would come in, notes and location were written down...and the feet would go back up on top of the desk.  Not moving from the office chair, the base Captain would look up at the map on the wall and study it for a few minutes.  "We'll check it out after lunch" was a common ritual.

Dad enjoyed his one season up there.  Clean air, good fishing and wonderful people, but he asked that he never get sent there again.  It was just too slow of a pace for him.  Tactics have changed over time, as well as equipment, however, it's still a slower paced response than most anywhere else.  I think the one thing that bothered him the most, was the Redwood harvesting.  When you drive up US Hwy 1, all you see for miles are these stately Redwoods, towering over everything.  From the air, the forest only exists for about a quarter mile off the highway and is non-existent from there.  Clear-cutting had stripped a lot of forest that was hundreds of years old to nothing but bare land.  A year or two after the cut, they'd come back in and replant certain areas, while letting nature take it's course in others.  With the advent of Google Earth, the scars on the land are evident yet today.  Most of the lumber companies have shut down or relocated to another State, as logging regulations haves changed since 1978.  Eventually, the forest will grow back and duff fires will be someone else's problem - in about 100 years or so.