The Lassen National Forest is preparing to implement the fall prescribed fire program. Prescribed burning will begin when weather conditions allow for safe and efficient burning conditions and could continue through December.
The objectives of the Prescribed Burn Program, according to Forest officials are threefold; reduce natural, or management activity created hazardous fuels that include dead and fallen trees, dead branches, and brush; reduce the threat of catastrophic fires, such as the recent fires across the west and restore fire-resilient forests by reintroducing fire to ecosystems and improve ecological services such as understory productivity and vigor, increased and renewed forage for wildlife, and release nutrients to the soil from consumed fuels.
Prescribed fires also are used to help create Defensible Fuel Profile Zones; areas where a combination of thinning treatments 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 help return the landscape to one that more closely mimics the natural 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 LNF 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 fire, through the combined use of mechanical treatments and prescribed fire”, said Deb Bumpus, Forest Supervisor.
The Eagle Lake District
Approximately 1,422 acres of understory burning could occur in the following locations: Bailey DFPZ on the northwest side of Campbell Mountain (311 acres), Bidwell DFPZ (221 acres) north of Butte Creek Campground; Blacks Mountain Experimental Forest (225 acres); Summit DFPZ on the east side of Logan Mountain (465 acres), and Houseman and Signal DFPZs around Dow Butte (200 acres).
The location of Dow Butte is 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 248 acres of landing piles and around 500 acres of hand piles are planned to burn throughout the district, once significant rain or snowfall has occurred.
The Almanor Ranger District
The Almanor Ranger District will focus efforts on the Minnow Project, where up to 295 acres of understory burning will take place. The Minnow Project is an oak and pine enhancement project located in Butte County, approximately two miles east of the community of Inskip.
Smoke from this burn may be visible from Chico and other communities in the Sacramento Valley. Along Ponderosa Way in Tehama County, prescribed burning will occur on roughly 70 acres near the community of the Boondocks. This lower elevation project area will allow for prescribed fire operations to occur into the winter.
As conditions allow, 1,500 acres of piles will burn across the Almanor District. The plan includes 100 acres of hand, machine and biomass piles burning in the vicinity of Philbrook Lake. Smoke from these piles will be visible from the communities of Forest Ranch and Chico.
In the Swain Mountain Experimental Forest area, 850 acres of machine piles will burn. North of Mineral, the 35 acres of machine piles will burn as part of the Sugar Pine Flat project. West of Chester, 150 acres of machine piles will burn. Miscellaneous piles associated with smaller projects and administrative sites such as campgrounds, recreation sites, and work centers will burn across the District.
The Hat Creek Ranger District
The Hat Creek Ranger District is planning on burning 1500 acres on the Eastside Project area (Hat Creek Rim and Halls Flat Areas), and 200-250 acres in the Old Station WUI Project area.They have 500 acres of machine piles west of Eskimo Hill down by the 17 Road on the way to the Battle Creek Reservoir.
There are about 200 acres of scattered hand piles around the district that will burn once enough precipitation has fallen, and fire can no longer spread.
For more information about the district prescribed burn programs contact the following:
Almanor Ranger District – Jennifer Erickson, District Fuels Officer at 530-258-2141
Eagle Lake Ranger District – Chuck Lewis, District Fuels Officer at 530-257-4188
Hat Creek Ranger District – Rich Davis, District Fuels Officer at 530-336-5521
