Draft SNFPA Management Review and Recommendations

Review of the Fire Strategy and Effectiveness of Fuels Treatment

New Information and Understanding Gained from Review

The Team sponsored three field trips devoted specifically to fire and fuels to learn more about how the standards and guidelines from the ROD were being interpreted at the field level and to begin to assess where improvements could be made. In addition to Forest Service personnel, attendees included representatives from other state and federal agencies and key interest groups. The list of participants, agenda and meeting notes for each field trip are posted at www.fs.fed.us/r5/snfpa/review.

During the early stages of the review, the Team was focused on determining how well the standards and guidelines for fuels treatments really worked when they were applied to actual treatment areas. Throughout our discussions, most of the concerns stemmed from the prescriptive rule set in the ROD. There appeared to be less concern or disagreement with the desired future conditions described in the FEIS or the overall fuels reduction strategy embodied in the SNFPA. The field trips marked the beginning of an intense exploration of how the ROD actually played out on the ground and what the expected outcome would be under the existing standards and guidelines.

The richness of the Team’s review and findings was enhanced by the insight of the field managers charged with implementing the ROD and reducing the build-up of hazardous fuels on their Ranger Districts. This new information grounded the review effort in a practical sense, in that the test of a successful plan lies in its ability to achieve the desired outcomes on the ground. Extensive input from Forest Service District Rangers illuminated a number of project-level concerns.

Following up on the concerns raised in the field, the Team developed new analytical techniques to test and evaluate the existing standards and guidelines for fuels treatments across a broader landscape. This state-of-the-art analysis gave us an opportunity to examine the cumulative effects of the standards and guidelines in a spatial context. This exercise provided new information about the cumulative effect of the standards and guidelines as applied to the array of stand structures encountered in an actual landscape. For the first time, managers were able to see and understand why the issues raised in the field were so important to resolve if we were to successfully reduce fire risk to communities and important wildlife habitat. This learning exercise was invaluable in that it allowed the Team to gain an appreciation of the nuances embedded in the existing decision and revealed a number of ways in which it could be refined to better accomplish the original intent.

Finally, new information and analysis about the California spotted owl and its habitat requirements has been compiled and reviewed by the Team. This will be important to consider in evaluating potential changes to the conservation strategy embodied in the ROD.

In brief, the Team found that the FEIS strategic approach to fuels treatments across broad landscapes was a reasonable approach to reducing the size and intensity of wildfires at the landscape scale if certain conditions are met. However, achieving this goal is dependent on treating enough of the right places with treatments that are effective.

The Team developed a conceptual illustration of this we call the Fire/Fuels Strategy Triangle (Figure 1.) The idea is that to have a successful strategy, three mutually supporting concepts must be considered and balanced. These make up the three sides of the triangle: proper strategic placement of treatments, treatments that are effective in moderating fire behavior, and treatments that are cost efficient to the extent that we can afford to do enough to make a difference across the larger landscape. These three “sides of the triangle” must be balanced as a whole in the context of protecting wildlife habitats, and communities.

We found that the ROD’s “cautious approach” to active fuels management includes prescriptive, stand level standards and guidelines that limit the effectiveness of many treatment areas. Under the existing direction, the densest stands--key components to sensitive wildlife species habitat and most vulnerable to wildfire loss--will be treated either lightly (ineffectively) or not at all. Our conclusion is that the standards and guidelines in the ROD will not allow for the placement and intensity of area treatments needed to effectively reduce the spread and intensity of wildland fires at the landscape scale. The following sections highlight the key findings that led us to this conclusion.

USDA Forest Service · Pacific Southwest Region