OUTCOME: Fire Resilient Forests

Problem

Forest management over the past century has transformed most North Coast forests from their natural fire-adapted, fire-resilient state. Today's forests include dense, overcrowded stands that are less healthy and more vulnerable to uncharacteristic large wildfires and other impacts from climate change, such as drought, pests, and diseases.

Solution

Fuel Management - Design and implement hazardous fuel management projects to improve forest ecosystem function and protect communities most at risk from wildfire.

Background and Context

North Coast forests have experienced more than a century of fire exclusion and the preferential harvesting of the largest, most commercially-viable and fire-resistant trees followed by replanting with dense, monoculture conifer plantations. These factors have contributed to increased fire severity and altered ecosystem structure and function, along with decreased forest resilience and fire-dependent biodiversity. Risk of uncharacteristic, high-severity fire affecting large areas of the landscape is exacerbated by drought, longer dry seasons, rising temperatures, disease, insect infestation and invasive species, all of which contribute to increased vulnerability of forests and other landscapes. Protecting communities requires community and home hardening and hazardous fuel management in the WUI (See Community Health & Safety Outcome), as well as restoring forest ecosystem processes and functions, leading to healthier forests and more resilient landscapes. The RFFC program is funding the prioritization and planning of such treatments at the regional level. There is now an opportunity to create a North Coast-specific focus for funding agencies to scale up and deliver effective outcomes for forests and communities.

While appropriate fuel treatments must increase rapidly in pace, scope, and scale to treat hazardous fuels, they must also be planned and implemented to preserve and enhance ecosystem structure and function and to facilitate the retention of carbon stored in forests. If strategically implemented, the potential trade-off to initial short term net carbon losses associated with fuel reduction treatments is typically a decreased risk of future high-severity wildfire and its associated release of carbon to the atmosphere (Hurteau & North, 2010). As recent research makes clear, no single treatment type can solve the hazardous fuels problem: a combination of manual thinning, mechanical thinning, prescribed fire, managed fire, restoration of hardwood ecosystems, and other practices will be required to create landscapes that are more resilient and fire-adapted, and treated areas must be restored to a regular low-intensity fire regime through regular maintenance and re-treatment (Taylor et al 2022). Human communities and the landscapes surrounding them will benefit from reducing large, damaging wildfire’s worst effects while supporting the beneficial uses of fire to improve ecosystem processes and functions. Healthy forests also maintain and enhance air and water quality, sequester and store carbon, and support gathering and consumption of local subsistence foods, Tribal cultural uses, recreation, and local economies.

Case Study – Grazing as a Fuel Management Tool

“The single most important thing that can be done right now is to identify the two most likely high-consequence weather event scenarios for each community in the region. Then reconstruct Indigenous fire regimes within a 2-mile radius of these communities or neighborhood clusters that align with such events. Some of this will require type conversions where conifer encroachment has altered conditions conducive of maintaining Indigenous fire regimes (i.e. oak woodlands, historic meadow complexes, etc.).”

– Bill Tripp, Karuk Tribe Department of Natural Resources

Recommendations

NCRP will work with regional partners to prioritize strategic landscape-scale projects across property and jurisdictional boundaries for funding and implementation, coordinating multiple landowners across land ownership classes with similar or complimentary goals. Projects will be prioritized using the regional prioritization process described in the Adaptive Planning & Prioritization Framework and the data from the completed Regional Assessments to determine where hazardous fuel treatments will be most effective. A significant priority will be establishing strategic fuel breaks along PODs boundaries and around communities at risk, utilizing the most appropriate and feasible fuel management tools and techniques. Fuel breaks will be designed to maintain intact forest canopies wherever ecologically appropriate (See Community Health & Safety – Fuel Breaks Solution).

Regional partners will implement projects to restore forest and landscape diversity with on-the-ground hazardous fuel reduction and forest restoration treatments to enhance and maintain ecosystem resilience and function across North Coast landscapes. Regional partners will implement projects that are adaptively managed to increase ecological resilience and reduce risks to communities and watersheds. Wherever possible and appropriate, projects will be designed and implemented in partnership with local Tribes. For public lands, projects can integrate long-term crowd-sourced monitoring of local ecosystems by community members to facilitate understanding and a vested interest for neighbors to ensure ongoing project maintenance and thereby meet goals of wildfire hazard reduction, ecological resilience, and community protection.

Priority hazardous fuel reduction and forest restoration projects will protect high-value conservation areas as climate refugia and elements of long-term landscape diversity and resilience. Projects will focus on fuel management practices that will build landscape heterogeneity and reduce ladder fuels, so that when wildfires do occur, they are less intense, have beneficial ecological outcomes, and are easier to control when they occur near communities. When fuels are not at hazardous levels, fires that occur naturally away from human communities can be managed for ecosystem benefits at the discretion of fire managers.

Actions

  • Use the appropriate treatment or combination of treatments for each project area based on the best available data, science, and Indigenous knowledge and TEK: prescribed fire, mechanical thinning, grazing, etc.
  • Use treatments to diversify stand structure where appropriate. For example, Individuals, Clumps, and Openings (ICO) patterns can mimic natural disturbance patterns.
  • Where appropriate, identify treatment prescriptions to reduce surface and ladder fuels, raise canopy base height, and reduce canopy density, which can modify wildland fire behavior.
  • Retain ecologically and culturally valuable fire-resilient trees.
  • Include strategies to maintain species diversity and resilience at the landscape and eco-region scales, such as replanting with genetically appropriate seedlings and restoring and/or protecting climate refugia and high-conservation value microsites.
  • Consider prescriptions that may increase summer water yield in high elevation areas where snow pack is a primary form of precipitation and runoff.
  • Follow mechanical treatments with beneficial fire (prescribed, cultural, and/or managed) and/or grazing whenever possible to manage regrowth and retain beneficial treatment effects.
  • Prioritize restoration of meadows and fire-resilient wooded meadows where appropriate.

Support regional partners to engage landowners in priority treatment areas to actively manage and restore their forests and conduct cross-boundary treatment and management activities (see UCCE Forest Stewardship Workshops for an example of a high-quality training program).

Advocate for policies that support fire managers’ decisions to use managed fire for resource benefits under appropriate circumstances.

  • Fund and provide technical support as needed for the development of Tribal Ecocultural Plans, Climate Adaptation Plans, etc.

  • Coordinate and review SOPAs from CAL FIRE, CalTrans, and other federal and state agencies. Co-develop SOPAs and multi-organizational programs of work to align with Tribal priorities.

Continue to share latest research on forest restoration, fuel reduction, and forest health best practices at stand, forest, and landscape levels, through workshops, an online toolbox and library, and community peer-learning opportunities.

  • Include evaluating prescribed fire, ecologically appropriate prescribed grazing, and other potential maintenance methods.
  • Engage college students, community groups, volunteers, high school and certificate program students, interns, and others in monitoring, using appropriate handheld technology.
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