4FRI LSWG Summary Meeting Notes 02September2010
NAU Science Lab Facility
Attendees:
Jill Rundall, Steve Sesnie, Valerie Horncastle, Marcus Selig, Matt Williamson, Ed Smith, Neil McCusker, Anne Mottek Lukas, Bruce Greco, Mike Dechter, Sharon Masek-Lopez, Mark Sensibaugh, Shaula Hedwall, Larry Stephenson, Ethan Aumack, Henry Provencio, Pascal Berlioux, Taylor McKinnon
Updates:
Steve Sesnie: Working on narrative for current conditions. Drawing information from outline and has developed a table of contents. Steve will circulate the document.
Mike Dechter: Mike provided updates on NEPA timeline. October 1st deadline from Landscape Strategy group. Forest Service will be working on details of the proposed action in November. The development of the Proposed Action was pushed back in order to incorporate more site-specific data. The proposed action will be released and public scoping will begin at the end of December. The Forest Service team will take the Landscape Strategy treatment areas and break it down into treatment units. The core Forest Service ID team consists of about 6 to 7 people and extended team includes another 12 to 18 people. The Project Initiation Letter (PIL) has been completed.
Neil McCusker: Neil presented the strategy for “marrying” gridded data (from LLECB) and polygon stand exam data to get to treatment site areas for the proposed action. This information will be used for simulation of treatments. The gridded data has been updated to 2010, but Neil still needs to take polygon stand data and bring up to 2010 for the 1st analysis area. Neil is in the process of cleaning up the database and they currently have people in the field that are helping to fill in the data gaps. The question came up on how gridded data and stand data will meld. Answer: They will look for reference situations to be able to vet inventory data. It they areas don’t “fit” then they will impute data for area with most-similar neighbor analysis. They won’t match perfectly, but it will work for stratification. The gridded data helps to fill in the gaps and is a method for validating. There is no particular number of reference sites needed and can “fill-in” whatever area needs to be filled. However, the larger the reference area, the better it will work.
Henry Provencio: Need to finalize treatment areas today, since FS needs to break down information into treatment units. We have to narrow down the characteristics that will decide treatment areas in order to hit the deadline.
Discussion Items:
Confusion on what scale LSWG will be going down to
· LSWG – down to forest treatment areas
FS – down to treatment units
· Need to redefine acre size for these groups
· Groups will be variable in size due to heterogenity
Break Down of Scales:
· Landscape - 2.4 million acres
· Analysis Area – 750,000 acres
· Firescapes – 200K - 350K acres
· Treatment Area – in the thousands (10K-50K but could go smaller)
· Treatment Unit – 50 acres to thousands of acres
Ownership of Landscape Strategy document
Who is finalizing, pulling items together, and editing?
· Document elaboration: Stakeholders
· Technical editors: Steve Sesnie, Jill Rundall, Shaula Hedwall, Valerie Horncastle
Steve stepped through Landscape Strategy structure and status
· Setup Table of Contents
· Pulling together and synthesizing narratives
· Current conditions section
· Description of scales
· Information (methods, tables of forest structure variables and amounts, maps of forest structure across entire area) is currently down to firescapes
· In the process of narrowing down for the 1st EIS area
· Descriptions, tables, and maps will be done at all scales
Desired Future Conditions
· Need qualitative information
· Should be characterizing areas at different scales
· Could be used to guide recommendations and locations of treatments
Timeline for finishing analyses:
LLECB (Lab of Landscape Ecology and Conservation Biology) should be able to finish analyses within a week, with additional time for writing it up.
Jill went over results of Risks and Values Questionnaire
· Took average of rankings and used weights for the analysis
· Top 3 values: community protection, municipal watersheds, aquatic watersheds
· CWPP and key infrastructure already in community protection layer with buffer
· Top 2 risks: Fire hazard/behavior and fire risk
· Priority treatment areas based currently on top 3 values and top 2 risks to illustrate the process. These can change with inputs from the group.
Shaula: WUI areas tend to get high priority, but we need to remember that if we ignore the surrounding areas, then we do not end up reducing landscape level fire risk, we do not reduce community risk, and we may end up losing many other important values (e.g., wildlife habitat, etc.).
Mark Sensibaugh: Instead of ranking in questionnaire, maybe stick with concepts instead of people’s preferences. We should try to stick more with science. How are other factors included (politics, Native American issues, etc.)?
Jill: Concepts can be done in the narrative, but need values in order to represent spatially
Ethan: Need to incorporate other datasets
General areas of concern is just the beginning and we need to develop strategic placements of treatment. Today we need to step down to 750K scale and work on a parallel level and then go back to the 2.4 million acre scale.
The 2.4 million acre scale is mostly narrative and is currently being worked on.
Important areas to consider from Treatment ID strawman:
1C- Identify ecologically and/or socially “sensitive areas” warranting special management consideration
These should be mappable.
2B- Refine project- level management areas and objectives
This is what we need to focus on.
Use volume estimates (Wood Supply study) for industry and contracts to develop where roads will be
Ethan: We should not start with exclusions in the map treatment area identification process. Pull out existing NEPA (shelf-stock) from map (grey areas). Move through treatment areas first and consider grey areas later. Grey areas include: non-forest service lands, steep slopes and NEPA.
Mike Dechter: Define treatment areas based on values and risks. This will help with the desired conditions process and will then help with treatment identification. Areas that have already been treated should not be grouped with sensitive areas.
The group should look at firescapes and layers to get a better idea of treatment areas. Need to look at patterns across the landscape to get to treatment areas. We need to step through the process. There are currently 9 steps at the 750,000 scale in the Treatment Area Identification Strawman.
Firescapes used as check instead of analysis scale.
Group attempted to start looking at Firescape 3 for treatment id.
Firescape 3: Areas that stand out
· Treatment areas configured around community protection
Direct approach for fuels reduction
· MSO habitat characteristics
Comments and concerns with Treatment Area ID
· Henry: Group needs a comprehensive list of values and risks weighted to get through this process.
Some members of the group did not support this idea.
· Bruce: Concerned about accuracy of areas (characterization of patterns) (ex. area near Lake Mary not completely accurate).
Group decided that at this scale we should not worry about this.
· Municipal watersheds maybe combine with aquatic watersheds. In the Wood Supply study these two were separated because they had different desired conditions.
Group did not argue with combining these layers.
· Are we comfortable with basing treatment areas only in ponderosa pine areas, since the other areas will also be treated?
The focus of the 4FRI treatments is on ponderosa pine, so we will be focusing treatments in ponderosa pine.
· We should look at fire behavior and risk patterns across the landscape.
Base layers are based on LANDFIRE data that has been updated. Inputs have been changed for LANDFIRE and the new model increases crown bulk density making everything red. Therefore Steve and Jill would prefer to use the old method of fire models with new and updated data.
Steve and Jill currently have a layer depicting differences between 2006 and 2010. This helps illustrate how fire behavior would change due to a change in forest structure, etc.
· Taylor: We need to look at fire behavior at different weather conditions instead of just the 97% condition. He believes this would help determine whether mechanical or fire treatments should be done first in certain areas.
These data are static (a shot in time). Does this data help dictate location of treatments?
Could model lower weather conditions (85%) help pop out more areas?
· Fire Risk – at one kilometer scale. This is at a much larger scale because it is based on fire ignition places. It estimates risk of large fires.
Henry: We should look more at values and risks instead of ignitions. Need to be putting layers on top of layers.
Maybe use fire ignitions to help distinguish priority firescapes.
· Need to account for downwind vectors and up slope.
Need to make sure treatment area identification criteria are linked to Desired Future Conditions to help develop treatment areas:
· Address patterns at HRV (no longer doing – see below)
· Address patterns at Biodiversity
· Address patterns for invasive species (no spatial data)
· Address patterns for fire behavior/risks
We need a criteria based approach. Are there separate criteria for management areas or certain conditions in management areas? Some of these are already mapped.
Summary of morning session:
Candidate treatment area IDs
Goal = Mechanical and burning treatment 300,000 acres within the first EIS area
Criteria: with thresholds
1. Landscape Management Areas (community protection, MSO habitats)
2. Municipal Watersheds 2b. Aquatic species
3. Headwater (6th order HUCs)
4. Fire Behavior 85% and 95% weather conditions – filter at variable patch size
5. Fire Risk – includes downwind vectors and hazards
6. Biodiversity patterns
It was also suggested to add climate exposure.
Afternoon Session
What about climate change?
An increase in temperature could change certain areas
Would a disturbance in these areas lead to a different vegetation community?
Climate change webpage: Historic mean temperature from 1951 to 2006
Line this up with fire risk (warmer temperature change areas may increase fire risk).
Look at levels of departure and increased temperature change.
HRV (Historic Range of Variability) Updates - Matt presented
Currently using TES data. For areas that are not Forest Service land, they are working on getting information to create pseudo TES. Data will overlay with LLECB’s gridded data to get departure. Departure data in strata is in small areas because historic sampling only occurs in small areas. Therefore, we can’t get departure rates accurate across the landscape. Historic range conditions data is limited. Can this be used for assumptions across landscape at a broad scale?
Not enough data has been collected to determine if there are patterns at this scale. This information is not very useful for selecting treatments, because some strata have a lot more variability than others. We could look at departure for minimum, median, and max.
Group decided to not consider HRV for now, but could use later.
Biodiversity Spatial Layer Updates– Shaula presented
Currently waiting on species diversity data from AZGFD. Hope to receive files soon.
The AZGFD composite layer includes T&E, statewide sensitive species, breeding bird information
We need to separate this out before it is useful. Right now we can only use data at the landscape scale.
We have spatial data for MSO and Goshawk.
Still waiting on spring/waters data layer from Forest Service.
MSO PACs could be used to determine some treatment areas. Protecting nest cores is the number one priority, but protecting the the whole PAC is important. In some areas, may mechanically treat all the way up to the PAC boundary to offer more fire protection to PACs.
· Could put ½ mile buffer around PACs (SW upwind) for protected areas
· Could treat around Mogollon Rim (specifically looked at East Pocket area) because these are important for MSO and many other species of wildlife, and contain important wildlife movement corridors. However, the area has limited access, so mechanical treatment not likely the best option.
· Should we look at contiguous fuels around rim and important wildlife areas? And if so how do we create this area? We need to protect areas around rim. Can we use this information to help determine treatment areas?
To establish treatment locations should we take criteria with set rankings?
Ethan: He does not like ranking system. We should look at each layer systematically to look for patterns and see what configuration is across the landscape.
Priorities for treatment:
· Communities
· Watersheds
· Aquatics (currently mapped)
· Fire behavior and risk and downwind areas (need to finish mapping and filtering)
Where do we not want to treat?
· Steep slopes
· Sensitive soils
*We should get main areas established first using the above criteria and then look at other areas and criteria at more detail and a smaller scale.
Shaula: If we look mostly at community protection and only treat those immediate areas then we will not have long term protection for communities or the wildland areas. How do these other areas become a priority?
Henry thinks some of these criteria should be weighted. We should also factor in smoke emissions, since this will be a political issue later on.
In the Kaibab Health document, they include mountain tops, riparian areas, old growth areas, and recreation areas as considerations. Do we want to include these additional factors in our layering system?
Remaining Criteria:
- Mountain top buffers – YES, these should be included
Use Kaibab Forest Health Approach – doughnut buffer around mountain top. We need to protect these steep areas and conifers from fire.
- Goshawk PFAs – YES
Use PFAs as a buffer for nests. PFAs will likely receive mechanical treatment.
- Old growth – Narrative only - We do not have the ability to map these areas, but factor in for narrative at smaller scales. The narrative should include what characteristics are used to ID old growth areas.
- Riparian Areas – In wood supply study took 100 ft buffer around perennial and intermittent streams. This will be more of an issue on the A-S.
- Recreation Areas – YES, recreation areas with infrastructure should have ¼ mile buffer. These areas should include boat docks, campgrounds, but not trailheads.
- Specially Designated Areas (wilderness, IRAs, RNAs) – YES
Proposed additional Wilderness Areas should be put in narrative