Various measures afoot to prevent wildfires

In the photo, Redding area students walk through a forest near Shingletown during a Sierra Cascade Logging Conference-sponsored education day last May.

In today's news conference, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and others made several references to the high fuel loads that are putting public forests all the more at risk of catastrophic fire (which also threatens private forest lands like that in the photo).

“The fact that we have forests that were for many years not adequately or fully managed properly with reference to the fire hazard and we now have a full stock of hazardous fuels … creates a really dangerous circumstance, and with the dry conditions, that exascerbates it,” Vilsack said.

So I asked the USDA afterward what specific steps the agency is taking to reduce the fuel load, and here is how a Forest Service spokesperson responded in an e-mail:

The US Forest Service is currently embarking on Accelerated Restoration programs nationwide.

“Our restoration efforts are guided by a continuous cycle of assessing, implementing and adapting based on information from inventory and monitoring efforts,” Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell said. “This strategy will yield a variety of forest products and restore the structure, function, composition, and processes of healthy, resilient ecosystems across the nation.”

The agency proposes to restore or sustain 2.6 million acres on National Forest System lands, provide 2.8 billion board feet of timber, decommission over 2,000 miles of road, and restore or enhance 2,750 miles of stream habitat, Tidwell said.

Restoration work, which includes essential levels of research in high-priority and strategic program areas, also creates healthy communities, Tidwell said.

“The nation depends on the Forest Service to take proactive measures to reduce the threat of wildfire,” he said. “By working proactively to re-establish fire-adapted ecosystems, we can reduce the severity of large wildfires. Fire management resources are directed toward the highest priority areas. We are ready to protect life, property and community, and public safety.”

Look for my story soon.