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Eric Knapp, Becky Estes, and Carl Skinner U.S. Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station,

Overstory and understory vegetation management to meet fire resilience and wildlife habitat objectives. Eric Knapp, Becky Estes, and Carl Skinner U.S. Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station, 3644 Avtech Parkway, Redding, CA 96002. Outline.

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Eric Knapp, Becky Estes, and Carl Skinner U.S. Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station,

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  1. Overstory and understory vegetation management to meet fire resilience and wildlife habitat objectives Eric Knapp, Becky Estes, and Carl Skinner U.S. Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station, 3644 Avtech Parkway, Redding, CA 96002

  2. Outline • Developing vegetation objectives from historical stand data: an example • Historical stands were fire resilient and biodiverse • Research plots, Stanislaus NF, CA • 80 years of overstory and understory changes from before logging to present • Using historical stands as a guide: thinning prescriptions for restoring forest complexity & resilience to fire • Similarities in scale of within-stand organization across dry forests with history of frequent fire

  3. Stanislaus National Forest “Methods of Cutting” study plotsEstablished in 1929 Heavy cut Light economic thin USFS thin Stanislaus-Tuolumne Experimental Forest

  4. 10 acre stand maps with vegetation transect

  5. Change in density, basal area, and composition after logging and fire suppression

  6. Change in structural heterogeneity

  7. Methods of Cutting Plots, Stanislaus NF - 1929 • “The virgin forest is uneven-aged, or at best even-aged by small groups, and is patchy and broken; hence it is fairly immune from extensive devastating crown fires.” • “fire creates a patchy scattered distribution of reproduction” • (Show and Kotok 1924)

  8. Spatial structure of stand (trees > 10cm dbh) 1929 2008

  9. DBH 1929 (in) DBH 2008 (in) Live trees in 1929 post-logging Live trees in 1929 prior to logging Live trees in 2008 Plot 9 – USFS thin

  10. Basal area heterogeneity MC Plot 10 1929 POTENTIAL ADVANTAGES • resistance to crown fire spread • surface fuel discontinuity • nesting and foraging habitat for wildlife • understory biodiversity – high and low light environments 2008 Low - High Low - High

  11. Shrub change 1929 - 2008

  12. Mitigating crown fire hazard: • - Reduce ladder fuels • - Raise height to crown base • - Space crowns of overstory trees Structure in 1929

  13. Developing prescriptions for restoring complexity

  14. Create gaps & groups • Size & number based on historical stand data • Among group variation • Thin to variable basal area/ SDI/ density targets • Within group variation • Retain largest/best trees regardless of crown spacing Ideas for generating within stand complexity

  15. Similarities with stand maps for dry forests of the eastern Cascades Wenatchee NF, WA Harrod et al. 1999 Metolius Research Natural Area, ORYoungblood et al. 2004

  16. Group size in historical old-growth forests with history of frequent fire

  17. Beaver Creek Pinery, Lassen NF, CA • burned 5 times since 1900 • last fire in 1994 • highly heterogeneous with group & gap structure

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