USDA California Climate Hub Provides Forestry Resource Repository for Land Managers
New Website Provides Forestry Resource Repository for Land Managers
January 8, 2025 – The USDA California Climate Hub released a new webpage that compiles datasets and decision-support tools to help land managers and natural resource professionals with assessing the conditions of a landscape for project planning. The list is not exhaustive of all resources but focuses on data and tools available to the public, with an emphasis on resources available within the state of California. The repository also contains a series of factsheets, produced by the USDA California Climate Hub, that offer a succinct overview of the California Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force’s Regional Resource Kits and its constituent products.
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California's Wildfire Task Force Continues Nation-Leading Efforts To Protect Communities, Unveils New Tools And Data
Recently Updated with 2024 Data
Task Force Launches New Work Group on Healthy Watersheds
Task Force Launches New Work Group on Healthy Watersheds
August 6, 2024 – The Task Force launched its newest work group which focuses on a critical aspect of the CA Wildfire & Forest Resilience Action Plan – the intersection between watershed health and landscape resilience to wildfire.
It’s well known that wildfires adversely impact watersheds. But it’s important to also recognize that healthy watersheds play a key role in mitigating catastrophic wildfires. The Watershed Work Group promotes fire resilience and watershed health programs that share these important priorities.
Visit the Healthy Watersheds Work Group webpage to learn more about the Work Group partnering organizations and to access a list of programs, plans, and strategies focused on California’s water supply and security.
Forest Service Conducts Fuel Reduction Work in Lake Tahoe Basin
Forest Service Conducts Fuel Reduction Work in Lake Tahoe Basin
The USDA Forest Service Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit continues cut-to-length mechanical fuels reduction (forest thinning) operations on approximately 275 acres around the Lake Tahoe Basin. This fuels reduction work is part of the NV Energy Resilience Corridors Project that aims to reduce the risk of severe wildfire and create healthier and more resilient forests.
Reclamation Continues Wildfire Prevention in Auburn Project Lands with Fuels Reduction Project
Reclamation Continues Wildfire Prevention in Auburn Project Lands with Fuels Reduction Project
The Auburn area Five-Year Fuels Reduction Project work is on schedule and the Bureau of Reclamation’s contractor, Wildfire Services Group, Inc., has completed several segments of shaded fuel break construction and maintenance work on Auburn Project Lands within the Auburn State Recreation Area in Placer and El Dorado counties.
USFS Uses Machine Learning to Promote Meadow Restoration
USFS Uses Machine Learning to Promote Meadow Restoration
Pacific Southwest Research Station U.S. Forest Service ecologists have developed new machine learning algorithms to identify potential locations of lost meadows where forests now encroach. Meadows in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains historically covered nearly three times the area they do today. New maps of lost meadows provide a large-scale perspective to help us think differently about the historical importance of meadows and the positive impact their restoration could have on streamflow and wildfire management.
Project Implementation in High-Risk Regions – Santa Monica Mountains
Project Implementation in High-Risk Regions – Santa Monica Mountains
Department: Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy
Program Description: The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy prioritized wildfire resilience projects that proactively reduce the risk of wildfire, strengthen wildfire resilience, increase carbon sequestration, rally against the effects of climate change, and dedicate more resources to local community infrastructure.
Program Impact: In 2022, the Conservancy coordinated with partner agencies, non-profit organizations, local tribes, and other stakeholders to kickstart projects that performed one or more of the following types of wildfire resilience activities.
Wildfire resilience activities included:
- Removing dry, hazardous, or non-native vegetation that poses ignition risk and habitat restoration
- Increasing the efficacy of wildfire response through emergency operations equipment and workforce development
- Ignition monitoring program
- Fire hardening at-risk structures
Conservancy wildfire resilience efforts, initiated in 2021 and sustained throughout 2022, addressed major wildfire hazards in the Santa Monica Recreation Area. State funding supported projects that mitigate hazards posed by fuel-vegetation, human actions, and at-risk structures. Investment in workforce development and capacity building in climate, fire resilience, and habitat restoration further enhanced wildfire prevention and emergency response operations. Ongoing project efforts will continue to reduce wildfire risk throughout the 2023 fire season and following years.
Native plants at Elyria Canyon Nursery to be installed at habitat restoration sites
Before and after photos of completed fuel reduction treatments (mowing) to reduce flammable, flashy fuels in strategic locations of the Santa Monica Mountains.
Resilience in Action: Fuel reduction along the ignition-prone highway 101 corridor continued in 2022, and as of January 2023, approximately 2,000 fire-resistant oaks have been planted at five key sites. In the coming years, fire-resistant oak habitat will replace the existent grassy fuel vegetation and serve as a natural fire buffer around the freeway. Funding for workforce development supported an expanded crew of seasonal firefighters in the Fire Division of the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority who received basic and advanced fire training classes, drills, and fuel vegetation removal.
Roadside vegetation management and oak habitat planting project to reduce ignition risk posed by nearby US Highway 101
New portable water pumps installed on daily patrol vehicles in conjunction with water tanks and fire hoses allow rangers to respond to fires on patrol
RESOURCES
USFS Awards CALREC Vision Partnership of the Year
USFS Awards CALREC Vision Partnership of the Year
December 14, 2022 – At the Regional Foresters Awards Ceremony in Sacramento, CA, the Leadership Team of the Sustainable Recreation/CALREC Vision Key Working Group (SRCRV) was awarded a Regional Forester’s Honor Award for Partnership of the Year from the U.S. Forest Service Pacific Southwest Region. The award recognizes the Leadership Team’s efforts to develop California’s Joint Strategy for Sustainable Outdoor Recreation and Wildfire Resilience for California’s Wildfire & Forest Resilience Task Force. The Joint Strategy satisfies Key Actions 3.13 and 3.14 of the California Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan. The California Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force will publish the Joint Strategy in early 2023.
Accepting the award with Jennifer Eberlein (second from left), from left to right are Bill Keane, Climate Equity Solutions, Inc.; John Wentworth, Mammoth Lakes Trails and Public Access Foundation; Austin McInerny, Consensus and Collaboration Program, College of Continuing Education, Sacramento State University; and Nancy Parachini, USFS Deputy Director of Public Services.
USFS Pacific Southwest Research Station Brief #3: Timing of Fire Study
USFS Pacific Southwest Research Station Brief #3:
Timing of Fire Study
Wildland firefighters from the Stanislaus National Forest and researchers from Pacific Southwest Research Station conducted a 21-acre prescribed burn on the Tuolumne Experimental Forest on October 29-30, 2022. The prescribed burn was a part of a Timing of Fire Study allowing researchers to compare how seasonal conditions affect the outcomes of prescribed fire. This video shows how we study the effects of prescribed fire and what we can learn.
RESOURCES
USFS Pacific Southwest Research Station Brief #2: How demographics and funding impact wildfire resilience.
USFS Pacific Southwest Research Station Brief #2:
Homeowners willingness to pay to reduce wildfire risk in wildland urban interface areas: Implications for targeting financial incentives.
Pacific Southwest Research Station scientists have found that demographics and funding impact wildfire resilience. To help bridge the gap, the U.S. Forest Service has launched a Community Wildfire Defense Grant program by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to help the communities most at risk.
RESOURCES
Science Direct: Homeowners willingness to pay to reduce wildfire risk in woodland urban interface areas