IAC Forest
Visit: Last week, the Northwest Forest Plan Intergovernmental Advisory Committee (IAC)
visited the Klamath National Forest for a field trip to Scott Bar Mountain and Beaver
Creek to look at issues related to the management of fire-prone systems. Although fuel
buildup in the forest and increasing fire risks were underlying themes, another common
element was collaboration among groups to manage problems.
Scott Bar Mountain/Canyon
Creek Fuels Reduction: Perry Daniels, Marsha Fickert, and Larry Alexander of the Lower
Scott River Fire Safe Council gave a presentation on work that had been done to clear
brush and thin along Scott River Road. Another grant has just been received to assist in
clearance and thinning along access roads to groups of private homes along the river. This
work was being done in conjunction with fire safe work being done to reduce fire risk on
private property.
District Ranger Ray Haupt talked about the Scott Bar Vegetation
Management Project on National Forest lands. This is a project that is complimentary to
the work being done by the Fire Safe Council and local residents. The fire history of this
area shows that fires have occurred every year since records have been kept, with a growth
to 732 fire starts between 1992 and 1997. It is estimated that a natural fire pattern for
the area before settlement would have been a median of every 14.5 years. The “densification”
of the forest and the change of tree species from more fire-resistant pine to fir has
greatly increased fire risk.
The Vegetation Project proposes to treat 1,800 acres by underburning
and 360 acres by “understory thinning.” (Some of this work was done this past
season.) This was to be coordinated with the West Point Timber Sale and Middle Creek burn.
That commercial sale was designed to reduce forest “stand” density, reduce fuels
and encourage pines. It was halted by local environmental organizations.
Ray also talked briefly about the proposed Red Rock Underburn. In the
planning stage, this project would reduce fuels in the Marble Mountain Wilderness through
late season managed burns.
Beaver Creek Habitat
Restoration and Fuel Reduction Project: This
stop was on the Oak Knoll Ranger District at Beaver Creek and is part of a larger Mt. Ashland
project. It is located within northern spotted owl critical habitat and is within a “Late
Seral Reserve” (LSR or designated old growth.) The stop highlighted the growing issue
of the need to manage LSRs to promote owl habitat and old growth characteristics, while
reducing the risk of these areas being lost to catastrophic wildfire. The larger plan for
the Mt. Ashland Project is to thin trees under 9 inches in diameter on more than 4,000
acres, underburn 268 acres and hand pile 303 acres.
The Project involved a Core Interdisciplinary Team (IDT) including
biologists from the Fish and Wildlife Service and a fuels specialist and silviculturist
from the Forest Service. Special computer programs were used to predict spots where
nesting would be preferred by the owl, then to look at how fuel reduction might affect the
risk of catastrophic fire to protect that habitat and the watershed.
The former Beaver Creek Project was designed on the watershed scale
to be implemented over a period of years. It was the product of a collaborative effort of
the multi-interest Klamath Province Advisory Committee (PAC,) which represented all points
of view on forest management. Planning took several years. The Project was appealed by
local environmental groups.
Fire Safe Councils: Rhonda
Muse of the Scott River Watershed Council is working to establish a Scott Valley Fire Safe
Council. Please contact her if you are interested
at 468-2487.
Watch Out For School Busses: I was talking to a
school bus driver. He asked me to remind readers that when a school bus is stopped with
lights flashing and its stop sign out, that vehicles must stop and remain stopped 50 feet
back in both directions until the bus driver
releases the lights and sign. This is not optional. It is the law. |
