Managing Forests to provide services and reduce increasing risks

Firescape Monterey, Opportunity and Urgency:

Although recent large fires in the northern Los Padres National Forest were tragedies for some residents and huge expenses for public agencies and taxpayers, they also represent an opportunity to redirect ecosystem management in the northern Los Padres National Forest.  The 240,000 acres that burned in the Basin Complex and Indians fires of 2008 dwarfed the feasible scale of mechanical thinning treatments. 

Tens of thousands of acres of dense wooded land remain in the northern Los Padres National Forest and the lands surrounding it, and these areas remain as fire-prone as the areas that burned.

Consequently, there is still the potential – even the likelihood – for more fires on the scale and severity of the Basin Complex and Indians fires in the Los Padres National Forest.  Careful management can reduce the risk of damaging fires using a combination of mechanical thinning and prescribed burns.  Such treatments have a “shelf life” of about 10-20 years in terms of reducing subsequent fire severity.

Resources are then directed toward executing projects on the landscape as opportunities and appropriate burning windows are presented. 

The post-fire mosaic that exists now is a “window of opportunity” to chart a new direction for the northern Los Padres National Forest.

Our forests can be healthier and more resistant to high-severity wildfires, but it is essential that low-severity fires be allowed to burn, episodically and selective, strategically-placed mechanical and hand-crew coordinated treatments to reduce fuel loads be conducted.

MORE:   http://firescape.ning.com/

 

 

The Forest Service posted a recent update on the effort, and describes it this way:  

“This emphasis on expanding and developing partnerships to increase capacity, and using large-scale agreements at the landscape level, will help achieve restoration goals,” said Randy Moore, Pacific Southwest Regional Forester. “Ultimately we want to create landscapes that thrive in a changing environment and provide goods, services and recreation opportunities now and for generations to come.” 

The strategy seeks to avoid shifts in the natural fire regime, which can affect changes in water supply, timing and yield. Communities and the agriculture industry compete for water originating on the Monterey Ranger District. The Carmel River watershed provides water to communities on the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District, which support a billion dollar tourism industry. The Nacimiento, San Antonio and Arroyo Seco watersheds provide the primary recharge for the Salinas Valley aquifer critical to the $4-billion agriculture industry. In addition, local streams provide habitat for steelhead trout and other threatened species and discharge into the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.   

MORE:   http://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/lpnf/news-events/?cid=STELPRDB5340427

 

 

 

 

 

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