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Title: |
Ashland, OR - Community Wildfire Protection Plan and the Ashland Forest Resiliency Community Alternative
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Type: |
Community Planning
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Jurisdiction: |
City/town
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State: |
Oregon
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Program Description: |
Ashland CWPP
Background
The community of Ashland, Oregon completed a Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) in August of 2004. The CWPP was written under time pressure to comment on Forest Service plans to manage wildfire fuels in the Ashland Creek watershed, the source of the city�s water supply. Community leaders found a dual need for the CWPP, both as a management plan for the city�s Wildland Urban Interface Zone and for optimal management of the watershed land. Authorized under the Healthy Forest Restoration Act (HFRA) of 2003, the CWPP reviews current wildfire hazard reduction efforts, regulations, and outreach. Additionally the CWPP addresses the Ashland Forest Resiliency Project (AFR) and offers an alternative treatment approach for the Ashland Creek Watershed, called the Ashland Forest Resiliency Community Alternative (AFRCA). While the watershed is publicly owned property, conflicts in management goals can exist due to the development of homes and infrastructure in the low and mid-elevation forests, and as the source of drinking water for the city. The Ashland CWPP is the result of community wide fire protection planning and the compilation of project documents developed by the staff and citizens of the City of Ashland relative to managing private and public land in and adjacent to the Ashland Creek Watershed.
The CWPP, www.ashland.or.us/cwpp meets the requirements of HFRA by:
- being collaboratively developed by local and state government representatives, in consultation with federal agencies and other interested parties, including the Oregon Department of Forestry, US Forest Service and local fire officials.
- identifying and prioritizing areas for hazardous fuel reduction treatments and recommending the types and methods of treatment that will protect the at-risk community and infrastructure;
- recommending measures that homeowners and communities can take to reduce the ignitability or structures throughout the planning area.
Elements of the Ashland CWPP
Important elements of the Ashland CWPP include:
Chapter 1. An analysis of the community setting;
Chapter 2. A history of wildfire in the area;
Chapter 3. Ashland WUI Hazard Assessment and Inventory including maps of high hazard areas;
Chapter 4. Wildfire Fuels Reduction Program and NFP Grants, including a map of annual National Fire Plan Grant Projects;
Chapter 5. Local and state regulations for vegetation management including: SB360, the Oregon Forestland Urban Interface Protection Act, the Ashland Municipal Code Development Standards for Wildfire Lands, and Josephine County, Oregon � Article 76 of the Rural Land Development Code;
Chapter 6. Infrastructure, Fire Response, and Post-Fire Recovery;
Chapter 7. Homeowner�s Guide to Living in the WUI;
Chapter 8. Ashland Forest Resiliency Community Alternative (AFRCA).
AFRCA
The AFRCA management plan addresses the treatment of National Forest System lands within the Upper Bear Analysis area. Its goal is to retain or improve ecosystem resiliency to fire by establishing a Fuel Discontinuity Network (FDN). The AFRCA calls for a complete, spatially explicit inventory of vegetation and soil conditions in the Ashland Watershed with treatment focusing on the dry plant association groups including Ponderosa pine, dry Douglas fir, moist Douglas fir and dry white fir. The Fuel Discontinuity Network divides the watershed land into three major categories:
Category 1. Existing fire resilient areas. Features that currently have a lower crown fire potential, such as previously completed USFS prescribed burns, completed fuel breaks, riparian areas, fire resilient late seral forests, and natural openings.
Category 2. Areas readily made fire resilient. Identify and implement fuel reduction treatments in areas where relatively little resource investment may be able to create relatively fire resilient stand conditions. Such areas include ponderosa and sugar pine dominated stands on upper two-thirds slopes within the dry Douglas-fir, moist Douglas fir, dry white fir, moist white fir and cool white fir plant association groups, and maintenance of previously treated prescribed burn fuel treatments and shaded fuel breaks.
Category 3. Identify and implement treatments in those areas that occupy a strategic geographic position in the landscape relative to Categories 1 and 2. Areas included in Category 3 include the Ashland Wildland Urban Interface Zone, corridors within 50� of riparian areas, roadside corridors within 100� on either side of roads spanning short distances between other selected units, Northern Spotted Owl activity centers, and other areas of concern.
These three categories are then divided into smaller units by plant association group and location in the landscape, and prioritized for treatment. The goal of strategically prioritizing fuel reduction work in these areas is the creation of a network of fire-resistant patches in dry and moist plant associations that provide fuel discontinuities across the project area. The FDN would establish fire resistant patches to restore landscape-scale fire resiliency and ecological heterogeneity.
As provided for in the HFRA, the community�s alternative treatment, is being analyzed in a NEPA process as one of two alternatives. If chosen, the community�s CWPP will be a true collaborative success, developed by the community, working with the local Forest Service officials. The community team plans to stay involved through the implementation phase to ensure that the intent of the plan is translated to the forests of the Ashland Creek watershed.
Read the Ashland CWPP web site at:www.ashland.or.us/cwpp.
Contact Information
For information contact Chris Chambers, Ashland Fire and Rescue, via email at [email protected], or by phone at 541-522-2066.
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