A HOMEOWNER'S GUIDE TO DEFENSIBLE SPACE
AND A HEALTHY FOREST

 

HOW TO BE FIRE SAFE!

Defensible Space refers to that area between a home and an oncoming wildfire where the vegetation has been modified to reduce the wildfire threat and provides an opportunity for firefighters to safely defend the home.

A Healthy Forest is a wholesome plant association of trees and woody vegetation that is not structurally damaged or overly at risk from fire, disease, insects, wind, drought, or human activities and is capable of natural reproduction.

These concepts lead to more open space and less over crowding among the native vegetation.

This Homeowner Guide is an introduction to Forest Stewardship practices. They are helpful in the implementation of the Hayfork Community Fire Management Plan. Forest Stewardship practices include the "Three R's":

 

1. REDUCE Vegetation.
Prevent over- crowding and reduce tree and plant competition through the wider spacing of your trees. Have an on-going maintenance plan to prevent future overcrowding of trees as they get larger and compete for space.

 

2. REMOVE:
dead fuels, trees, limbs, damaged trees, trees with disease, trees with bark beetle infestations, and parasites such as the dwarf mistletoe.

 

3. REHABILITATE.
Develop your long-term Management Plan for a healthy forest through native tree species diversity, varying age classes and tree sizes and enhance riparian areas and wildlife habitat.

 


The Road To Wildfire Prevention:

THE HAYFORK COMMUNITY FIRE MANAGEMENT PLAN UPDATE - 1996

There are currently three projects underway within the Hayfork Valley that are focused on fuels reduction or fuel breaks. The US Forest Service is connecting currently existing fuel breaks, a public land/rural interface area on Farmer Ridge, extending the fuel break to county road, and control burning the brush. They are hoping to work with the private landowners to extend the identified fuels reduction area between the valley dwellings and the public lands this year and in the future until the north side of the valley is buffered.

A coordinated neighborhood fuels reduction project whose purpose is to have private landowners, local contractors, jobs-in-the-woods trainers, local crews, and state and federal agencies work together to reduce the fire hazard through fuels reduction in Hayfork Valley. There is matching funding available through the Shasta-Trinity FSA to assist landowners to achieve this purpose.

The community, through the forum of the Trinity Bioregion Group, has identified the need for fuels reduction by buffering existing transportation corridors. The Watershed Research and Training Center in cooperation with Shasta Community College and the US Forest Service has implemented several projects last year along roadsides and will continue to do so this year as part of an Ecosystem Management Training Program. Community members, Hayfork Volunteer Fire Department, PSW, TCGIS and others are updating road and water source information on a GIS for Hayfork Valley to expedite fire suppression efforts.

 


EXISTING CONDITIONS

Those of us living in the Hayfork Valley are at risk each year from an out-of-control wildfire or even a conflagration if extreme weather conditions occur. These wildfires happen literally in our own backyards - that marvelous and (at times) dangerous place called the "wildland/rural intermix".

It is not a question of IF? a wildfire will occur in our area,

but WHEN!

A wildfire occurring under current wildland/rural intermix conditions could, in just a few hours, cause substantial property damage, loss of human life, and destroy the forest-woodland overstory for the next 50 to 100 years. There are defensible measures available to the foothill communities that could reduce the amount of damage resulting from a wildfire. The intent of the Hayfork Community Fire Management Plan and the Hayfork Valley Fuel Reduction Project are to take advantage of defensible space and forest management measures.

Specifically, the objective of the program is to:

Reduce the potential for natural resource, property, and human life losses due to wildfire and tree disease by empowering the communities residents with the knowledge to address the hazard, providing the resource necessary to correct the problem, and encouraging the cooperative efforts of appropriate agencies and the citizens.

 


FIRE AND FORESTS

Fire is a natural phenomenon. It is one of nature's important recycling agents and is key to maintaining natural processes in many wildland ecosystems. This is especially true in California and in the Hayfork Valley which has a Mediterranean type ecosystem and a climate of cool, rainy winters and hot, dry summers with four months of dry soils. The decay of woody material is a slow process in such an environment and dead fuels tend to accumulate.

In presettlement days the mixed conifer forest and oak woodlands that dominated our area were more open in structure, the shrubs and brush were smaller due to animal browsing and the shading out by the overstory canopy, and frequent low intensity fires which also prevented the accumulation of the dead forest fuels. Under these natural conditions the high intensity wildfires, such as those that have occurred in the Hayfork Valley in the past several years, were unusual. Natural conditions, however, are no longer in effect.

Fires in natural settings that would have been deemed acceptable or even desirable prior to settlement, are now considered threats to human life and property. As a result the term wildfire was coined to describe an event that is potentially disastrous and requires an organized suppression effort.

 


CURRENT STATUS

Ironically, one of the important factors contributing to the current potential for a high intensity catastrophic wildfire in the Hayfork Fire District is the absence of fire in the past four decades. The lack of fire disturbance has allowed unnaturally large amounts of fuel to develop in the mixed conifer forest, oak-woodlands, and chaparral found in our Hayfork Valley.

Fire suppression actions, along with the lack of land management and resources management, have allowed a deep fuel bed of dead leaves, twigs and pine needles to build up adding to the chance of fires starting or spreading more rapidly by burning embers from an approaching conflagration. The large accumulation of fuel, both living and dead, is referred to as "unnatural" and has also altered the appearance, structure and the health of the forests. This fuel loading surely will result in future high intensity fires within the Hayfork Fire Protection District, Trinity County and throughout the state of California.

Dead vegetation is considered to be one of the most hazardous types of wildfire fuels.

 


THE CAUSE, RISK & HAZARD OF WILDFIRE

 

FIRE CAUSE:
is the specific reason for a given fire starting and the kinds of fires that can be expected. Awareness of fire causes and fire safe practices are the thrust of Fire Prevention Programs.

Comparative Fire Cause Statistics
Cause %
Equipment Use 30
Arson - Incendiary 19
Debris Burning 14
Miscellaneous 13
Playing With Fire 11
Campfire 5
Smoking 4
Lightning 4

Humans and their activities cause 96% of the thousands of California wildland fires each year. Lightening fires are counted in the hundreds but they played an important role in presettlement days and shaped the ancient forest.

 

RISK (the Chance of a Fire Start):
Ignition sources increase in direct proportion to population. The residential density of the Hayfork Valley resulted in one of dual exposure--increased risk to the watershed resource and an increased threat to life and property from watershed fires.

 

HAZARD (Threat From Watershed Fires):
is a measure of expected fire behavior or Hazard = Fire Intensity and depends primarily upon fuel, weather, and topography (slope). The Hayfork District is classified as a "Very High Fire Hazard Area".

It is likely that most people do not typically consider the vegetation on their property as a threat. In the context of wildfire, however, what is growing on or adjacent to their property can have considerable influence on the survivability of their homes.

The residential homes and all vegetation, including naturally occurring native plants and introduced species used in the residential landscape, are potential wildfire fuels. The type, amount, and arrangement of vegetation available for burning has a dramatic effect on fire behavior. If vegetation is properly modified a wildfire can be slowed down, the length of flames shortened, and the amount of heat reduced, all of which contribute to a house surviving a wildfire.

 


FIRE SAFE GUIDELINES

Keep the fire on the ground ...

... With low heat and low flames

By planning a "Zone Defense"

 

The ten feet immediately adjacent to your home is an area called "The Structure Protection Zone". The purpose of this zone is to protect the structure from direct exposure to flame. Maintain spacing between plant materials and structure walls, eliminate ladder fuel situations, use lawns, sidewalks or paths and non-flammable landscaping. When coupled with an effective defensible space, a defensible house will be much less likely to be destroyed during a wildfire.

If your parcel is one acre or less, your home, improvements, and forest woodland vegetation all constitute your "Defensible Space Zone" and needs to be managed to protect your family, your investments, and your native forest trees.

The Defensible Space Handbook recommends that all fuels up to 100' from homes and structures be managed to create the "Fire Smart Acre".

The State Public Resources Code 4291 "Reduction of Fire Hazards Around Buildings" requires a defensible space to a minimum of 30 feet around all buildings (or to the property line). Such clearance, though helpful, is often inadequate protection when a wildfire approaches residential areas, because of the huge fuel loading just beyond the clearance has flame lengths of 40, 50, or 60 feet. The purpose of defensible space is to reduce the wildfire threat to a home and the forest canopy through appropriate modification of vegetation and to be able to save the home, improvements and the forest habitat.

The Forest-Woodland Zone represents the remainder of the property that lies outside of the formal landscape and the Defensible Space. It is applicable to parcels of more than an acre in size. In this zone vegetation should be modified as described above with the emphasis on protecting the forest canopy by removing the ladder fuels. Landowners' forest-woodland overstory and forest canopy are at risk from wildfire if ladder fuels, heavy brush, and continuous brush fields create a fuel hazard to their forest woodland. It will take 50 to 100 years for the forest-woodland to return if destroyed by fire. In this zone one can be a good steward and protect your part of the forest-woodland. Through sound management practices you can also rehabilitate the forest habitat and help return to a healthy forest, enhance wildlife, and insure water quality.

This is where the Hayfork Valley Interagency Fuel Reduction Project and the Hayfork Community Fire Management Plan help implement the natural resource and Fire Safe goals and policies. Removal of native trees that are structurally damaged, diseased or insect infested and pose a threat to the more healthy native trees in the community.

 

DISEASES:
are always present. Weather and weather cycles such as drought and windthrow cause stress, exposure, and attack routes in healthy trees. Dwarf mistletoe on pines, and true mistletoe on oaks, western gall rust in Ponderosa pines, and White Pine Blister Rust in Sugar Pine are the major disease problems in the Hayfork Valley.

 

INSECTS:
The primary insect problems in the conifer forest are caused by various species of bark beetles. In the oaks it is periodic outbreaks of leaf defoliators. If these problems start occurring they should be addressed quickly so that more problems do not last over the longer-term.

 

DROUGHT:
When you manage your forest-woodlands it is over an extended period of time and the impacts of expected drought periods will dictate spacing of trees.

 

DENSITY OF VEGETATION:
The overcrowding of existing vegetation in the forest is going to cause long term problems with increased insect and disease activity, higher hazards from fire, reductions in the amount of certain wildlife habitats (those needing more open sites), greater demands on existing subsurface water resources, and a reduction in the diversity of landscapes available in the Hayfork Valley.

Managing the various age trees and forest stands for proper density and spacing, which more nearly matches the natural processes, will require periodic thinning of trees and pruning of the lower limbs (the past role of fire) resulting in a sustainable and healthy forest. Insect attacks will be reduced and the removal of trees with mistletoe will prevent the spread to the rest of the forest. Removal of the encroaching brush and trees from meadows will help renew open spaces, and provide species habitat and diversity.

Remember the forest stewardship practices: reduce vegetation, remove dead and dying trees, and rehabilitate for a healthy forest.

May, 1996

 


For further information contact:

 
Hayfork Fire Protection District (530) 628-4675
Hayfork Volunteer Fire Department (530) 628-4675
Natural Resources Conservation Service (530) 623-3991
Trinity County Resource Conservation District (530) 623-6004
California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection (530) 623-4201
Kenneth Baldwin, Forester (530) 623-3208


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