{"id":19975,"date":"2014-05-15T06:34:31","date_gmt":"2014-05-15T11:34:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=19975"},"modified":"2014-05-15T06:38:54","modified_gmt":"2014-05-15T11:38:54","slug":"drought-and-passive-landowners-add-fuel-to-oklahomas-burning-red-cedar-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2014\/05\/15\/drought-and-passive-landowners-add-fuel-to-oklahomas-burning-red-cedar-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"Drought and Passive Landowners Add Fuel to Oklahoma’s Burning Red Cedar Problem"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Billy<\/p>\n

Joe Wertz \/ StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n

Billy Hays in the cab of a Bobcat, which Oklahoma County modified to cut and shred Eastern Red Cedars.<\/p>\n<\/div>

The eastern red cedar tree causes allergies, crowds out other species, guzzles water, and fuels Oklahoma\u2019s most devastating wildfires, including one near Guthrie last week<\/a>.<\/p>

And lengthy drought has intensified the problem. But eliminating the tree is complicated by the passive attitude of many landowners, and a state forestry service with little authority.<\/p>

Red cedars used to be kept in check by natural fires and Native Americans doing controlled burns across large swaths of land. Things have changed since statehood. Kurt Atkinson with Oklahoma Forestry Services:<\/p>

\u201cWith settlements, people started building homes, and improvements to the landscape,\u201d Atkinson says. \u201cAnd fire control \u2014 was one of the first things they try to get a handle on is suppressing more fires.\u201d<\/p>

Our focus on preventing fires helped spread the very trees that pose such a high fire risk today. And Atkinson says drought makes red cedars even more dangerous.<\/p>

\u201cThose trees are going to burn much more readily and hotter than they would under normal conditions. And that\u2019s typically where you see the embers carried much farther \u2014 when the fuel is very dry and the wind is high,\u201d Atkinson says.<\/p>

The latest data from the Noble Foundation<\/a> show the number of acres covered by red cedar increased more than 5 times between 1950 and 2002, from 1.5 million acres to 8 million. Atkinson disputes those numbers, and says the forestry service is conducting more research now. Still, he says there\u2019s no doubt red cedars are spreading. The remedy seems simple: Do what we used to do \u2014 more controlled burns, or cut the trees down.<\/p>\n

\"Homeowner<\/a><\/p>\n

Joe Wertz \/ StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n

Homeowner Larry Huff holds a shard of Eastern Red Cedar, the handiwork of an Oklahoma County program that clears the flammable tree from private property.<\/p>\n<\/div>

\u201cPrescribed burning is no longer a viable option,\u201d Atkinson says.<\/p>

Oklahoma isn\u2019t a vast, open prairie anymore. Homes, businesses, and croplands prevent large-scale burns. And there are burn bans in effect<\/a>. So how about cutting red cedars down? Atkinson says some property owners just don\u2019t care enough about the issue.<\/p>

\u201cAnd so they\u2019ll build a home or put in a house trailer in an area that may be infested with cedar,\u201d Atkinson says. \u201cUnless they\u2019re taking precautions to reduce their own wildfire risk, you know, they\u2019re part of the problem.\u201d<\/p>

But cutting red cedars down is also expensive, and the state won\u2019t do it for you. There are cost-sharing programs<\/a> to help landowners remove trees, and the state forestry service maintains a database<\/a> that connects landowners with people who want<\/i> red cedar: furniture makers, home and garden suppliers, the lumber industry. But that\u2019s not enough help for people like eastern Oklahoma County\u2019s Larry Huff.<\/p>

\u201cWe\u2019ve lived in constant fear of a fire breaking out,\u201d Huff says as he walks across his heavily cedared acreage in eastern Oklahoma County. \u201cAnd we\u2019ve been able to step out on our back porch and see the flames. They were that close to us.\u201d<\/p>

A county worker is using a modified Bobcat to violently shred every red cedar on Larry Huff\u2019s property in eastern Oklahoma County. The driver, Billy Hayes, looks satisfied as he lowers himself from the cab. He likes being the one-man defense force against the spread of red cedar in his county.<\/p>

\u201cI just do it one tree at a time. I told them I could stop a red cedar from a mile away,\u201d Hayes says.\u201d<\/p>

The county is footing the bill for Huff\u2019s red cedar removal through a community service program County Commissioner Brian Maughan started a few years ago. Start Helping Impacted Neighborhoods Everywhere<\/a>, or SHINE, recruits high school students to clean up their cities, helps divert offenders into community service, and funds red cedar removals.<\/p>

\u201cIt\u2019s been a real parasite on our land,\u201d Maughan says. \u201cIt\u2019s not just the fire hazard that we\u2019ve seen this last week. On a daily basis they\u2019re out there sucking down the water table.\u201d<\/p>

But finding enough money to meet demand in the long-term is a challenge. He says a bill<\/a> that would\u2019ve let counties use state bridge and road money for projects, like his red cedar eradication program, was vetoed last month by Governor Mary Fallin. And since the fires near Guthrie last week, the public response has been overwhelming.<\/p>

\u201cWe are taking literally hundreds of requests per day. That\u2019s going to create quite a little backlog, and we\u2019re going to have to chisel through this list, but we will eventually get to them,\u201d Maughan says.<\/p>

In the meantime, fire season is just getting started.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Red cedars used to be kept in check by natural fires and Native Americans doing controlled burns across large swaths of land. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":19976,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[491],"tags":[579,423,616,427],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19975"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19975"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19998,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19975\/revisions\/19998"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}