Region Archives: United States

LAKE TAHOE, Calif./Nev. – Forest health is a top priority of the Lake Tahoe Environmental Improvement Program (EIP), a landscape-scale collaboration and partnership between nearly 80 public and private organizations to achieve the environmental goals of the region. To date, partners have treated nearly 95,000 acres in Lake Tahoe Basin forests to reduce hazardous fuels. After decades of fire suppression, Tahoe Basin’s forests are overstocked and highly vulnerable to insects, disease, and catastrophic wildfire. …Land managers use different methods during forest thinning treatments that include mechanical and hand thinning. …Short-term effects of forest thinning projects include temporary impacts to recreational areas and changes to the appearance of Lake Tahoe Basin forests. …These areas recover quickly and improve ecologically as new vegetation growth occurs within a few years.

With broad public support and the endorsement of Gov. Greg Gianforte, the Montana Land Board’s 3-2 vote gave conditional approval to a nearly 33,000-acre conservation easement on working forests between Kalispell and Libby. …The tentative approval is on the condition that Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP) and its partners amend the terms of the easement to expressly guarantee a third-party owner’s subsurface mineral rights. As the board considered the project’s first phase, which would protect 32,981 acres in the Salish and Cabinet mountains, proponents described it as the culmination of a years-long effort by FWP, the nonprofit Trust for Public Land and landowner Green Diamond Resource Company. Despite the succession of private ownership, the land has been managed for de facto public access for more than a quarter century, in large part because the timber companies have been invested in long-term forest management.

San Jose State wildfire researchers are studying the impact of the devastating CZU Lightning Complex Fire in the Santa Cruz mountains and the importance of forest management to keep forests safe from extreme wildfires. Nadia Hamey, Lead Forester and Property Manager at the San Vicente Redwoods remembers all too well when the CZU Lightning Complex Fire tore through the forest, calling it an intense time. …Hamey said, just six months before the CZU Lightning Complex Fire, they did a prescribed burn that ultimately protected that part of the forest. “So, it kind of skipped over the prescribed burn footprint, and the Crown Fire kept raging through the area that had not had a prescribed to burn,” said Hamey. The contrast is striking. There is a clear difference where the forest was untouched by wildfire and then just a few feet away where the trees are burnt and blackened.

Wildfires are accelerating at a pace so fast that the trees burned can’t be replaced fast enough. Now, experts are trying to move beyond their old methods of plant and pray. …The Forest Service typically requires trees that are being replanted to be the same species at the same elevations as before a fire. But with climate change complicating matters, that regulation might be changing. …That’s where groups like the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute come in. “Our goal is to understand how tree species are surviving outside of their current existing range. …”Our goal is to understand how tree species are surviving outside of their current existing range. …we wanted to push where a given species exists on a mountain to understand if they are able to go a little bit higher in elevation, or perhaps a little bit lower,” said Stevens-Rumann.

SEATTLE — Ty Abernathy tips his head back and judges where this big tree will fall as he starts cutting it with a chain saw. …For more than a century, this has been a way of doing business in Washington, cutting forests owned by the state and today managed by the Department of Natural Resources. But in an era of climate warming — and growing climate activism — there is a new war in the woods. …This fight is not over old growth, the trees sprouted before 1850 and never cut since settlers came here. The conflict now playing out across Washington is over the old-growth forests of tomorrow. These are second-growth forests originating before 1945 and never sprayed with herbicide or replanted to a dense monoculture of nursery-grown seedlings. …Suddenly, DNR timber sales that can fetch millions of dollars are being paused, canceled, litigated and protested, throwing the state’s timber business into disarray.

Washington’s Commissioner of Public Lands runs the state Department of Natural Resources. The agency is responsible for managing nearly 6 million acres of public lands. …Nearly half of those acres are trust lands, that by state mandate must produce revenue to support schools and other services in rural counties, primarily through logging. A crowded primary in an open race for the position ended in a recount. Democrat Dave Upthegrove squeaked through with 49 votes and is facing off against Republican Jamie Herrera Beutler. He’s the chair of the King County Council; she’s a former congresswoman from Southwest Washington. Their contest is shaping up to be a clash over forest management styles — and how to best use that resource in the face of climate change. At stake in this race are three main things: the health of Washington’s timber industry, the next generation of its old growth forests, and how much DNR revenue flows to rural communities.

Cal Fire-Humboldt-Del Norte Unit announced they will be performing a prescribed burn on Ettersburg Ranch road and Walter Ridge road over the course of three days starting on Sunday, Oct. 20- Tuesday, Oct. 22. Cal Fire Humboldt- Del Norte said the controlled 300-acre burnis planned for the restoration of oak woodland habitat and to reduce wildfire hazardous fuels… This burn is said to be part of a long-term habitat management plan which intends to reduce hazardous wildland fuel loading. Cal Fire said the treatment will help to enhance the health of the native plant communities, aid in the control of non-native plant species, and protect and enhance habitat for animal species dependent on the oak woodland ecosystem.

Restoring forest health is a major priority for the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) and our partners on the Tahoe Fire and Fuels Team. Following the Angora Fire in 2007, TRPA helped bring fire and forest management agencies together to increase the pace of forest fuel reduction projects, streamline permit processes, and prioritize new funding sources. The Angora Fire was a wakeup call for the Tahoe Basin. Although it was relatively small by today’s standards, the 3,100-acre fire destroyed more than 250 homes along Angora Ridge on the South Shore… TRPA is also helping fire and emergency management agencies coordinating on emergency evacuation planning. The Tahoe Basin was awarded a $1.7-million federal PROTECT grant for regional evacuation planning and to address wildfire and extreme weather vulnerabilities in our transportation and communication infrastructure.

Wildfires have become an increasingly serious disaster risk in California, US. Besides the risk of death, they cause widespread damage to private property, infrastructure, and the environment. In the 2024 wildfire season so far, the US State has seen nearly 6,800 wildfires burning more than one million acres. …Cordi Craig works in Placer Resource Conservation District, an independent and self-governing special district, which occupies most of California’s Placer County. …Placer RCD provides technical assistance to anyone that wants it, and Cordi works as a Prescribed Fire Program Manager, helping to oversee the planning, implementation, and monitoring of prescribed fires, controlled fires which are used to manage vegetation, reduce the risk of uncontrolled wildfires, and maintain ecological balance. PreventionWeb spoke with Cordi to learn how her role is helping communities in California build resilience to the ever-growing threat of wildfires.