Good Fire/Bad Fire, But Smoke is Smoke

Last month, Dr. Anita Oberholster and colleagues at the University of California, Davis, were handed a check for $1,205,966 to continue their research into the impact of wildland smoke on wine grapes.

With climate change, wildland fires in California have become more common and fierce, with smoke from the blazes insinuating itself among vineyards, contaminating ripening grapes.

This impact often carries over into wine crushed from the grapes, sometimes so severely that vintners abandon hopes of bottling and selling their wines.

Thus, researchers at UC Davis and elsewhere continue to probe how smoke influences fruit and what steps farmers and winemakers can take to prevent or alleviate the issue.

But while one branch of government is attempting to help vintners get a handle on this challenge – the $1.2 million check given Dr. Oberholster is from the federal government – another branch of government is alarming farmers and winemakers.

That would be the State of California, specifically CalFire, the agency charged with snuffing fires, not customarily setting them.

Yet, that’s what CalFire is doing in the Sierra foothills, even though grapes continue to mature on vines, exposing them to smoke from the blazes. Last week, a CalFire crew set ablaze about 125 acres of brush and grass just outside of Fiddletown in Amador County, an area with several vineyards nearby. “Smoke will be visible in the area,” said a CalFire press release.

The intent of the proscribed burn was to eliminate fuel and enhance fire protection, and no one in the area, including farmers and vintners, has an argument with that. They would rather see fire crews help prevent uncontrolled burns than scramble to contain them.

Nonetheless, the timing could have been more thoughtful. Up to this point, 2023 has been a fairly favorable year for growing grapes in Amador County. A wet winter was followed by a cool spring, in turn followed by a relatively gentle and constant summer, segueing into a dry and balmy fall, allowing grapes to mature without the usual heat spikes that can turn juicy berries into raisins.

And in contrast to the past few years, smoke from wildland fires hadn’t much intruded into North State vineyards.

Granted, growers are having their challenges, but overall the quality of grapes picked so far is generating excitement among vintners that vintage 2023 could be an exceptional.

Their biggest concern is how long this already long growing season will extend. Continuing cool temperatures and chances for fall rains could leave grapes not mature enough or pure enough to harvest.

And then along came CalFire. The smoke that the agency predicted would be visible indeed did materialize, alarming not only growers but Fiddletown residents who had little warning that a control burn was scheduled in the area. Over the past decade, the sight and smell of smoke has come to signify that evacuation could be in order.

“I understand the need to do controlled burns, but that one (last week) in Fiddletown did seem insane – so close to harvest, so close to vineyards, over 100 acres burned,” said Mara Feeney, who tends two acres of Zinfandel grapes at Fiddletown.

She had finished harvesting her grapes a few days before the prescribed burn, so her yield was unaffected, but she was an exception, noting that picking had not yet commenced at most vineyards in the area. “From what I have gathered from the latest UC Davis research, grapes are most vulnerable to smoke taint from fire that ignited close to the site and recently. Three-day-old smoke blowing in from a faraway source is of much less concern. So, vineyardists in the Fiddletown area are right to be concerned and angry. It seems CalFire could select a burn site further from wine-grape country this time of year.”

Another Fiddletown grower, Bill Easton, had yet to start harvesting his 25 acres of grapes when the fire was set. He hasn’t’ determined whether smoke from the fire adversely affected his crop, but he doubts that it did, given that clusters weren’t long exposed and that the smoke wasn’t especially thick.

Nonetheless, he wishes CalFire would have delayed the burn until deeper into fall, the longtime customary practice of ranchers in the area who traditionally clear and stack brush but wait until later in the season or into winter before setting the piles ablaze.

CalFire, he noted, can’t always limit a control burn to a defined area. “They can get away from them,” said Easton of control burns. “They weren’t very considerate of other peoples’ livelihoods.”

Also of concern to Easton was the lack of widespread advance notice concerning the control burn.

For their part, CalFire officials say that while a control burn may be scheduled for a specific time and day they don’t always proceed, given that weather conditions, winds in particular, can affect plans virtually at the last minute.

“We post notification of a burn 24 to 48 hours (before) on our social-media platforms, as well as send an electronic newsletter with details to the media and to anyone in the county who requests to be on the distribution list,” says Wendy Oaks, public information officer for CalFire’s Amador-El Dorado Unit. (Anyone who wants to be notified of scheduled control burns via email can sign up for CalFire alerts by sending their email address to calfireaeupio@fire.ca.gov.)

“We understand the importance of the grape-growing season, so in the future we will do our part to ensure that the Amador Winegrowers Association is notified of prescribed burns in the area,” she added.

Last week’s burn at Fiddletown was on a ranch that has been involved in CalFire’s “vegetation management project” for nearly a decade. Such projects aim to eliminate fuel and create fire breaks. In each of the past two years, said CalFire officials, breaks on the ranch stopped wildfires from reaching Fiddletown proper.

They gave no indication that they will alter their future schedule to avoid control burns while grapes remain hanging.

For Fiddletown growers with grapes still unharvested, however, CalFire officials said they won’t be doing any more control burns in the area this year.