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.”
 |
| 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!
 |
An
ideal candidate to be firewood;
a broadleaved tree destroyed by a typhoon. |
 |
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 …
 |
| 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
