frog fire salvage -...

Fuels Report Frog Fire Salvage

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Frog Fire Salvage

Fuels Report

Prepared by:

Don H. Glenn

Zone Fuels Specialist

For:

Big Valley Ranger District

Modoc National Forest

03/15/2016


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Introduction This report summarizes fuels conditions within the affected project area and the effects of

implementing each alternative within the Frog Fire Salvage. The Frog Fire was started by

lightning on July 30, 2015, and burned a total of 4872 acres before being controlled on October

28, 2015.

Proposed Action See the Frog Fire Salvage EA for a full description of proposed actions.

Methodology for Analysis Data Collection

Data was collected in 30 random plots spread throughout the proposed salvage units. 1/10 acre

plots were established and tree less than 15 inch DBH were measured for height and diameters.

Analysis

Collected data was entered into FS Cruiser V2. Processed data was used to determine future fuel

loadings from standing dead trees less than 15 inch DBH.

Existing Condition

Fire History and Historical Fires Eastside pine ecosystems are adapted to frequent low intensity fire. Due to the start of fires

suppression around the turn of the century, these ecosystems have missed several rotations of

low intensity fire.

The project and surrounding area has experienced fire caused by human and lightning activity,

with the majority of the fire starts originating from lightning. Fire history (Table 1) for the

project area shows that the majority of the fires are less than 10 acres in size, with approximately

2,636 total acres burned (Figure 1) within the footprint of the Frog Fire since 1910.

Table 1. Historical Fires Recorded in the Vicinity of the Frog Project Area.

Decade Number of fires

<10 acres

Large Fires >10 acres

Prior to 1970 38 1910 Glass Mtn. 99501 ac.

1920 Unnamed 304 ac.

1970-1979 8 1977 Scarface 78167 ac.

1980-1989 5 1987 Quaking 4811 ac.

1990-1999 10

2000-2009 5

2010-2015 1

Source: 2015 Modoc National Forest Fire Records.

Fuels Report

Figure 1. Fire History 1910-Present

Current and Future Condition

Trees that were killed by the Frog Fire pose a hazard to the public and forest workers that are

traveling and working in these areas. As snags deteriorate over time, they become less stable and

increase the safety risk to all forest users (Ritchie et al. 2013).

The Frog Fire resulted in a reduction to near total elimination of surface and small understory

(ladder) fuels (Figure 2). In the short-term, this change in fuel loading and composition is

expected to reduce wildfire intensities. However, as the standing dead trees decay and fall to the

ground, these areas would become occupied by high snag densities and a complex arrangement

of fallen trees, broken tops, and branches intermixed and suspended within an increasingly heavy

shrub component. In the longer-term, these conditions would result in a heavily increased surface

fuel loading. Data showed 23 tons per acre are expected from snags 15 inch and less that are left

standing. Over time, these snags would fall, providing future surface fuels.


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Figure 2. Fire severity within the Frog Fire

Studies have shown there is a strong positive relationship between initial fire severity and

severity of a subsequent reburn (e.g. Holden et al. 2010; Thompson and Spies 2010; Van

Wagtendonk et. al. 2012; Parks et al. 2014). The two principal mechanisms identified as being

strongly tied to fire severity in the initial fires and the reburn were snag basal area and shrub

cover. Results suggest that high to moderate severity fire in an initial fire can lead to an increase

in standing snags and shrub vegetation, which in combination with severe fire weather, can

promote high severity fire in the subsequent reburn of an area. Areas that initially burned at

higher severities tended to reburn at higher severities, whereas areas that initially burned at lower

severities tended to reburn at lower severities. Studies have shown that fuels can recover to their

pre-burn levels in 9 to 15 years (Van Wagtendonk and Sydoriak 1987; Thompson and Spies

2009; Van Wagtendonk and Moore 2010). The window of low reburn potential can close

relatively quickly (5 to 10 years) as vegetation regenerates and litter accumulates on the surface

(Donato et al. 2013).

In areas of uncharacteristically large patches of high- and moderate-intensity burn, the fuel

loading is a long-term concern. Typically 8 to 20 years following a fire, standing dead trees fall

to the ground and become down woody material, known as coarse woody debris (CWD). CWD

is typically defined as dead standing and downed pieces larger than three inches in diameter,

which corresponds to the size class that defines large woody debris.

Fuels Report

Studies have shown that the initial pulse of elevated surface fuels in logged stands is relatively

short-lived, as deposition and accumulation of surface fuels from decaying snags causes surface

fuel loadings in unlogged stands to exceed those in logged stands within 5 to 10 years after

wildfire (Monsanto and Agee, 2008; Keyser et al., 2009; Ritchie et al. 2013; Peterson et al.

2015).

Desired Condition

The goals of the salvage harvest and fuel treatments are to reduce the density of standing dead

trees to help reduce future surface fuels, so that another wildland fire burning under 90th

percentile weather conditions would produce on average a flame length of four feet or less and

fireline intensities and fire severity would be reduced. The desired fuel conditions would reduce

the chance of a “reburn”. Reburn results when fall down of the old burned forest contributes

heavily to the fire behavior and fire effects of the next fire (Brown et al. 2003).

The desired fuels conditions within the project area include a reduction of the surface fuels in

order to reduce the predicted flame lengths, fire intensities, resistance-to-control, probability of

future crown fire initiation and spread, and predicted mortality within the stands. Fuels

management can include reducing the loading of available fuels, lowering fuel flammability, or

isolating or breaking up large continuous bodies of fuels (DeBano et al. 1998). Studies have

shown that post-fire harvest can reduce future surface woody fuel levels and the threat of high-

severity fire in forests regenerating following wildfires (Ritchie et al. 2013, Peterson et al. 2015).

For these reasons, the comparison of alternatives in this analysis focuses on the reduction of

surface fuels and resistance-to-control.

Environmental Effects

Alternative 1 – No Action Under Alternative 1, no salvage would be implemented and no fuels treatments would occur.

Direct, Indirect, and Cumulative Effects to Safety

Trees that were killed by the Frog Fire pose a hazard to the public and forest workers that are

traveling and working in these areas. As snags age over time, they become less stable and

increase the safety risk to all forest users. In the event of a wildfire this limited access to areas

would slow firefighter access for direct attack suppression methods. Hazard trees/snags are a

major safety issue for firefighters. In recent years there have been several fatalities associated

with hazard trees/snags.

• On August 12, 2012 firefighter Anne Veseth was killed when a hazard tree fell and hit

another hazard tree as she tried to get out of the way of the first tree (Steep Corner Fire

Fatality).

• In June 10, 2013 smoke jumper Luke Sheehy was killed on the Modoc N.F. when the

top of a hazard tree fell and hit him as the group of jumpers were constructing fire line

(Saddleback Fire Learning Review).

• In 2013, Deschutes National Forest, two contractors hit by falling snags, one injury and

one fatality.


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If the hazard tress/snags are not removed, for safety, firefighters would have to work 2.5 tree

lengths from any burning snag. This could lead to an increase in fire size and the numbers of

resources need to manage the fire. Firefighter safety would not be improved due to the amount of

standing snags still remaining throughout the project area.

Cumulative Effects of the No Action Alternative on Wildfire Management Ability and the

Risk of a High-Severity Fire Occurrence

No known past management actions are considered relevant to this project.

With no fuel reduction treatments, fuels would continue to build and contribute to increased

impacts from wildfires and contribute to reducing the effectiveness of fire management efforts.

Wildfires would continue to be managed in order to protect resources and property. If fire

suppression continues to be successful, the no-action alternative would allow for vegetation to

continue to grow denser and increase the risk for high intensity wildfires. Costs associated with

fire management activities will continue to increase. There would be no reasonably foreseeable

vegetation and fuels activities that would occur within the project area.

Direct Effects and Indirect Effects of the No Action Alternative on Air Quality

There would be no quantifiable direct effects to air quality from the No Action alternative, since

no prescribed burning would occur. If a wildfire should burn the site in the future, air quality

impacts from smoke could affect the area for several days or more, depending on the size and

intensity of the fire. Wildfire would most likely occur during the summer months when visitor

and recreation use in the area is the highest.

Cumulative Effects of the No Action Alternative on Air Quality

There are no anticipated cumulative effects to air quality as a result of other actions combining

with the No Action Alternative.

Alternative 2 - Proposed Action On acres identified for machine piling or removal within the high severity fire areas, piling

would include standing trees 15 inch DBH or less and any other dead and down material on the

ground. These areas would be treated and all burning would be take place on permissive burn

days. Machine and landing pile burning would take place in the fall.

Depending on weather conditions and timing of other projects, it could take between three to five

years to treat these areas following the completion of salvage harvest.

Fuels Report

Direct and Indirect Effects

The direct effect of salvage harvest and area fuel treatments would be a reduction of snags on the

landscape. Treatments in Alternative 2 would help remove future surface fuels, which would

reduce the vertical arrangement and horizontal continuity of the surface fuels (Peterson et al.

2005, Graham et al. 2004). Post-fire logging would remove a substantial portion of the large

woody fuels that would contribute to a future complex arrangement of dead and live surface

fuels. Whole-tree yarding would be used, during salvage operations, to reduce the creation of

slash generated by harvest activity. Removal of limbs and tops by such methods would greatly

reduce activity-generated surface fuels (Agee and Skinner 2005).

In the long term, within the proposed treatment areas, fire behavior and fire severity would be

expected to be lower due to the decrease in coarse woody debris compared to no treatment.

Salvage harvest would remove the larger diameter merchantable material from the site. Machine

piling and pile burning would treat the smaller diameter material and material that may be treated

in the salvage treatment. During the felling and removal process, it is anticipated that there

would be higher than normal breakage typically associated with timber felling. This compacted

material would have minimal effect on fire behavior and resistance-to-control. Fuels on the forest

floor would consist of small diameter material and scattered larger logs.

Reducing the surface fuel loading would decrease the potential for reburn and fire severity would

be decreased, which would reduce the damaging effects to soils. In the areas proposed for

reforestation, this effect would decrease over time. As the vegetation matures, fuel loadings

would eventually increase. Out-year fire effects are expected to be dominated by young shrubs,

small trees and conifers reoccupying these sites.

Within the treated units, the reduction of course woody debris (CWD) through salvage harvest

and treatment of non-merchantable fire killed material would lower fire intensities, fire effects

(Peterson et al. 2009), and provide advantageous areas for fire suppression actions (Fites et al.

2007). The reduction in snags would result in reduced spotting that is associated with snags when

they burn. Resistance-to-control would be reduced and suppression forces would not be hindered

by the high density of snags or CWD and could enter these areas and take appropriate actions to

manage wildfires.

Alternative 2 would result in relatively lower surface fuel loads, lowering potential flame,

fireline intensities, resistance-to-control, and potential mortality within the timbered areas. While

there is still potential for future mortality in treated areas, it would remain lower than that of

Alternative 1 for wildfires occurring under 90th percentile weather conditions.

Direct and Indirect Effects to Safety

Worker safety would be increased within the treatment areas, due to the reduction of standing

snags and overhead hazards.

Alterative 2 moderates the fire hazard by treating potential surface fuels created by the Frog fire.

Flame lengths and fireline intensities would be reduced within the treatment areas. Resistance-to-

control would be improved; the reduction of snags and large down materials reduces sources of


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combustion, ember production and spotting receptors. If the hazard trees/snags are not removed,

for safety, firefighters would have to work 2.5 tree lengths from any burning snag.

This would lead to an increase in fire size and the numbers of resources needed to manage the

fire.

Direct and Indirect Effects to Reburn Potential and Resistance to manage fire

Initially the fire risk is low throughout the project as there is not a fuel bed to carry fire through

the area. Brush and herbaceous cover is expected to quickly recolonize the site. Over time the

combination of this vegetation and the planted trees would create this fuel bed, making fire

management efforts very difficult.

Timbered stands with no prior treatment and wildlife retention islands not treated under

Alternative 2 would develop into a fuel model (FM) 12 once the snags begin to fall. Fires in

these conditions would be high intensity. Flame lengths would preclude the use of direct attack

by either handcrews or equipment. Fireline construction rates would be slower allowing the fire

to become larger and harder to control. Fires may present serious control problems such as

torching, crowning, and spotting.

Direct and Indirect Effects of the Proposed Action on Air Quality

Proposed prescribed pile burning would emit smoke in and around the planning area. Directly,

this would raise short-term local air particulate matter levels. Indirectly, smoke emissions could

cause harmful health effects and reduce visibility in communities and along roads. An approved

burn plan and its associated smoke management plan would mitigate against adverse smoke

effects. These plans would not allow burning in conditions that would cause high smoke impacts

to special areas of concern, including the Lava Beds National Park. The smoke management plan

would also ensure that prescribed burning emissions do not exceed state and county air quality

regulations.

Cumulative Effects of the Proposed Action on Air Quality

The effects of prescribed burning emissions are short in duration. Because of this, there should

be no overlap of prescribed burning air-quality impacts with impacts of other past, present, and

reasonably foreseeable future actions.

Monitoring

Photo monitoring would be used pre and post treatment to ensure objectives of pile burning and

other fuels treatments are met. Monitoring as required in the Prescribed Fire Burn Plan would

also take place during implementation of burning. The monitoring would include measurements

and estimates of temperature, humidity and smoke dispersal.

Fuels Report

Forest Plan and Other Regulatory Direction

This proposal would improve fire suppression ability and decrease severe fire potential by

modifying fuel conditions that currently have the potential to support a high-intensity crown fire.

This would reduce the risk posed to firefighters, the public, local communities, and ecosystem

sustainability. Activities within the Modoc National Forest are guided by the Forest Land and

Resource Management Plan (Forest Plan) as amended. In January 2004, the Sierra Nevada

Forest Plan Amendment (SNFPA) Record of Decision (ROD) was signed “to reduce the risk of

wildfire to communities in the urban –wildland interface while modifying fire behavior over the

broader landscape” (Sierra Nevada Forest Plan Amendment – Final Supplemental Environmental

Impact Statement, Record of Decision, January 21, 2004). Standards and guidelines within the

SNFPA direct fuels treatments across the landscape to interrupt fire spread and achieve

conditions that reduce the size and severity of wildfires, and result in stand densities that

maintain forest health during drought conditions. Additionally, the standards and guidelines

identified are intended to retain important components of habitat that are believed to be

important to species associated with old forests, including large trees, structural diversity and

complexity, and moderate to high canopy cover” (SNFPA, ROD Appendix A, Management

Standards and Guidelines, pp 49 – 66) maintain old forest characteristics, apply treatments to

accelerate development of key habitat and old forest characteristics, minimize old forest habitat

fragmentation,

Amended direction also includes the Record of Decision for Amendments to Forest Service and

Bureau of Land Management Planning Documents Within the Range of the Northern Spotted

Owl and Standards and Guidelines for Management of Habitat for Late-Successional and Old-

Growth Forest Related Species Within the Range of the Northern Spotted Owl (“Northwest

Forest Plan” or “NWFP”) (USDA and USDI 1994). This decision documented the need for a

healthy forest ecosystem that will support native species associated with late-successional and

old growth forests. The ROD also identifies a need for forest products from forest ecosystems

that will help maintain the stability of local and regional economies.

The National Fire Plan

The Clinton Administration and Congress developed the National Fire Plan in response to the

devastating 2000 fire season. From this, governmental and non-governmental stakeholders

collaborated to develop a 10-year comprehensive strategy to reduce the risk of wildfires to

communities and the environment (see U.S. Secretary of Agriculture et al. 2001). Improving fire

prevention and suppression and reducing hazardous fuels are included in the key goals of this

strategy. Among others, the strategy identifies the following actions to be taken:

Reduce the incidence of injury to life and property resulting from catastrophic wildland

fires.

Reduce the total number of acres at risk to severe wildland fire.

Ensure communities most at risk in the wildland-urban interface receive priority for

hazardous fuels treatment.

Expand and improve integration of the hazardous fuels management program to reduce

severe wildland fires to protect communities and the environment.

Develop strategies to address fire-prone ecosystem problems that augment fire risk or

threaten sustainability of these areas.


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Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy

In 1995 the National Fire & Aviation Executive Board Policy Directives Task Group released the

Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy and Program review (see National Fire and Aviation

Executive Board Policy Directives Task Group 1995). This document served to ensure that

Federal policies are uniform and programs are cooperative and cohesive. In 2001, the 1995

policy was replaced by the Review and Update of the 1995 Federal Wildland Fire Management

Policy (see Interagency Federal Wildland Fire Policy Review Working Group 2001). In 2003 the

Wildland Fire Leadership Council approved the Interagency Strategy for the Implementation of

Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy (see US DOI and USDA FS 2003). The 1995 policy,

the 2001 update, and the 2003 implementation strategy explicitly provide for treating lands with

hazardous fuels to ensure public and firefighter safety and ecosystem sustainability.

Forest Plan

The Modoc National Forest Land and Resource Management Plan (see USDA FS 1991)

identifies hazardous fuels management among its Forest Program Goals and Standards and

Guidelines:

Protect national forest resources commensurate with values, hazards, risks, and

management objectives

Treat fuels commensurate with hazards, risks, economics, values, and losses which

could be sustained in the project area. Manage fuels to prevent fire and to complement

other resource management direction.

Use fire as a management tool

Use treatments, such as prescribed fire and fuel utilization, on natural fuels of high risk

to reduce wildfire hazard.

Fire Management

The Modoc N.F. Fire Management Plan identifies the following goals;

Response to wildfire protects human and forest resources commensurate with values,

hazards, risks, and management objectives (Modoc LRMP 1991, pg. 4-2).

Fire and Fuels Management reduces threats to communities and wildlife habitat from

large, severe wildfires and re-introducing fire into fire-adapted ecosystems (SNFPA

2004, pg. 34).

Wildland fires are suppressed at minimum cost, considering firefighter and public safety,

benefits, and values to be protected, consistent with resource objectives (Guidance for

Implementation of Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy - 2009).

Additional goals cited in the Forest Plan as amended include:

Treating fuels in a manner that significantly reduces wildland fire intensity and rate of

spread, thereby contributing to more effective fire suppression and fewer acres burned

(SNFPA 2004, pg. 34).

Fuels Report

Treating hazardous fuels in a cost-efficient manner to maximize program effectiveness

(SNFPA 2004, pg. 34).

Actively restoring fire-adapted ecosystems by making demonstrated progress in moving

acres out of unnaturally dense conditions (SNFPA 2004, pg. 34).

Use fire as a management tool (Modoc LRMP 1991, pg. 4-2).

Cohesive Fuels Treatment Strategy

The intent of the U.S. Department of the Interior and USDA Forest Service’s 2006 Cohesive

Fuels Treatment Strategy is to, “…lessen risks from catastrophic wildfires by reducing fuels

build-up in forests and woodlands…” (See US DOI and USDA FS 2006). The strategy’s first

principle – fuels treatment prioritization –emphasizes that fuels treatment priority be given to 1)

areas within the wildland urban interface (WUI) and 2) places outside the WUI that are of value

to local communities and the risk of catastrophic fire is high.


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