Managing Sierra Nevada Forests

Fire will continue to be a major management challenge in mixed-conifer forests in the Sierra Nevada. Fire is a fundamental ecosystem process in these forests that was largely eliminated in the 20th century. Fire reintroduction is a critical goal but is subject to constraints such as smoke production, risk of fire moving outside designated boundaries, the expanding wildland-urban interface, and lack of experience in burning large areas of forest. Recent fire and fuels research relevant to planning and implementing forest/fuels treatments revolve around three main topics: (1) potential limitations in the widely used Fire and Fuels Extension (FFE) module of the Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS), (2) designing effective fuels treatment placement in landscapes under real world constraints, and (3) the size of high-severity burn patches in a landscape with an active mixed-severity fire regime. Although it currently may be difficult to model fire behavior in forests treated for the fine-scale structural and fuel heterogeneity suggested in U.S. Forest Service General Technical Report PSW-GTR-220, “An Ecosystem Management Strategy of Sierran Mixed-Conifer Forests” (hereafter GTR 220) (North et al. 2009a) collectively, the ideas presented may improve fuel treatment implementation and forecasting of wildfire effects on Sierran forests.