Landscape Scale

Scientific Basis for Changing Forest Structure to Modify Wildfire Behavior and Severity

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For those opposed to sound forest managements here are some more research and empirical highlights to hopefully cause you to rethink your position:

1) Science Basis for Changing Forest Structure to Modify Wildfire Behavior and Severity “General Technical Report RMRS-GTR-120” 2004 – some quotes include:
– “More than 80 years of fire research have shown that physical setting, fuels, and weather combine to determine wildfire intensity (the rate at which it consumes fuel) and severity (the effect fire has on vegetation, soils, buildings, watersheds, and so forth).”
– “Models, field observations, and experiments indicate that for a given set of weather conditions, fire behavior is strongly influenced by fuel structure and composition.” I and others have repeatedly tried to explain this to certain members of this blog
– “Models and observations of landscape scale fire behavior and the impacts of fuel treatments clearly suggest that a landscape approach is more likely to have significant overall impacts on fire spread, intensity, perimeters, and suppression capability than an approach that treats individual stands in isolation.” –> This knowledge regarding the need for a landscape approach supports my frequent statements to the effect that a matrix of stands in various forest types and age classes representative of some loose form of forest regulation will be impacted less by fire than a more homogenous forest. I also maintain that the science supports matrix management as being crucial to minimizing the risk of catastrophic losses from beetles while having less long term impact on endangered species than out of balance age class distributions.
– Echoing what BobZ says frequently on this blog, the article says: “Before Euro-American settlement, cultural burning practices of Native Americans augmented or even dominated fire regimes in many vegetation types” –> Which is the basis for Bob’s constant reminder to those opposed to sound forest management that they are greatly mistaken when they want forests returned to some state untouched by mankind.
– Please note the graph on page 5 of Report RMRS-GTR-120 agrees with my interpretation of the graphs in this NCFP Post based on an article that Sharon found in the Denver Post in spite of those who claimed that there was no cause and effect scientific basis.
– You will also find a lot of support for what LarryH, BobZ Mac, BobS, John Thomas jr., Dave Skinner  and others have reported in many comments in various posts. Unfortunately these scientific basis are often given a perfunctory dismissal by those without knowledge of the science and with an agenda opposed to sound forest management.

2) This abstract of an article titled: “Carbon protection and fire risk reduction: toward a full accounting of forest carbon offsets” from the Ecological Society of America points out that “Examining four of the largest wildfires in the US in 2002, we found that, for forest land that experienced catastrophic stand-replacing fire, prior thinning would have reduced CO2 release from live tree biomass by as much as 98%“.

3) This abstract of an article titled: “Basic principles of forest fuel reduction treatments” clearly states:
– “drier forests are in need of active management to mitigate fire hazard”
– “We summarize a set of simple principles important to address in fuel reduction treatments: reduction of surface fuels, increasing the height to live crown, decreasing crown density, and retaining large trees of fire-resistant species. Thinning and prescribed fire can be useful tools to achieve these objectives.”
– “Applying treatments at an appropriate landscape scale will be critical to the success of fuel reduction treatments in reducing wildfire losses in Western forests.“

West Bend Vegetation Project: Successful Collaboration

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west bend

Here’s a map:
west bend 2

Based on this story in the Oregonian, this effort seems to be a success, with no litigation. I wonder what lessons could be learned from this? What went right?

In 2009, Congress authorized the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Fund, providing $40 million annually through 2019 to restore national forests.

Forest Service officials on the Deschutes National Forest at first identified 150,000 acres in need of restoration and secured $1 million a year for the next 10 years for the work.

Deschutes Collaborative Forest Project Diverse forest interests come together with the help of the US Forest Service to make the Deschutes National Forest more resistant to fire, insects and disease.
Last summer, the restoration area expanded to about 257,000 acres.

The Forest Service is focusing on eight zones within the project. This month, they moved forward on the West Bend Vegetation project — 26,000 acres where mowing, thinning and prescribed burning are expected to open up the forest.

“A whole lot of people here have a whole lot of interest in that landscape,” said Kevin Larkin, the Bend/Fort Rock district ranger for the Deschutes National Forest. “It’s used all year round by a large group of recreationalists.”

“There is a high level of agreement and shared vision on Ponderosa forests,” said Phil Chang, staff coordinator for the Central Oregon Intergovernmental Council.

The council includes elected officials from three counties — Deschutes, Crook and Jefferson — and eight central Oregon cities.

The 10-year project also seeks to restore watersheds within the forest to improve fish habitat, including the re-introduction of steelhead salmon into the Deschutes basin. Roads will be decommissioned, soils improved, trails rebuilt and the planting of native plants.

Because the long-term work will have such a direct effect on users of the forest, the overall project has taken input from environmental groups, the timber community, recreationalists and business interests.

“We’ve brought them all together and they’ve come to an agreement for the most part on all aspects of the project,’’ Larkin said. “What should have been a very contentious project is going forward without litigation and broad-scale support from all these disparate groups.”

Here’s a site with the documentation. The objections can be found here . (Note to folks developing project websites.. please link directly to objections rather than have people need to go search through various years to find them.)

Clearly not everyone agreed, but no one litigated. Anyone know more about this story?

Plantation Thinning Success on the Rim Fire

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Derek tipped me off about the new BAER fire severity maps, yesterday, and I was happy to see that the efforts to thin plantations has resulted in lower fire intensities. Here is the link to both high and low resolution maps. It is not surprising that fire intensities outside of this thinning project I worked on were much higher, and I doubt that there was much survival in the unthinned plantations. Those plantations were the within the 1971 Granite Fire, and is yet another example of forest re-burn. This part of the fire has terrain that is relatively gentle, compared to the rest of the burned areas. To me, it is pretty clear that fuels modifications reduced fire intensities.

This photo below shows a boundary between burn intensities. The area east of road 2N89 was thinned and burned much cooler than the untreated areas to the west. The areas in between the plantations had moderate to high burn intensities, due to the thick manzanita and whitethorn. Those areas were left to “recover on their own”. The SPI lands did not fare as well, as they didn’t thin their plantations.

Rim-Fire-plantations

The highest burn intensities occurred in the old growth, near the Clavey River. Activists have long-cherished the areas around this river, and I am assuming that these were protected as spotted owl/goshawk PACs. As you can see, this area has very thick old growth, and it shows on the map as high intensity. This same scenario is one that Wildlife Biologists have been worrying about for many years, now. These wildlife areas have huge fuel-loading issues and choked understories. Prescribed fires cannot be safely accomplished in such areas, without some sort of fuels modifications. Last year, I worked in one unit (within an owl PAC) on the Eldorado where we were cutting trees between 10″ and 15″ dbh, so that it could be safely burned, within prescription.

Clavey-old-growth

Nearly all of the Groveland Ranger District’s old growth is now gone, due to wildfires in the last 50 years. What could we have done differently, in the last 20 years?

4FRI Contract Switched

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Forest Service announces transfer of forest restoration contract

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. – The Forest Service announced today the nation’s largest stewardship contract to treat 300,000 acres over a 10-year period as part of the Four Forest Restoration Initiative (4FRI) has been transferred from Pioneer Forest Products to Good Earth Power AZ LLC (Good Earth).

Good Earth is now contractually obligated to carry out the terms and conditions of the phase 1 4FRI stewardship contract, which involves forest restoration treatments across four National Forests in northern Arizona. The Forest Service agreed to the novation proposal submitted by Pioneer and will recognize the transfer of the contract to Good Earth as part of its larger acquisition of Pioneer’s assets.

As part of the novation process, the Forest Service determined that Good Earth is both financially and technically sound to successfully perform the terms of the existing contract, originally awarded to Pioneer in May 2012.

“As our key commitment is to people and communities, we will reinvest 50% of our profits to deliver everyday practical benefits at the local level with a focus on education and healthcare. We are very excited to get started and to make a difference,” said Good Earth’s Global CEO, Jason Rosamond.

Forest restoration treatments under the existing contract have already begun. Work is nearing completion on the first task order for the treatment of 932 acres on the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests which was issued in April 2013. The Forest Service will assess the performance of Good Earth under the contract based on the accomplishment of these and future task orders. Over the lifetime of the contract, approximately 300,000 acres will be treated.

“We are committed to the success of the Four Forest Restoration Initiative and look forward to working with Good Earth to achieve the landscape-scale results we all recognize as crucial to protecting our forests and communities,” said Cal Joyner, regional forester for the Forest Service’s Southwestern Region. “Collaboration with partners and dedication to the overarching goal of restoration are the keys to success in an effort of this magnitude.”

For those unfamiliar with the term “novation” here is a link. I have an email in to find out more about the new company.

Hooray for Transparency!

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Here is Region Five’s “Ecological Restoration Implementation Plan”. It is definitely worth a browse, especially if you are a local within or near any of these National Forests. Each Forest spells out what it is doing and what it is planning.

http://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5411383.pdf

Fuels build-up

(The picture is an old one, from fall of 2000. I had been here, salvaging bug-killed trees, in 1991. There was obviously additional mortality after that.)

From the Eldorado NF entry:

Goals include:

ŠMaintain healthy and well-distributed populations of native species through sustaining habitats associated with those species

ŠUse ecological strategies for post-fire restoration

Apply best science to make restoration decisions

ŠInvolve the public through collaborative partnerships that build trust among diverse interest groups

ŠCreate additional funding sources through partnerships

ŠIncorporate the “Triple Bottom Line” into our restoration strategy: emphasizing social, economic and ecological objectives

ŠImplement an “All lands approach” for restoring landscapes

ŠEstablish a sustainable level of recreational activities and restore landscapes affected by unmanaged recreation

ŠImplement an effective conservation education and interpretation program that promotes understanding the value of healthy watersheds and ecosystem services they deliver and support for restoration actions.

ŠImprove the function of streams and meadows

ŠRestore resilience of the Forests to wildfire, insects and disease

ŠIntegrate program funding and priorities to create effective and efficient implementation of restoration activities

ŠReduce the spread of non-native invasive species

National Forest Foundation webinar on IRR: Tuesday April 16, 2013

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NFF logo(mastr) RGB-smMarek Smith posted this as a comment, but I thought it might be overlooked .. here goes:

Upcoming National Forest Foundation webinar on IRR, for those interested.

U.S. Forest Service Integrated Resource Restoration: Regional Updates
Tuesday, April 16th, 2013 | 2:00-4:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time

We invite you to join us for an “Integrated Resource Restoration Update.” In this session, Forest Service leadership and staff from the pilot regions will share information about:
• The Integrated Resource Restoration (IRR) pilot program in Forest Service Regions 1, 3, and 4
• Fiscal year 2012 pilot program implementation –achievement of restoration goals, administrative efficiency, and program integration
• How community interests and partners can engage in the IRR process
• Next steps for IRR implementation
Click below to RSVP for the upcoming peer learning session on Integrated Resource Restoration!

http://www.nff.wildapricot.org/Default.aspx?pageId=471105&eventId=616595&EventViewMode=EventDetails

When a Preservationist Joins a Collaborative Group

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Without making any value judgements here, I find this collection of meeting summaries to be fascinating. Chad Hanson is a full member of the Dinkey Collaborative Group, working to create a better future for the Sierra National Forest. It will be very interesting to see how this process will evolve, with Hanson’s input solidly in view. The level of transparency seems acceptable to me.  At the same time, The Sierra is using the new Planning Rule to update their Forest Plan.

Doug-fir-powers-web

Mr. Hanson noted that there was no option for opposing the proposal, and also stated his concern for his opposition going undocumented. Mr. Hanson expressed two main concerns with the proposal. He stated that the proposal assumed high intensity fire results in fisher habitat loss, and commented that the proposal states an inaccurate assumption that trees experience almost complete mortality when a fire burns. Mr. Hanson expressed that the mortality rate was not supported by current data. Mr. Dorian Fougères assured Mr. Hanson that his position would be documented.

Click to access stelprdb5364086.pdf

There are other meeting notes available by searching for “Dinkey Collaborative Hanson”.

Where to do what: some thoughts and the Blue Mountains

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Map from the Oregonian, Dan Aguayo
Map from the Oregonian, Dan Aguayo

Ed raised the question of “where do people on the blog think “intensive management, thinning and prescribed burning” belong.. everywhere? roadless? primitive areas?”

So I’ll go first.

I think that for places where there is no “timber industry” currently:

A. “Thinning for protection” thinning should be done around communities and roads in fire country . We should all work together on building “fire resilient communities and landscapes.” We should analyze all the places fire could start and make sure that for every really dangerous area, there are good areas for suppression between them and communities.

We should work on developing markets for the wood removed, so rural people are employed and we can afford to do it.

We would estimate the acreages and volume through time and then encourage industries to come in and use the material. Watch dog groups would watch to make sure than no more was offered for sale than in the agreement.

When a roadless area or wilderness is in a WUI, we would bring in experienced fire folks and determine if the fire could be fought safely with a break on private land (preferred) or public land.

Otherwise the backcountry would be left alone unless there is some compelling reason for action (protecting endangered species, corridors? or whatever).

B. “Thinning for protection plus resilience” Where there is existing mill capacity, thinnings may also be done if they make stands more resilient to drought and bugs, and they make money (not that they are restoring to the past, but the past had those attributes, say open parklike stands of ponderosa).

Now I was drafting this last night in response to Ed’s question. Meanwhile, I ran across these news stories.. in the Blue Mountains Accelerated Restoration project, it appears to be “thinning for protection plus resilience.” There are several good quotes about the rationale in the story.

The roughly 50,000 acres thinned or logged annually within the four forests is probably less than 20 per cent of what’s needed, Aney said.
“We need to at least double that” to stabilize forest health within 15 years, he said.
The plan Aney will execute calls for managing the Blues in blocks of several hundred thousand acres, instead of the current 30,000-acre planning units. Logging or thinning is likely on no more than 40 percent of each planning unit, Aney said. Individual projects will have to go through environmental reviews.
Work in the woods is expected to start in summer 2014.

Veronica Warnock, conservation director for the La Grande-based Hells Canyon Preservation Council, was more guarded. She said forest restoration is necessary but should be avoided in places where science doesn’t support it, such as stands of old growth or wildlife corridors.

I wonder what “science” that is, that involves what you should or should not do…I thought the role of science was empirical rather than normative. oh well.

Science synthesis to help guide land management of nation’s forests

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clean_salvage-06

Key findings from the synthesis were:

  • Efforts to promote resilience of socioecological systems increasingly consider the interaction of social values and ecological processes in pursuit of long-term mutual benefits and social learning for local communities and larger social networks.

  • Research indicates that strategic placement of treatments to reduce hazardous fuel accumulations and to restore fire as an ecosystem process within fire sheds can lower the risk for undesirable social and ecological outcomes associated with uncharacteristically large, severe, and dangerous fires, which include impacts to wildlife species of concern, such as the fisher and California spotted owl.

  • Science generally supports active treatment in some riparian and core wildlife zones to restore fire regimes. However, adaptive management, including experimentation at large landscape scales, is needed to evaluate which areas are priorities for treatment and what levels of treatment produce beneficial or neutral impacts to wildlife species and other socioecological values over long periods.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-02/ufs–sst022013.php

Yep, this is what we are already doing on my Ranger District. It is always important to focus on what we are leaving, rather than what is being removed. We still have longstanding limitations of protecting old growth and a ban on clearcutting. The picture is an example of salvage logging just six months after completion.

Region 1 Annual Year in Review

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Here’s the link:

This article shows some of the numbers we have been interested in..

“We’re a relatively small player in overall forest dynamics,” said Gene DeGayner, the region’s director of renewable resource management. “This year, we’ll treat with commercial timber sales about 12,000 acres a year, regionwide. We’ll do maybe another 8,000 acres of pre-commercial thinning.
“But we’re looking at 6 million acres of beetle kill. Last year, we had more than 1 million acres burned. What we can affect with mechanical treatment is 1 percent of 1 percent of the region. We are a small player. We cannot move the needle on a lot of these issues.”

The 2012 Year in Review publication released last week on the Internet features 24 pages of stories of projects, awards and accomplishments in Region 1. In its introduction, Regional Forester Faye Krueger invited readers to “look at this publication as the bridge to how much more we can accomplish in 2013.”
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The agency cast a somewhat bigger shadow in less labor-intensive efforts like noxious weed management and prescribed burning. But DeGayner said a large chunk of its expected timber harvest stalled in lawsuits challenging the Colt-Summit forest restoration project near Seeley Lake.

That project was the keynote of the Forest Service’s latest tactic for getting stuff done in the woods: the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program. These pilot projects got special funding from Congress to see if a combination of including community members in the planning, bartering timber for restoration work, and seeking matching funds from state or private sources might speed up workflow.
In Region 1, CFLRP provided about $9 million in operating funds, which was to be matched 1-to-1 in partnership agreements. The biggest local effort was the Southwestern Crown Collaborative, to do logging and landscape restoration in the Lolo, Helena and Flathead national forests. It claimed credit for producing 32 million board feet of sawlogs, 18,834 acres of noxious weed treatment, 19 miles of stream restoration and 268 miles of trail maintenance between 2010 and 2012. It’s allocated $4 million a year in CFLRP funding for 10 years.
“We’ve got a good portion of that program tied up in litigation, but we hope to prevail on those this year,” DeGayner said.

A federal district judge ruled in favor of the Forest Service on nine of 10 claims, but ordered it to provide more explanation how the project might affect threatened lynx habitat. DeGayner said that extra paperwork would not change the size or scope of the project.

The other main way the Forest Service cut trees last year was through travel safety projects that clear beetle-killed stands along roads. In 2012, it tallied about 500 miles of easement clearing, which paid for itself by the sale of timber.

Here’s a link to the press release from Region 1, but there is a warning that it is a large file. The actual link to it is imbedded from the press release page.