The following is a press release from the Eel River Recovery Project:
The Eel River Recovery Project, in collaboration with local landowners, and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE), is planning to burn 16-acres of piles in the Lower Tenmile Creek Watershed on Saturday, November 23 and Sunday, November 24th, at the Vassar Ranch.
The Lower Tenmile Creek project area is located near Hwy 101, approximately 7 miles north of Laytonville. Burning will begin at 8am, and smoke may be visible from Hwy 101 and surrounding areas. The burn will be led by qualified Burn Boss Scot Steinbring of Torchbearr, with a burn crew on site and permitting from CalFire and Air Quality.
The burn is part of an ambitious multi-year watershed-wide forest health project in the Tenmile Creek watershed to return good fire to the ecosystem, thinning areas of dense trees and reducing the buildup of woody fuels on the forest floor, the consequence of over a century of fire suppression. Burning the piles of slash and woody debris will start to reduce the fuel load so that prescribed broadcast burning can happen in the area in the future. Thinning and piling of hundreds of piles by Elk Ridge Tree Service took place over the spring and summer.
The pile burn will be ERRP’s second application of good fire on the Tenmile project. Earlier this season, on October 11 Steinbring and Torchbearr led a successful prescribed burn further downstream in the Tenmile Creek Watershed on approximately 30-acres of mixed hardwood and conifer forest. Ideal burn conditions, and the diligent work of a crew of fire professionals and community members, resulted in an effective broadcast burn that safely cleared understory fuels and encroaching invasives.
ERRP is working to recruit volunteers to participate in controlled burns to assist with meeting their current ambitious prescribed fire goals, and to help the community build a stewardship corps that can assist with cooperative controlled burns as a way of maintaining forest and grassland health into the future. On December 7th, Will Emerson of the Northern Mendocino Ecosystem Recovery Alliance (NM-ERA) will co-host an onsite workshop at the North Vassar Unit, open to all community members, to learn more about the pile burning and the Tenmile Creek Forest Health Project and see the burn effects. Emerson will conduct a hands-on demonstration of the ecological benefits of different burning methods including conservation piles, “rick” burning, and the portable biochar kiln.
Funding for the Tenmile Creek Watershed Forest Health Project is provided by CAL FIRE’s Forest Health Program as part of California Climate Investments (CCI), a state-wide program that puts billions of Cap-and-Trade dollars to work reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, strengthening the economy, and improving public health and the environment – particularly disadvantaged communities.
Contact Alicia Bales at 916-595-8724 to get involved.
