OUTCOME: Community Health and Safety

Problem

Hazardous fuel loading and expanded development in the WUI, combined with changing climate conditions, increase the probability of wildfires destroying homes and communities. Firelines created during wildfire response, while critical to protecting homes, communities, and people, often create long term impacts, and fail to provide the benefits that pre-planned fuel breaks can provide.

Solution

Fuel Breaks - Develop effective, multi-benefit buffers and fuel breaks around vulnerable communities.

Background and Context

Increasing wildfire risk and expanding development in the WUI heighten the probability of wildfires destroying homes and communities, as demonstrated by an ever-longer list of recent fires from 2017 to the current fire season.  While trying to stop or slow fires and protect homes and communities, firefighters often create temporary bulldozer lines. Creating these fire breaks or fire lines may be necessary, but can be costly and time consuming, and often creates permanent scars in the landscape that are vulnerable to erosion and increase sediment delivery to streams and sensitive areas. To prevent erosion, dirt and brush are often pulled back over the fire breaks, which can create a brush trail that travels for miles and has the potential to be a fire carrier or wick during future events.

Permanent fuel breaks, including shaded fuel breaks and meadow restoration, can be strategically located based on topography, accessibility, and other factors, improve access for firefighters, reduce the cost of fire suppression, and make it easier to protect both human communities and the landscape. Fuel breaks can be one type of Potential Control Line (PCL) identified as part of Potential Operational Delineations (PODs) planning (Hersey & Barros, 2022). Fuel breaks around vulnerable communities can help firefighters stop wildfires from destroying homes and infrastructure, in part by providing areas where defensive action can be taken more effectively. For example, during Sonoma County’s 2019 Kincade Fire, firefighters were able to use the open space provided by Foothill Regional Park and the greenbelt/community separator to stop the fire from overrunning the Town of Windsor.

Creating and expanding permanent fuel breaks around vulnerable communities is one way to reduce (but not eliminate) the threat of wildfires destroying homes and infrastructure. Fuel breaks can be designed and implemented as multi-benefit buffers that offer multiple values to local communities when not being used during a wildfire, and avoid the negative impacts that can be associated with traditional fire breaks. Cultivated or grazed agricultural lands, riparian corridors, ridgetop meadows, grasslands, parks, and greenbelts can all operate as fuel breaks in the midst of an active wildfire. During the rest of the year they can provide habitat, biodiversity conservation, recreational opportunities, local food and agricultural products, and protection of groundwater and surface water. Fuel breaks can be created within community separators or around urban growth boundaries, where these exist.

Recommendations

NCRP will continue to sponsor and facilitate PODs workshops so that local communities can apply local knowledge and expertise, including Indigenous knowledge and practice and TEK to the design of PODs and fuel breaks to protect local communities (See NCRP Strategic Fire Planning and Modeling Demonstration Project). NCRP will continue to identify vulnerable communities (See QWRA and CAR assessments) and conduct spatial analysis to determine the appropriate placement of multi-benefit buffers and fuel breaks (See PODs assessment), considering local data and recommendations in the analysis. The MTF assessment will help determine where mechanical treatment is feasible to create fuel breaks or whether other types of treatment are more appropriate. Identifying a network of critical fuel breaks at the regional scale will help prevent wildfires from impacting communities.

Based on these assessments, regional partners will need to use a variety of tools to create fuel breaks in identified areas depending on land ownership and current management. These may include purchase of conservation easements, brush clearing, thinning and maintenance, tree removal, reintroduction of beneficial fire, habitat restoration, incentivizing and supporting agricultural operations (i.e., grazing and cultivation), and/or the development of appropriate land management plans for federal, state, county, or locally owned and managed lands around vulnerable communities (See Ecosystem Restoration – Land Conservation Solution).

Actions

  • Review community-level fuel breaks prioritized in existing CWPPs.
  • Review CAL FIRE’s Unit Fire Plans.
  • Review fuel break/landscape restoration projects created/planned by federal land managers, timber companies, NGOs, and other land managers.
  • Identify natural landscape features that can serve as fuel breaks (or could with restoration, like ridgetop meadows).
  • Develop region-wide tracking of existing and planned fuel break projects and prioritize plans to fill gaps in vulnerable areas.
  • Engage with fire protection partners (CAL FIRE, USFS, Tribes, local fire departments), land conservation organizations, and agricultural organizations on review of above analyses and planning of fuel breaks and PODs.
  • Evaluate past fire perimeters and recently burned areas to determine whether they can be incorporated into the network of critical fuel breaks and maintained as fuel breaks using prescribed fire.

  • Explore, review, and/or develop a suite of tools to facilitate fuel break implementation, including park/open space management plans, landowner outreach and participation models, prioritization of conservation easements, local government land use planning policies, etc.
  • Evaluate ways to reduce negative impacts of fuel breaks (i.e., erosion/sedimentation, conduit for invasive weeds/brush) while maintaining positive benefits.
  • Develop a model conservation easement template that addresses the multi-benefit buffer concept (i.e., purchase development rights, active management of ladder fuels, expansion of wetlands and riparian corridors, grazing and cultivation, minimize access in fire prone areas, increase firefighting access).
  • Vet suite of tools with fire protection partners (CAL FIRE, USFS, Tribes, local fire departments), land conservation organizations, and agricultural organizations.

  • Use the NCRP Project Tracker to track completed, in progress, and planned projects to help identify gaps and proactively engage these communities with technical support, funding, etc.
  • Develop detailed site-specific implementation plans for each identified community fuel break in identified gap areas, and assist with planning, permitting, and implementation if needed.
  • Develop site-specific land management plans that incorporate private landowner and community monitoring and maintenance.

  • Grant funding for implementation should prioritize use of local crews and other resources (i.e., link to workforce development/job training programs, local qualified contractor’s pools, Stewardship contracts, etc.)
  • Grant funding should be provided to maintain fuel breaks using appropriate tools (i.e., prescribed fire, grazing, mechanical maintenance, etc.)

Engage in community outreach to build understanding of function and benefits of fuel breaks and support for their development and expansion. Engage community members in monitoring and maintenance where appropriate.

References and Resources

Solution: »