Assessment

* Fire-Alternative Views

* Careless and Indiscriminate Fire Use

Strategies

CURRENT PAGE:
9 of 9

Implications

Continuation of current fire-management strategies (i.e., primarily fire suppression with spatially sporadic and limited fuels management) will have important implications in a number of areas. First, there will continue to be periods in many years, especially dry ones, when weather and fuels will combine to produce fire behavior beyond the technological capability of fire-suppression forces to respond effectively. The strategies described here are intended to modify the fuel conditions that support the severe events, thus reducing their magnitude and frequency of occurrence. However, fire suppression has been quite effective in limiting the total area burned in the Sierra Nevada during the twentieth century. Ecological considerations aside, continuing current management strategies might produce similar results, at least in the near term. The primary difference will be in the increasing threat to human lives, forest resources, and property as more people move into the wildland-urban intermix without adequate hazard reduction. This threat could probably be dealt with by treating the wildland-urban intermix areas, instituting economic incentives for stakeholders to take part, and continuing an aggressive suppression strategy.
However, there is strong evidence that fire once was a major ecological process in the Sierra Nevada with profound influences on many, if not most, Sierran ecosystems. The success of fire suppression has altered, and will continue to alter, Sierran ecosystems, with various consequences in regard to ecological function (e.g., nutrient cycling, successional pathways, forest structural development, biodiversity, hydrology). Many of the consequences probably have not yet been described. Regardless of what combinations of strategies are ultimately used, only wide-scale, extensive landscape treatments (e.g., prescribed fire, fuel treatments) can approach the level of influence that fire once had on the Sierran environment.
Ideally, work on all goals should progress concurrently. Where possible, opportunities should be sought that provide the greatest gain toward all goals. Where this is not possible, however, goals 1, 3, and 4 should generally be given higher priority in the short term, to reduce losses of lives, property, and resources and to make it possible to work more effectively toward achieving goal 2, thus improving the overall health and sustainability of Sierra Nevada ecosystems. Stated in another way, protection is a prerequisite to restoration in many areas. Regardless of what strategies and priorities are adopted, it is essential for the wildland fire agencies to continue strong support for suppression and prevention activities.
Fire-related evaluation criteria that can be used to monitor progress toward the goals presented include (1) area and distribution of burned areas by severity classes (e.g., high severity usually detrimental, low severity usually beneficial), (2) area and/or distribution of desirable fuel profiles, and (3) number of counties and communities adopting fuel-hazard reduction standards and participating in correcting hazardous fuel conditions in the wildland-urban intermix. The data required to apply these criteria should be part of a comprehensive temporal GIS database that would integrate, at a minimum, vegetation, fuels, fires, ecological and human values, and management activities.