In this issue:

• WFLC Holds Productive Fall Meeting in Idaho
• Native Traditional Methods Revived to Combat Drought and Wildfire in California
• Carrots, Sticks and the "Stupid Zone"
• Using Fire for Resource Benefit Helping Restore Sierra Nevada Forests
• 38,000 Acre Learning Laboratory
• Cross Boundary Field Tour Demonstrates Cohesive Strategy in Action
• 2016 State & Private Forestry Report Out
• Upcoming Learning Opportunities

WFLC field tour of 2013 Pony Fire and management activities near Boise, ID. Photo: KTVB.com
 

The Wildland Fire Leadership Council (WFLC) met September 7th and 8th in Boise, Idaho. The activities for their fall meeting included an eye-opening field tour of the 2013 Pony Fire, a tour of the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) and a productive face-to-face meeting. Meeting highlights here.  

California Native American Tribes are sharing traditional methods for tending the land with the US Forest Service to help ease droughts and create barriers to wildfires. The Amah Mutsun, Karuk, Yurok, Hupa and North Fork Mono Tribes, among others, have traditionally carried out controlled burning every year in the fall, to preserve useful plants and prevent larger fires.  The revival of these traditional land management practices, such as the restoration of meadows, can help contain wildfires and lessen the effects of drought by keeping more water in the ground and thinning the forest canopy, thus creating more open, wetter buffers to large fires. Read more here. 

Blue Cut Fire in California August 2016. Photo: Mike Nelson, EPA
 

Tucked among the fire reports this month have been articles about the need, and justification, for more robust land use planning regulations, development standards and codes and ordinances that level some of the responsibility for home and fire protection back on the homebuilders, developers, cities and counties.  The Cohesive Strategy supports these efforts in communities as a valuable component to becoming more fire adapted.  Developers in Washington and Oregon are proactively choosing to build Firewise Communities from the ground up.  In Plumas County, California and Deschutes County, Oregon, officials have adopted regulations that ensure Firewise standards will be utilized throughout developments in "the Stupid Zone" - the term one humorist gives to areas with identified hazards where people choose to build homes anyhow.  Read more about these examples here. 

 

In our continued support of using fire for resource benefit, a recently published study suggests that fire management approaches used by the National Park Service in Yosemite National Park can assist in the restoration and maintenance of Sierra Nevada forest ecosystems. More here. 

Beaver Creek Fire, Colorado.  Photo: Helen Richardson, Denver Post. 
 

We continue to see a paradigm shift in the firefighting strategy across the West. The Beaver Creek Fire is providing an opportunity to learn about how fires behave on beetle killed landscapes, how the strategy of point protection can be the right approach, and how the US Forest Service's Life First Initiative is being embraced by fire managers and saving lives.  More here. 

Northern New Mexico and Southwestern Colorado field tour.  Photo: Paul Orbuch
 

On August 18 and 19, community members, land managers and community groups embarked on a two-state field tour that demonstrated how they work together to make landscapes more resilient and communities safer. US Forest Service State & Private Deputy Chief Jim Hubbard and Associate Deputy Chief Vicki Christiansen were among the visitors for the tour as part of a cross-boundary Cohesive Strategy visit to Northern New Mexico and Southwestern Colorado. At each stop, the group learned about successful projects and efforts that are the direct result of diverse partners working together, across boundaries to protect headwaters and communities.  Read more here. 

 

The 2016 State and Private Forestry Report is out. The report illustrates just a few of the accomplishments, new initiatives, and on-the-ground impacts that are a result of more than five years of Forest Action Plan implementation.  Lots of great Cohesive Strategy behavior highlighted! More here.