We were lucky to have a little time with the very busy Ben Jacobs, Fuels Manager for Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. Ben had been out during the day walking the perimeter of a burn block to see that it was properly prepared for an upcoming Rx treatment. Ben told us how the two contiguous parks are broken down into 5 watersheds for fire management units. At least one of the watersheds is almost impossible to introduce fire into because of its geographical orientation and topography – as smoke is guaranteed to blanket nearby communities through funneling and being subsequently captured under inversion layers.
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| Front country management units |
Smoke management is a huge issue here for fire managers as air quality and emissions limitations are regulated under the Clean Air Act.
Essentially the act requires all fire agencies and their managers to apply to conduct burning. They are required to undertake burning when smoke will have the least impact on air quality. It also requires that the amount of fuel consumed is reported upon so emissions can be calculated. In addition, confounding burning efforts further, sections of local communities are burning adverse for a raft of reasons including the smoke pollution issues, and concerns that fire will somehow injure the environment. Consequently prescribed burning in this area is not at all a simple matter.
Ben and his number 2 work, year round while the seasonal fire crew of 16 firefighters are employed over the warmer 6 months of the year. The focus for fire management is on the ‘front country’ as opposed to the ‘back country’ and Ben uses the maps prepared by Karen Folger and Tony Caprio to select burn blocks and implement the Rx burning. Wildfires caused by lightning are used to treat back country areas according to the priorities for landscape treatments assessment.
During the winter Ben and his offsider prepare and review burn plans for future burning seasons. During any one season 3,000 – 14,000 acres (1,200 – 5,700 acres) are treated with fire.
Rapid fuel assessments, or a subset of the empirical Fire Monitoring Handbook plots are used to assess if the burning objectives of individual prescribed fires have been achieved. A series of random plots are assessed pre fire and post fire, excluding 1000 hour fuels to calculate tons per acre consumed for air quality reporting purposes.
Thanks Ben!
PS Ben won a Fire and Ecology Award in 2010 for Achievement in Managing a Wildfire Award. Congratulations Ben!
