Consolidation in Organic Agriculture - CCOF

CALIFORNIA FIRESFire on the MountainBBefore the fire, dozens of dead or dying pine trees dotted the hillsides along the highway to the mountain resort of Julian inSan Diego County: brown, leafless poles among the green canopies of the oaks and cedars. They bore resemblance to matchsticks,and the brown grasses and undergrowth that grew under the trees and up to the roadway were the tinder that wasready to ignite and spread the costliest and most deadly fire in California history.The oaks and pines, burned in the firestorm that arbitrarily crisscrossed the roads to Julian, usually remain green throughoutthe year. Now, their color is a gray-brown with a surreal look of life to them…as if they could just blow away. Most oftheir leaves have remained intact, but it appears as if they are just ghosts. No one is able to tell if they will regenerate. No oneknows which trees will live.By Laurie CohenBailey CreekFarm’s managerRoger Sonnenbergis overwhelminglybusy. The road onwhich his farmborders wasrecently renamedRucker Ridge tohonor the fallenfirefighter whoperished trying tosave a neighbor’s residence. The homes andranches on either side of the 180 acres heoversees were destroyed. The two maindwellings on Bailey Creek were not burnedbut damages were sustained to an extensivelist of farm equipment. The fires sweptthrough the rest of the farm and wreckedhavoc and disaster on almost everything.In the low lying areas of the rolling terrainbetween the magnificent oaks of BaileyCreek, where natural grasses were tended andencouraged to grow, there is nothing butscorched earth. Tufts of white ashen moundslay scattered along the blackened grounds.Where a reforestation process was in theworks and the young pines and oaks were juststarting to create a natural look of a youngforest, many of the youthful trees are nowbrown. Roger continues to irrigate the areaand although there are tufts of new grasseswhere water flows, he is unsure if any of theburned plantings will live.On the hillsides where acres of almost 40different kinds of fruit trees are grown, therePage 14is a peculiar pattern as to how the fire burned.In the intensively planted areas where thenon-stone fruit trees are managed, the fireburned just to the fence, scorching the youngtrees around the orchard’s perimeter. One ortwo rows into the orchard where the flamesdied out from lack of ground fuel or changingwinds, the trees are still green, and readyto lose their leaves to the fall cold air. Theflames burned into the old growth trees in hislower orchard, leaving some half burned, halfstill alive.Two years ago Roger planted intensivelyalong the chain-link metal fencing, only tofind that deer could nibble the branchesgrowing through it. He installed another surroundingfence of plastic mesh, which nowhung in burned and molten drips outside themetal fence where it once was an effectivedeterrent to browsing deer.“This county is meant to burn,” Rogersays, as he looks at the area that used to holdhis farm equipment, tools and assortedmachinery. Hemisses most his“junk pile” inwhich he used tohave a largeassortment offarming supplies,machinery parts,irrigation piecesand PVC. He’s aman of few wordsnow. He can’teven describe thelosses the farm has suffered. “It’s too soon toeven think about it.”Burned or damaged beyond repair is anincredible assortment of supplies: electricallines, orchard pumps, melted irrigation lines,his spray rig, manure spreader, chipper for thecompost pile, the mower…the list grows ashe thinks...all need replacement. Damage wassustained to one of his coolers, but what wasin the newer cooler really bothered him. Itwas filled with newly harvested fruit.Forced to evacuate as the fire approachedthe farm, he rescued the endangered falconsbeing bred there and then left. The time awayfrom the farm and the power outages costhim a cooler full of fruit ready for market. Helifts the lid of one box of peaches to displaythe mold that covers everything in the box.“Everything else in here smells like mold,too.” There has been no time to clean it out.The tasks are endless, just to get back to functioningnormally. Fruit lies on the groundwhere it couldn’t be picked in the orchards.Apples that wereon the branchesof a tree againstthe perimeter ofthe orchard werebaked on thelimb.Two weeks afterthe fire, the sourand acrid smellof soot lingers inthe air through-CCOF Magazine