CHRISTINE MARES, MS student (shown here in action...)
Effects of Three Fuel Treatments on Fuel Loads and Fire Effects in a Northeastern California Ponderosa Pine Forest
Decades of fire suppression in fire-prone ponderosa pine forests have caused unprecedented accumulations of highly flammable fuel. Reducing this fuel accumulation to lower the risk of catastrophic fire is a critical forest management problem. Research is being conducted in a ponderosa pine forest in Blacks Mountain Experimental Forest (BMEF) in northeastern California to understand how fuel treatments affect the type, quantity, and spatial distribution of forest fuels, and how the creation of different forest structures express effects from prescribed fire. Twelve 100-hectare units were harvested to create different forest structures: 1) a multiplayer forest with several age classes (n=6), and 2) the extreme contrast with a single layer of younger trees (n=6). Additionally, three of each forest structure type was grazed by cattle (n=6), and half of each of the 12 units was burned using prescribed fire. Each treatment is replicated three times in a randomized complete block design with a split-plot design for prescribed fire. Proof that forest thinning followed by prescribed burning is effective at reducing the potential for high-intensity fires was witnessed recently when a wildfire moved into the BMEF. Untreated areas experienced high fire intensity and high tree mortality, whereas treated units experienced a low-intensity ground fire, or stopped the fire altogether at the unit boundaries due to lack of fuel to carry the fire.
BMEF Treatment map. (HiD = multilayered forest = high density; LoD = single layer forest = low density)
Sept 2002 cone fire. A low intensity ground fire in a unit treated with thinning and prescribed fire