AMERICAN RIVER WATERSHED GROUP

April 20, 2006


The meeting of the American River Watershed Group (ARWG) meeting was called to order by Bill Templin, North American River Watershed Coordinator at 10:05 a.m. at the Auburn Recreation District Canyon View Community Center located at 471 Maidu Drive, Auburn.


Present: Bill Templin, North American River Watershed Coordinator; Rich Gresham and Katie Maloney, Placer County Resource Conservation District (PCRCD); Mal Toy, Placer County Water Agency (PCWA); Bill Cave, Auburn Lake Trails Fire Safe Council; Marilyn Jasper, Clover Valley Foundation and Sierra Club; Tim Dabney, District Ranger, US Forest Service (USFS) Eldorado Nat’l Forest; Matt Triggs, Biologist, USFS Tahoe NF; Rich Johnson, Retired USFS District Ranger Tahoe NF; Bill Brandt, President Auburn Lake Trails Homeowners Association; Matthew Reischman, Kevin Guerrero, Gianni Muschetto, and Eric Wood, CA Dept. of Forestry & Fire Protection (CDF).

Check-In:

Bill Templin led the “Check-In” procedure that entails telling who you are, how you are, if you have any time constraints, emergent issues, and/or individual expectations.


Review & Approval of Minutes:

No minutes were presented for approval.


Additions to the Agenda:

No additions were made to the agenda.


CA Fire Plan – Annual Updates and Opportunities for Information Contributions – Kevin Guerrero, CDF:

Bill Templin turned the floor over to Kevin who narrated a PowerPoint presentation giving an overview of the Nevada-Yuba-Placer (NYP) Pre-fire Management Plan (Plan) that currently serves as a component of the CA State Fire Plan written in 1995 and approved by the Board of Forestry.


The following in excerpted from the presentation:


The goal of the CA Fire Plan is to reduce total government costs and citizen losses from wildland fire by protecting assets at risk through focused pre-fire management prescriptions and increasing initial attack success.


Kevin reviewed slides reflecting how the NYP Plan was put together by dividing CDF units into manageable cells of approximately 450 acres. These cells are taken from the standard USGS 7½ minute Quad map, and then divided into 81 smaller sections called a ‘Quad 81’. The Group reviewed numerous maps depicting the progression from a 7½ Quad Map to a Quad 81.


The NYP Plan takes into consideration four components:








Kevin reviewed an example of the process used to determine Assets at Risk.



These factors added to satellite imagery are used to determine a Fuel Ranking.



The NYP Unit experiences 500-700 fires per year and continues to strive towards a 100% level of service. Last year three fires exceeded 8 acres.


Assessment components: fuels, fire weather, level of service, and assets at risk are combined into one hazard ranking that determines the areas most at risk to costly and damaging fires, helping the unit target areas for prefire management projects. Fuel load reduction projects were discussed as well as the need to continue stressing to private landowners the importance of vegetation management and the maintenance of defensible space in the terms of effective prefire management treatments.


The Prefire Management Plan Process is dynamic in nature and provides a process to validate parameters, take note of any changes, and re-apply the Fire Plan Assessment System periodically to re-assess existing high hazard areas and continue effective target their pre-fire management projects.


Group discussion highlighted the need for state and federal agencies to share information. Both Kevin and Gianni welcomed additional input both from agencies and stakeholders.


Kevin noted the Community Wildfire Prevention Plan efforts encourage pre-fire planning efforts on a collaborative level and the gathering of GIS information from others for CDF consideration and encouraged Bill Templin to share his information for further CDF consideration.


Kevin closed discussion noting CDF will be conducting a re-evaluation of their fuels methodology, meeting with stakeholder groups to gather additional information and feedback, and updating the NYP Plan. He noted the last 20 pages of the CA Fire Plan includes information in the form of maps and methodology parameters.


Bill Templin thanked Kevin, Gianni, and their teams, on behalf of the ARWG, for the presentation and invited them to stay for the US Forest Service presentation.


Bill Templin solicited agency pamphlets and other fire safety handouts for distribution at upcoming public outreach and education events including Creek Week and Earth Day activities.


Bill noted upcoming events where he will have the opportunity to interact with public officials and the Sierra Nevada Conservancy.


Rich Gresham followed up with the suggestion the Group talk about identifying specific ARWG talking points for events like Day in the Capitol that provide an opportunity to talk to politicos about issues of importance.


Bill Cave representing the Auburn Lake Trails Fire Safe Council made arrangements to get together with Gianni to share additional information and explore the potential for collaboration in the arena of public outreach and education.


Lessons Learned from Star Fire Pre and Post Monitoring – Matt Triggs, USFS:

Bill introduced Matt Triggs and Matt launched into USFS efforts to address the impacts of the Star Fire that burned 17K acres of mostly forested lands in both the Eldorado and Tahoe National Forests and their subsequent filing of an Environmental Impact Statement to cover the effects of anticipated salvage efforts.


Matt reviewed the impacts of fire on the Duncan Canyon and the USFS focus on the prevention of soil erosion. He noted USFS conducted a Stream Condition Inventory to determine changes to stream profiles and target areas where increased sediment transport and loading were likely.


Bill Templin noted the monitoring being conducted every fall in the Rubicon watershed and offered to assist with student mobilization for potential monitoring efforts.


Matt reported the Pre & Post Star Fire Assessment being conducted by USFS in still in the analysis phase and reviewed pictures reflecting the severity of the fire and the damage done in response to Bill inquiries about the information being analyzed and noted it will be about three months before the analysis is available for review.


Matt noted one of the ways to restore a burn area is to use helicopter harvesting techniques with the slash left in place for soil coverage.


Bill solicited maps of USFS/CDF monitoring points, especially below French Meadows Reservoir and thanked Matt for his time and presentation.


USFS National Fire Plan – Matt Triggs:

Matt reviewed a PowerPoint presentation on the Restoration of Fire Adapted Ecosystems in the United States. He reviewed 2002 national fire events and the impacts of 100 years of fire suppression that have resulted in denser stands of trees resulting in a disease prone unhealthy forests raising the risk of catastrophic wildfire.


Group discussion revolved around the use of fire retardants in fire fighting efforts and the potential impacts from using retardant.


USFS is conducting more testing before moving to the use of K-gels as a fire retardant while CDF has already made the switch.


Matt reported USFS maintains a world class fire fighting infrastructure.


Matt noted USFS will be re-evaluating their Fire Risk Assessment that will take into consideration the protection of resources in addition to structures and property.


Bill solicited USFS data in an effort to promote the compilation of USFS data and CDF data that instigated a discussion highlighting the on-going issue of compatibility of data from the two agencies as they use differing projections when compiling their data making compatibility an issue. Bill offered assistance with potential information sharing between CDF and USFS.


Matt closed discussion by promoting the continued need for vegetation management and noted the energy from one large fire can match that of an atomic bomb.


Watershed Issues Updates:

  1. Watershed Assessment – deferred


  1. Fuel Reduction and Forest Management: See above agenda items


  1. Climate Change – deferred


  1. Water Quality – deferred


  1. Fisheries – deferred


  1. Mining – deferred


  1. Off Road Vehicles – Bill reported on the Rubicon Trail Master Plan monitoring and restoration efforts that include water and soils monitoring for oil and gas.


Matt reported off road vehicle trails in Foresthill are closed to due the lack of trail maintenance funding.


  1. Grazing – Tim Dabney reported USFS is in the process of re-evaluating range allotments. It was noted that cattle can wander outside of their range area in response to Bill Cave’s report of seeing cattle at the Inter-Bay.

  1. FERC Re-licensing – Mal Toy reported PCWA is holding a stakeholder meeting on April 25th from 9am to 3pm and solicited input from the ARWG in the stakeholder process.


Bill Cave noted the ARWG provides an important forum for discussion of common issues and stressed the need for simple information for the public and suggested the use of PowerPoint presentations targeted to specific audiences like Fire Safe Councils.


  1. Invasive Species – deferred


Next Meeting and Adjournment:

The next meeting is slated for May 18th at the Canyon View Community Center.


The meeting was adjourned at 12:03 p.m.

4