A Conversation with UCCE Forester Michael Jones

Introducing Mike Jones!

Mike Jones is the University of California Cooperative Extension’s Forest Advisor for Mendocino County, a founding member and Chair of the Mendocino County Prescribed Burn Association (MCPBA) – and a member of our Board of Directors.

As a Forest Advisor, it is no surprise that Mike loves spending time outside in the woods during his free time. His favorite spot in the County is anywhere along the coast, under redwood trees, where he can look out at the ocean. 

Mike believes that MCFSC is one of the best organizations he has worked with. As a board member, he hopes to bring new research and information to MCFSC from UC, especially on best-management practices and strategies for home hardening, defensible space, and beyond defensible space. He hopes to help build our capacity to do more work on a landscape level, as well as fostering collaboration between us and other organizations.

I asked Mike about prescribed burning in Mendocino County, and whether he could assuage the fears of residents who become understandably nervous whenever they see smoke. I said that residents are still very afraid of any burning, including intentional prescribed burns. Mike replied that we live in a fire-adapted ecosystem where fire is inevitable. In regards to smoke, a relatively small amount of smoke from a prescribed vegetation burn is preferable to the uncontrolled and often toxic smoke from burning structures in a wildfire. He emphasized the importance of returning fire to our ecosystem. Wildfires have always been part of this ecosystem—it has adapted accordingly, and it’s up to us to do the same. 

We as a society need to adapt to fire, and try to find the beauty in a burn. Prescribed burning and low-intensity fires, for example, do not lead to significant tree-mortality events. We can appreciate the aesthetic of trees that have survived a fire and have blackened bark that will wash away and the vegetation that will green up after the rains return. 

Wildfire is a natural disturbance, and we are beginning to realize that it is now our job to return it to our ecosystem. I asked Mike how putting “good fire” back on the ground is good stewardship, as I had always heard that it is important to be a good steward of the land. Mike talked about how humans, specifically indigenous peoples, have been managing the lands we now call home for about 20,000 years, and that fire-suppression efforts in the past 150 years have had a substantial negative impact on the ecosystem. We have a choice right now to reverse our actions and renew that stewardship. He noted that research shows that doing nothing is not a good strategy, and that fire suppression is a failed experiment. We cannot remove all disturbances like wildfire; we have to focus on moving forward from where we are now.

So how do we move forward at this point, with so much to be done? I asked Mike if he saw a future where we use fire as a tool at the scale that will be necessary. He believes that it will be challenging, but not impossible. Prescribed Burn Associations like our own MCPBA  help to make prescribed burning much more navigable for private landowners. We also need more trained professionals with more capacity to achieve landscape-level benefits, and more groups responsibly putting fire on the ground.

As a UC forester, research and information are integral to Mike’s work, and he says research can help determine the optimal burn windows at different times of the year. He is working with CAL FIRE  to establish long-term studies at Jackson Demonstration State Forest to learn how to apply the tools we have, such as fire, in a redwood ecosystem, and the best management practices for stewarding redwoods. 

Also important for getting this work done is organizing community—and that is exactly what a Prescribed Burn Association does. He says it is important for county residents to connect with their local PBA, which is a grassroots community group in which neighbors help neighbors put good fire on the ground. PBAs create and host group events where anyone can sign up and join and observe. They offer training and learning opportunities to help each other carry on the important work of returning good fire to their lands and communities. He also adds that PBAs only do burns with proper permitting required, and always keep an eye on optimal burning conditions. It is a safe practice, and a necessary one.

Mike Jones wants to highlight that he and the MCPBA have been doing amazing prescribed-burn work in the Anderson Valley, in conjunction with Anderson Valley Fire Chief Andres Avila, who has helped create the capacity for a lot of work in that area. MCPBA is also working in the Hopland area. But they acknowledge that so much more needs to be done, requiring more professionals and others to do on-the-ground burning. It is a growing field with a lot of need and potential. 

If you want to learn more about Mike Jones and the work of Prescribed Burn Associations, you can visit https://calpba.org and https://cemendocino.ucanr.edu/FireResources/PrescribedFire/. You can reach out to him via email at mjones@ucanr.edu. 

Mike Jones, welcome to the MCFSC team!