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National Fire Plan Success Story

Tionesta WUI and Plantation Management Biomass Project
Doublehead Ranger District, Modoc National Forest
January 2008

A thinned stand in the project area.
A thinned stand in the project area.

The vicinity of the town of Tionesta and the surrounding Twin plantation is a fire-prone landscape with a history of large, rapidly moving fires. The Twin plantation is approximately 7,000 acres. It was established 15 to 25 years ago following wildfires in the mid-1970s. The area is scattered eastside pine with juniper between plantation stands. Open forest stands have a healthy understory of bitterbrush, forbs, and grasses that provide key winter and transitional habitat for mule deer.

 District Staff collaborated with adjacent property owners and Tribal representatives to develop a landscape level proposal to manage fuels and plantations in and around the Tionesta WUI.  Treatments were designed to:

  • Reduce the risk of wildfire and associated loss to Tionesta residents and the electronic facility on Timber Mountain.
  • Protect and manage a substantial investment in approximately 6,300 acres of conifer plantations established following the 1978 Twin and Cougar wildfires.
  • Protect Native American cultural values associated with Timber Mountain, and its eligibility to the National Register of Historic Places.

Treatments include a combination of manual, mechanical, and prescribed fire activities:

  • Mow and thin vegetation to establish a 100 foot fuel break on either side along approximately 60 miles of roads that are used for fire suppression access within the WUI surrounding Tionesta and the adjacent plantations.
  • Mow vegetation and thin understory and plantation trees on approximately 900 acres adjacent to private property in Tionesta and in strategic areas on Timber Mountain to create defensible space and reduce the risk of wildfire spread from National Forest lands to the local community, as well as protect sensitive areas and the electronic facilities on Timber Mtn.
  • Biomass thin approximately 5,400 of ponderosa pine plantation stands, creating strategically placed "treatment zones" to interrupt the spread and reduce the intensity of wildfire.
  • Apply prescribed fire as a follow-up to mechanical and manual fuels treatments where necessary to meet or maintain desired fuel levels.

In 2005 a partnership between The Modoc National Forest, North Cal-Neva Resource Conservation and Development Council, The Modoc Fire Safe Council, W.M. Beaty and Associates Inc, Modoc County, Private land/home owners and the State of California, successfully leveraged monies and secured the National Woody Biomass Utilization Grant for Hazardous Fuels Reduction. Grant funding combined with hazardous fuels and other appropriated funding enabled large-scale implementation to begin in 2005.

To date, roughly 80% of the project has been completed. Work has been accomplished through:

  • Tionesta Biomass sale, providing biomass for the local Big Valley Power Company.
  • California Dept of Corrections brushing, pruning, piling, and burning.
  • Force Account thinning and burning.
  • Biomass thinning on approximately 1,200 acres of adjacent private plantation

Through ongoing collaboration with project partners and State and local cooperators, District staff has developed a successful and aggressive approach to fuels treatment in a critical area.

Contact:

Anne Mileck, 530-233-8803
Don Glen, 530-667-8658