* Critical Findings
Assessment
* Fire-Alternative Views
* Careless and Indiscriminate Fire Use
STRATEGIES
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STRATEGIES
There are many possible approaches and strategies for addressing issues relating to
the management of fire and hazardous fuels in the Sierra Nevada. We have addressed
only a few of these in our illustrations.
Goals
1. Substantially reduce the potential for large high-severity wildfires in the Sierra
Nevada in both wildlands and the wildland-urban intermix.
2. Restore historic ecosystem functions of frequent low- and moderate-severity fire.
3. Help communities understand and eliminate unacceptable fire hazards and risks
that threaten the safety of people and homes in the wildland-urban intermix.
4. Aid counties, other local governments, and fire districts in attaining and maintaining
fire-safe fuel conditions concurrent with all new development or in redirecting development
to areas of lower fire hazard.
Possible Solutions
Reducing the potential for large, high-severity fires while at the same time increasing
the area burned and the ecosystem effects produced by low- and moderate-intensity
fires would reduce the fire hazard to property and lives in developed areas as well
as reduce the total acreage burned at high severity. It might actually increase the
total area burned compared with the past few decades. Such a program would, by necessity,
require the effective development of institutional frameworks to facilitate interaction, financial support, and cooperation among agencies, local governments, and private
interests. It is inconceivable that fire in its presettlement extent and frequencies
could be restored fully to the Sierra Nevada.
The following are possible solutions addressing the identified problems:
Prioritize fuel treatment areas to minimize the likelihood and spread of large, severe
fires, based on broad, landscape-level analyses of risk and hazard to both human
settlements and wildlands.
Develop a system of defensible fuel profile zones (DFPZs), initially using a variety
of silvicultural treatments, to limit the spread of large, severe fires. Once developed,
these DFPZs will serve as areas of entry into larger landscapes to facilitate more widespread fuel treatments, such as prescribed fire, and will allow more widespread
use of wildfire to meet management objectives.
Increase substantially the use of prescribed fire (natural or management ignition)
in areas where restoration of natural processes is emphasized.
Develop programs for the increased use (through containment and confinement strategies)
of low- and moderate-intensity wildfires to achieve goals of restored ecosystem processes,
resource management, and human safety.
Develop fuel-management demonstration areas. For the purpose of public education,
some demonstration areas would illustrate vegetative conditions necessary to reduce
the severity and extent of large, severe wildfires. These areas would be developed
by a suite of treatment methods so that the public can adequately observe and managers can
learn from the various resulting conditions. Other demonstration areas would be located
to provide a social arena for developing the institutional framework necessary to
carry out large, strategic fuel-management projects. Of particular value in this context
may be projects in wildland-urban intermix areas such as those found in Nevada, Placer,
and El Dorado Counties.
Develop a collaborative institutional structure (e.g., an Issue Command Structure,
similar to the Incident Command System used for fire suppression and other emergencies)
so that federal, state, and local agencies and communities could join together to
plan, establish goals, finance, and execute programs to accomplish the fire-safety objectives.
Make visible those counties (e.g., El Dorado) and communities (e.g., Incline Village,
Lake Tahoe, Nevada, and Pine Mountain Lake Development, Tuolumne County, California)
that have implemented effective programs through General Plans, ordinances, and actions that either avoid new development in high fire-hazard zones, require full mitigation
of the hazards concurrent with development, or are correcting hazardous fuel conditions
in existing developments.
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