The surprising news in an update on wildfire readiness in East Hampton Town at Tuesday’s town board meeting was that trees felled by the southern pine beetle are not top of mind for fire experts who are assessing the town’s fire risk.
“What drives fire is the fine fuels, the little needles,” said John Wernet, a regional forester with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. “Large dead standing trees, slash on the ground, don’t drive the fire. In fact, when the fire hits that, it stops.”
Nonetheless, New York State is experiencing a high risk of fire danger because of persistent dry conditions.
On March 8, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a proclamation instituting a burn ban that includes the “open burning of debris and brush,” until May 14. The ban doesn’t apply to grills or to “contained campfires less than three feet in height and four feet in length, width or diameter if contained in a fireplace, hibachi, or fire ring.”
Mr. Wernet told the board that wildfire experts classify fuels into three categories based on how quickly they dry and ignite. Grass and pine needles are considered one-hour fuels that can propel fast-moving fires. “Big stands of dead trees or slash piles are thousand-hour fuels. It’ll hit that and just smolder. It won’t burn. It doesn’t add much to the fire risk.”
In fact, the trees that burned in Westhampton were mostly dwarf pines, he said, not the pitch pines that have been the host of the beetle. “The pine beetle typically attacks much larger trees. We haven’t had an outbreak in the dwarf pines. The pine beetle did not add to the fire risk in that situation.”
“It could have been much more catastrophic,” he said, adding that approximately 450 acres of state and county land burned of the total 600 acres impacted. “That ecosystem is fire-dependent. It burns and looks catastrophic, but that is what that ecosystem evolved with. In a few months it’ll green up and then in coming years you’ll almost not even know it happened. It’s scary, but that’s part of living in the pine barrens.” It’s been 30 years since the 1995 Sunrise wildfires in the area.
“Like many of you, I spent the weekend watching the coverage on Channel 12 and it was a tense and difficult situation,” said Town Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez. “It’s a reminder of how we need to stay prepared. That’s why on Monday I brought together officials from our Police Department, fire marshal’s office, and emergency preparedness team in Land Acquisition and Management to assess our fire risks and discuss ways to strengthen our prevention efforts.”
Andy Drake, a senior environmental analyst in the Land Acquisition Department, said that while the town properties that have been managed for the pine beetle look aesthetically unpleasant, “It’s nice to know and I feel reassured that piles on the ground would rather stop a fire than add fuel to the fire. Rather than leaving dead standing trees, we are putting material on the ground to further degrade and break down.” While they were not felled or managed with fire risk in mind, it was a secondary outcome of managing for pine beetle suppression.
He said that since 2017 when the beetle was first discovered at the Curtis Preserve on Red Spring Path, 22,725 pitch pines had been cut. “We used the method of ‘cut and leave,’ which was advised by the D.E.C., and originally, they hoped to stop the spread eastward. By 2021, when a couple hundred trees were found infested on Napeague and it was clear the beetle was advancing, the focus changed from suppression to hazard management, specifically removing trees that were threatening homes, roads, or trails.” In addition the Land Acquisition Department has “planted over 2,000 trees in the Northwest Woods area to repopulate our pine forests.”
Town Councilman Tom Flight said that on town-owned properties officials have worked to answer the following questions to assess fire risk: Where is the fire load? How close is it to houses? What infrastructure, including available hydrants, does the town have to combat fire? He said if a fire broke out and the town didn’t have the necessary resources, first it would reach out to the county and then to the state.
Councilman Flight said a fire in the Hither Hills/Walking Dunes area in 2022 helped the town understand what resources were needed to fight relatively remote brush fires. “Trash pumps” for one, which are able to pump water that contains solid debris, are important, and bulldozers. However, the town owns neither, so communicating such needs to the county and state is critical.
Felled pitch pines, while perhaps not great kindling, make reaching fires difficult. However, ensuring access by clearing paths for brush trucks and ensuring firefighter safety takes time. Mr. Flight said he understood the anxiety created by the Los Angeles wildfires and Westhampton but that, “Our risk is very different based on vegetation and geography. It’s different and lower. Our woodland is a town resource. It’s also habitat. Tearing it down is something we have to be very careful about doing.”
Mr. Drake’s department uses GIS mapping to assess areas where fire risk is highest and with it, it is even able to map the location of hydrants. “We can see there are vast areas with no public water, and we’ve reached out to the Suffolk County Water Authority to increase supply,” said Councilman Flight. “They have been adding hydrants.”
David Brown, the town’s chief fire marshal, offered wildfire prevention suggestions for homeowners. While cedar shingle roofs look nice, he said, but “that’s what I use in my fireplace for tinder.” He suggested terra cotta or metal. Shrubbery shouldn’t be placed right up against a house and gutters should be cleaned. Piles of packed-down leaves are fine, but branch piles could be a risk. Importantly, he said, homeowners should consider firefighter access when designing their driveways, making them wide enough (they must be 12 feet wide according to code) to accommodate a fire truck. Further, gates could impede firefighter access.
No matter the mitigation, wildfires aren’t going away.
“It’s important to know these events are going to become more common in the coming decades,” said Mr. Wernet. Many trees on Long Island “are reaching the end of their lifetimes.”
