November. Late autumn. Deciduous trees are shedding their leaves. Winter is coming. A tiny office of Lovers of Niiharu Citizen Forest 新治市民の森 uses wood stove for heating. Lovers also have Autumn and Winter festivals for kids to play in our forest. A camp fire is always very popular. And of course, charcoal baking season is approaching rapidly. So, Lovers are checking if we have enough supply of firewood for winter. As Niiharu Forest is large, we Lovers take a sort of laid-back approach for the supply of firewood. During year-round activities, we produce lots of thinned trees and pruned boughs, you see? On the other hand, the City asks us to gather woods created by forestry as much as possible in a defined area, and waste collectors sent by the municipality regularly come to pick them up there. Majority of the woods are carried to a recycle plant next to Yokohama Zoorasia, where the thinned trees of Niiharu become wood chips for mulching in the city parks and gardens. This autumn, the collectors came early November and cleared the depo rather impressively. “Heck, we don’t have enough firewood for Kid’s Day, or for winter.”
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| We need firewood for winter! |
Luckily (or not), typhoons this September destroyed many large trees. Lovers and the City cleared them when they could threaten the safety of visitors to the Forest. The logs are still lying on the forest floor. The amount of the trees processed since September would provide enough firewood for once a week activity of Lovers? We entered in the forest to drag them out for firewood. Several tall cedar trees were broken by strong winds, and now their trunks are chopped in about 2m long with their boughs. BUT “Coniferous trees are not good. Their tissues have relatively rough texture and oily. They burn rapidly, with smoke.” “Yes, so, Naomi, collect the boughs of deciduous trees, if you can. Quercus acutissima or Quercus serrata is the best, yet we don’t have to be that picky in the end.” Roger. Coniferous trees are straight, and so their logs are simple enough to drag in the mountainous road. In contrast, deciduous trees have lots of curves and knots that could be stuck in bumps and roots of the other trees spreading over the forest floor. Tagging, lifting, tilting … dragging woods is not at all a simple activity, I tell you. That was a very good weight-lifting training!
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| An
ideal candidate to be firewood; a broadleaved tree destroyed by a typhoon. |
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| In the
end we demolished this country hedge: it was relatively drier than newly damaged trees. |
In any case, cut trees are not easy to set fire. For roughly 60 days between September and now in November, Yokohama has had rainy weather. The woods are damp and difficult to be ignited. We went in the forest of cedars to collect leaves that contain oil, i.e. suitable as tinder. Cedars shed their leaves as they grow, by dropping branches with leaves, which makes them easy to deal with for campfires. “Collect those newly dropped ones. Leave older branches on the ground. They can cover the floor and prevent run-off of the soil when it rains again.” Certainly. Actually, this task was easy compared with dragging the logs from the mountain. I recalled a description of girls’ life 100 years ago in Kanagawa Prefecture 神奈川県, reported in “Verbatim Record: traditional meal of Kanagawa Prefecture 聞き書神奈川の食事 (1992)” There, an old lady from Atsugi 厚木 described her childhood. During autumn, she entered in a forest afterschool almost daily. It was not for play. She collected fallen leaves to provide enough tinder for her household. Their activity practically cleared the forest floor to receive enough sunshine, which was ready to have spring ephemeral. Now, no one does it, and I as a Lover of Niiharu did a tiny tidying up. I don’t think mine was a match with the jobs 6 years’ olds did 100 years ago …
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| Lots of tinder in a forest floor of cedars. |
Even Niiharu Forest of rainy Yokohama has experiences of forest fires, it seems to me. About 15 years ago, the area had thunderstorm, and a lightening hit a cedar tree and ignited a fire. It did not spread much, and now a charcoal tree is standing near a trekking route of the Citizen Forest. I guess when we have lots of ever-green broad leaved trees with lots of rain like in Niiharu, the place is relatively resilient to forest fires. Though, they say if we do not manage forest properly, e.g. leaving dead trees and bushes too much, and neglect the place which invites mischiefs acting carelessly with fire, dry weather can bring a devastating fire. It happened for Gun’ma Prefecture 群馬県 in April 2014 ... Fire and woods are the things like two sides of a coin, at least for humans. Before the age of petrochemicals, one of the reasons Japanese treasured forests was as suppliers of fuel. Now in Yokohama, not many people enter forests to gather woods for fuel. Petros make forests like Disney Land, a place to visit if you want to have (mainly) passive fun for pastime. Forests are something people can think to live their life without it … Thanks to this, Japan does not have serious problem of BaP originating from burning woods for household usage (; the smog with PM2.5 from the neighboring continent is totally a different matter, as you can check it here). I found something unsettling here … Fuels, woods, neglected forests, improvement in air quality of a city … Cognitive dissonance?
Disclaimer: nobody is allowed to make fire in Yokohama’s forest, being it in a Citizen Forest or not, without a permission from the fire station in charge of the area. The Lovers of Niiharu Citizen Forest submit necessary papers and receive on-site checkings by officers. We also follow the direction of the authority to control the fire. In addition, members of the Lovers who live next to the forest join the sentry activities organized by neighborhood associations, and patrol Niiharu Citizen Forest in evenings. Preventing forest fire is one of the most important activities for this night watch. We try to be responsible about the relation between forest and fire in Niiharu Citizen Forest. I keep crossing my fingers Niiharu Forest will not have a serious fire incident …
If you find a
problem in Niiharu Forest, please make a contact with
Office for the Park Greeneries in the
North 北部公園緑地事務所
Yokohama Municipal Government
Creative Environment Policy Bureau 横浜市環境創造局
Phone: 045-311-2016
FAX: 045-316-8420
Niiharu Administrative Office /
Satoyama Exchange Center 新治管理事務所・里山交流センター
Phone: 045-931-4947
Fax: 045-937-0898
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