Download Fire Report and the Post-fire habitat restoration priorities for

Managing the Impacts of Wildfire on Communities and the Environment: A
Report to the President In Response to the Wildfires of 2000 (a.k.a., The
National Fire Plan)
Implementation Note No. 2: Some thoughts about rehabilitation, restoration, and sensitive
habitat management. These thoughts were developed by Dr. Jim Sedell, USDA Forest
Service and should be used, as appropriate, in the implementation of National Fire Plan.
September 21, 2000
Nation Fire Plan Key Points. As a reminder, the following are the five Key Points (KP) of the National
Fire Plan:
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KP No. 1. Firefighting. Continue to fight the fires for the rest of this fire season and be adequately
prepared for next year.
KP No. 2. Rehabilitation and Restoration. Restore landscapes and rebuild communities damaged by
the wildfires of 2000.
KP No. 3. Hazardous Fuel Reduction. Invest in projects to reduce fire risk.
KP No. 4. Community Assistance. Work directly with communities to ensure adequate protection.
KP No. 5. Accountablity. Be accountable and establish adequate oversight, coordination, program
development, and monitoring for performance.
Operating Principles. The following are the eight Operating Principles (OP) to guide the USDA Forest
Service work as we implement the National Fire Plan:
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OP No. 1. Firefighting Readiness. Increase firefighting capability and capacity for initial attack,
extended attack, and large fire support that will reduce the number of small fires becoming large, to
better protect natural resources, to reduce the threat to adjacent communities, and reduce the cost of
large fire suppression.
OP No. 2. Prevention Through Education. Assist state and local partners to take actions to reduce
fire risk to homes and private property through programs such as FIREWISE.
OP No. 3. Rehabilitation. Focus rehabilitation efforts on restoring watershed function including,
protection of basic soil, water resources, biological communities, and prevention of invasive species.
OP No. 4. Hazardous Fuel Reduction. Assign highest priority for hazardous fuels reduction to
communities at risk, readily accessible municipal watersheds, threatened and endangered species habitat,
and other important local features, where conditions favor uncharacteristically intense fires.
OP No. 5. Restoration. Restore healthy, diverse, and resilient ecological systems to minimize
uncharacteristically intense fires on a priority watershed basis. Methods will include removal of excessive
vegetation and dead fuels through thinning, prescribed fire, and other treatment methods.
OP No. 6. Collaborative Stewardship. Focus on achieving the desired future condition on the land in
collaboration with communities, interest groups, and state and federal agencies. Streamline process,
maximize effectiveness, use an ecologically conservative approach, and minimize controversy in
accomplishing restoration projects.
OP No. 7. Monitoring. Monitor to evaluate the effectiveness of various treatments to reduce
unnaturally intense fires while restoring forest ecosystem health and watershed function.
OP No. 8. Jobs. Encourage new stewardship industries and collaborate with local people, volunteers,
Youth Conservation Corps members, service organizations, and Forest Service work crews, as
appropriate.
OP No. 9. Applied Research and Technology Transfer. Focus research on the long-term
effectiveness of different restoration and rehabilitation methods to determine those methods most
effective in protecting and restoring watershed function and forest health. Seek new uses and markets
for byproducts of restoration.
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Rehabilitation and Restoration of Sensitive Habitats. Sensitive salmon habitat areas in the
Columbia and Snake River basins have been identified in the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem
Management Project (see Table 1). This assessment and delineation was updated this month
(September 2000). In addition, sensitive habitat and watersheds were delineated by sub-basins in
different evolutionary significant units (ESU’s) as part of the National Marine Fisheries Service’s
(NMFS) final draft Biological Opinion. There is a great deal of fish species information on historic
range, current occupied range, and where strong fish populations are located and their important
habitats. In the current estimate of the extent of the burn area, which was occupied by a key
watershed, 12-15 percent of the area within the burn perimeters in Montana and Northern Idaho
were key salmon watersheds and 14-16 percent in Southern Idaho (R-4). What is not known at this
time is the severity of the fire in these fish watersheds (some were lightly burned, others were
intensely burned).
Both the Montana (R-1) and the Idaho (R-4) Forest Service Regions are using the fish data bases to
see where the overlap is with high fire risk areas and urban-forest interfaces for future rehabilitation.
Both Regions and Forest are synthesizing data from the district and Forest levels, from past forest
fires to determine impacts on watersheds and fish populations and evaluate different restoration
techniques. In the last two years new models from both the Forest Service and NMFS have been
developed to help identify key fish habitats where there is sparse data.
Nation-wide database. Five recent, large-scale, ecosystem-based Forest Service assessments have
identified networks of aquatic conservation watersheds: the Northwest Forest Plan (FEMAT 1993),
the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project, The Tongass National Forest Land
Management Plan, the Sierra Nevada Framework Project, and the Southern Appalachians
Assessment.
Of these, the Northwest Forest Plan and the Tongass National Forest Land Management Plan have
records of decision that delineate key watersheds or central areas for biodiversity. The stage is set
and progress is being made in the other areas to identify special emphasis watersheds and to protect
and, where needed, restore them.
Table1. Land areas identified for aquatic conservation, biodiversity, and clean water in various recent largescale ecosystem analyses.
Assessment Area
Number of Refugia
Watersheds
Total Area, Refugia
Watershed (Acres)
Percent of Total
National Forest Area*
Northwest Forest Plan (key watersheds) 1
Tongass National Forest 2
Interior Columbia Basin (strongholds) 4
Sierra Nevada (proposed emphasis watersheds) 6
Southern Appalachians (aquatic diversity
areas)
164
Too many to count
1,693
139
45
8,678,600 2
13,662,000 3
19,977,824 5
5,747,261
10,303,360 7
33
80
40
47
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*In the analysis area.
1 FEMAT 1994.
2 Includes BLM lands
3 Conserve and restore land-use designations.
4 Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project
5 Includes BLM lands
6 Draft information from the Sierra Framework project
7 17 percent is National Forest
These efforts represent a substantial actual and potential commitment of lands to conserving aquatic
species and could be regarded as a major part of a national forest aquatic and biodiversity
conservation strategy. More than 53 percent of national forest lands are represented by the
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assessments in table 1. The role that the national forest lands play in anchoring fish and other
aquatic species is not trivial, with greater than one-third of national forest lands identified as
important to maintaining aquatic biodiversity.
In the Columbia and Snake River Basin the Forest Service and BLM have been operating under
strict PACFISH and INFISH riparian management and watershed protection guidelines for the past
5 years. As part of the final draft Biological Opinion the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS)
to be signed later this fall, additional sensitive salmon habitat and watershed were delineated by sub
basins in different evolutionally significant units (ESU’s) as part of the salmon recovery strategies.
The Inland West Water Initiative, which includes Regions 1, 2, 3, and 4, will have completed its
assessment and delineated special fish habitats, water bodies, and watersheds by late FY 2000. The
assessments will identify which watersheds are important and for what purposes (in a spatially
explicit format), for more than 80 percent of national forest lands in the four regions. Recent
strategies for national forests have focused on restoring the natural ecological processes that will
create and maintain diverse and resilient aquatic habitat (Northwest Forest Plan, Tongass National
Forest, PACFISH; proposed for the Sierra Nevada provinces and the Interior Columbia Basin.)
These efforts will move east and probably be incorporated into revised forest plans in the next
several years.
The weak areas for the Forest Service are in the Southwest and Eastern regions. The Southwest
region consists of Arizona and New Mexico. In this region the resolution of the aquatic biodiversity
data is at a coarser scale, but should be available for the rehabilitation efforts currently under way
and scheduled for FY2001. In the Eastern Region aquatic biodiversity data is being collected and
synthesized and will be at least 6 months to 1 year away from being spatially explicit by 18,000 acre
sized watersheds.
In summary the Forest Service has strategic data bases on where sensitive fish species are located
and has explicit principles and direction from the Chief and National Leadership Team to utilize this
data in implementing the National Fire Plan.
For More Information: Please contact:
Michael T. Rains, Interim National Fire Plan Implementation Coordinator @ (610) 557-4103;
(610) 557-4177 (Fax); e-mail: [email protected]; or, Denny Truesdale @ (202) 205-1588; (202) 205-1174 (Fax); e-mail:
[email protected]
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