Carr Fire draws Trump's Cabinet secretaries; one wearing special socks

The Carr Fire is not only drawing worldwide attention to the North State, it's brought three members of President Trump's Cabinet here since Friday.

Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke spent his second day in Shasta County on Monday when he was joined by Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue. On Friday it was Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen's turn to visit and describe how the federal government can help fire victims.

"I just really am grateful for the attention the secretaries here as well as Secretary Nielsen from homeland security have paid to this area in the last few days," Rep. Doug LaMalfa said Monday at the U.S. Forest Service Northern Operations Center next to the Redding Municipal Airport.

Zinke spent Sunday touring Redding-area residential areas hit by the Carr Fire and also saw first-hand the devastation caused at Whiskeytown National Recreation Area. On Monday, he met with state and federal officials who are leading the battle against the wildland blaze along with legislators, city of Redding and Shasta County officials.

"Certainly you learn a lot more coming to the front line than in Washington, D.C.," Zinke said.

He was amazed at how a powerful firestorm in the Keswick area destroyed a high-voltage tower that was built to withstand 200 mph winds.

"It was picked up, removed out of the foundations and crumpled like an aluminum can," Zinke said. "The speed of which this fire occurred at some locations was unprecedented ... and I've seen a lot of fires."

At a Redding roundtable, Perdue and Zinke vowed to trim the federal bureaucracy's red tape to accomplish several legislative goals in the fire's aftermath. One is to work in cooperation with other government agencies and private industry to remove timber through salvage operations at burned areas without attracting lawsuits from environmental groups.

Another goal is to replant trees and restore watersheds before erosion can take a toll.

The ultimate goal is to work toward more prescribed burns and forest thinning so dense forests don't pose such tinderbox conditions going forward.

"These are tragedies that we've got to learn from — what can we do differently, what can we do better and how can we prevent these kinds of things in the future," Perdue said.

He said many people misunderstand what forest management is all about. "We're not talking about clear-cutting," he said.

Making a forest less susceptible to massive wildfires involves tree-thinning operations and prescribed burns during safe times of the year.

"It's good for recreation. It's good for hiking. It's good for wildlife. It's good for water quality and it's good also for the economy, for the mills and the jobs that depend on harvesting coming from our federal lands," Perdue said.

"How did we get here?" Zinke asked.

Drought created arid conditions and temperatures are rising whether they're cyclic or not, he said.

"You have (forest) density. You have beetle kill. You have dead and dying timber and you have higher, elevated temperatures. Those combined to form a 200,000-acre-plus fire," Zinke said.

The agriculture secretary noted how intense forest fires have come in cycles the past century during what he called a climate change. Millions of acres of forest land burned from 1920 to 1945, then he said there was a cooling-off period until about 1980 when fires returned with a vengeance.

"Has it happened before — yes and we need to do the things that we all know to do to make sure this doesn't devastate other communities like this area of Northern California," Perdue said.

Interior Secretary Zinke said Northern California residents should be fishing, hiking, mountain biking and enjoying the rivers on public lands during the summer.

"We should be re-creating, not evacuating."

Zinke's socks

The interior secretary wore socks Monday that depicted former president Ronald Reagan, also the former governor of California.

Zinke said he wore them in honor of Reagan because he was in California.

The day before, on Sunday, Zinke wore salmon socks, said his deputy press secretary, Alex Hinson.

"He loves fun socks," Hinson said.

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