Lassen National Forest is preparing to implement the fall prescribed fire program. Prescribed burning will begin when weather conditions allow for safe and effective burning conditions, tentatively scheduled for October 25th, and could continue through December.
The objectives of the Prescribed Burn Program, according to LNF, are to:
- Reduce natural, or management activity created hazardous fuels that include dead and fallen trees, dead branches, and brush
- Reduce the threat of catastrophic wildfires, such as the recent fires across the west
- Restore fire-resilient forests by reintroducing fire to ecosystems, improving ecological services such as understory productivity and vigor and increased and renewed forage for wildlife, and releasing nutrients from consumed fuels into the soil.
Prescribed fires are also used to help create Defensible Fuel Profile Zones; areas where a combination of thinning and prescribed fire treatments are used to remove highly flammable vegetation.
The DFPZs are designed to improve firefighter safety and suppression efforts, increase protection of communities adjacent to national forest lands during a wildfire, and work toward returning the landscape to one that more closely mimics the national fire regime.
Three precautions will be taken to minimize the amount of smoke in the air. First, burning will only take place on permissive burn days. Second, the treatment areas have been mechanically thinned, resulting in reduced smoke emissions. Finally, the LNF coordinates with other public agencies and industrial landowners in the Northeastern Plateau on days planned to burn, which limits the amount of smoke in the air at any one time.
“The Lassen National Forest is committed to a forest management practice that will incorporate an aggressive fuels management program forest-wide, treating several thousand acres annually. These treatments will benefit public lands in many ways, including habitat restoration, maintaining healthy and sustainable forests, and aligning with suppression strategies set by fire managers in the event of a wildfire, through the combined use of mechanical treatments and prescribed fire,” said Lassen National Forest Supervisor Deb Bumpus.
Eagle Lake Ranger District
The Eagle Lake Ranger District is preparing to implement the fall prescribed fire program. Prescribed burning will begin when weather conditions allow for safe and efficient burning conditions, which can be as early as October and could continue through February of 2022.
Approximately 1,101 acres of understory burning could occur in the following locations: Bailey DFPZ on the northwest side of Campbell Mountain (311 acres); Bidwell DFPZ (100 acres) north of Butte Creek Campground; Blacks Mountain Experimental Forest (225 acres); Summit DFPZ on the east side of Logan Mountain (265 acres); and Houseman and Signal DFPZs around Dow Butte (200 acres).
Dow Butte is located approximately 6 miles north of the community of Spalding. Depending on weather conditions during the prescribed burning, smoke could be visible from Susanville, the Eagle Lake Basin, Westwood, Spalding, Chester, and while traveling on Highways 44 and 139, and County Roads A1 and A21.
In addition to these treatments, approximately 350 acres of landing piles and approximately 400 acres of hand piles will be burned throughout the district, once significant rain or snowfall has occurred. The largest hand pile burning project is located in the Diamond Mountain WUI Project and smoke may be visible from Susanville during project implementation.
For more information please contact District Fire Management Officer Dan Varney at 530-250-7247.
Hat Creek Ranger District
Hat Creek Ranger District will be starting the annual pile burning for the season and is planned on 500 to 700 acres of piles in the Ashpan Snow Mobile Park Area, 450 acres of hand piles within the Plum Project on the Hat Creek Rim, and 300 acres of hand piles in the Signal Butte area.
Hat Creek will start burning units in the Ashpan Area the week of October 25, 2021. Burning will continue as weather permits. For more information please contact District Fire Management Officer Shannon Prather at 530-336-5521.
Almanor Ranger District
The Almanor Ranger District plans to resume prescribed burning in the spring of 2022.
