Date:         April 17, 2001

To:            Regional Forester, Region 5

From:        Stephen J. Odell, Executive Director

Subject:    Regional Ecosystem Office Review of Clear Creek Late-Successional Reserve Assessment (LSRA) on the Shasta-Trinity National Forest

Summary 
The Regional Ecosystem Office (REO) has performed a review of the proposed Update 1.1 to the 1997 Clear Creek LSRA (RC-334), which addresses LSR conditions following the 1999 wildfires. In light of its review, which was based in large measure on the analysis and recommendations of the REO-led interagency Late-Successional Reserve (LSR) Work Group, the REO finds that the update document analyzes the risk, sustainability, and function of the Clear Creek LSR following the 1999 wildfires and proposes actions to treat post-fire conditions.

The REO finds that the Update document and the Clear Creek LSRA provide sufficient framework and context for future hazard, risk reduction, salvage, and control line (fuel break) activities within the LSR. The Update amends the 1997 Clear Creek LSRA by incorporating the 1999 Shasta-Trinity Forest-wide LSRA fuel reduction objectives, criteria, and standards, thereby augmenting project design standards to more fully address retention of desired standing and down coarse woody debris (CWD) within risk reduction and salvage treatment areas and providing for fuel breaks along key ridges and roads.

Future silvicultural activities described in the updated Clear Creek LSRA, which meet its criteria and objectives and which are also consistent with the Standards and Guidelines (S&Gs) of the Northwest Forest Plan (NFP), are exempt from further project-level REO review. The LSR Work Group also suggested that the Clear Creek LSRA be incorporated into the Forest-wide LSRA to more broadly cover risk reduction silvicultural treatments and/or non-silvicultural multiple-use (miscellaneous) activities that are likely to be examined within the Clear Creek LSR in the near future.

Basis for the Review
Under the NFP S&Gs, a management assessment is prepared for each large LSR (or group of smaller LSRs) before habitat manipulation activities are designed and implemented. As stated in the S&Gs, these assessments and recommended silvicultural treatments are subject to REO review. As cited in the July 15, 1998, Clear Creek LSRA letter, the REO review focuses on the following (see letter for a full set of NFP S&G citations):

• The first focus of the review considers whether the LSRA contains sufficient information and analysis to provide a framework and context for making future decisions on projects and activities.
• The review also considers treatment criteria and potential treatment areas for silvicultural, risk reduction, and salvage activities if these activities are addressed in the LSRA. If such activities are not described in the LSRA and exempted from further review, they remain subject to future REO review.

The basis for the review is the Update 1.1 document for the Clear Creek LSRA dated October 26, 2000, the 1997 Clear Creek LSRA and its amended information, and the 1999 Shasta-Trinity Forest-wide LSRA. Additional information and maps were presented by the Shasta-Trinity National Forest (NF) on December 15, 2000. Further discussions with the Forest on February 16 and March 8, 2001, served to clarify the updated LSRA for the work group.

Scope of the Assessment and Description of the Assessment Area
The REO reviewed the updated LSRA in light of the eight subject areas identified in the S&Gs (ROD, C-11) and sought additional information regarding these subject areas, where necessary. Additional information was provided by conversations with team members (December 15, 2000), telephone conversations, and supplemental information addressing salvage and risk reduction treatment standards and retention levels of CWD (February 16 and March 8, 2001).

The Clear Creek LSRA encompasses approximately 84,000 acres of Federal lands within the Klamath Mountain Province on the Shasta-Trinity NF. The LSR occupies a key network location between the Northern Interior Coast Range and the Shasta-McCloud subprovinces. Its management challenges are exacerbated by having mostly checkerboard land ownership and because it is bisected by Trinity and Lewiston Reservoirs and their 20 or more developed sites.

Review of the Assessment
The 1997 Clear Creek LSRA addressed a broad array of LSR habitat and fuel conditions but limited its treatment recommendations to density management in overstocked stands and to post-thinning fuel reduction. It deferred "salvage following stand replacing events" and fuel breaks under a category titled "Management actions considered but not recommended at this time" (item J., page 36). As noted in a July 15, 1998, REO letter, those treatments remained subject to review. The fire management plan (Section V, page 23) primarily addressed wildfire suppression actions. The LSRA addressed elevated fire/fuel hazard-related vegetation conditions, fuels and potential wildfire effects, and a risk/hazard assessment (the Clear Creek LSR has a generally high fire risk rating), and recommended thinning of overstocked stands to "reduce the existing and projected hazard and risk of large scale losses" and "enhance stand development towards LS/OG conditions" (Clear Creek LSRA, page 28). Broad hazard reduction treatments across the LSR were not recommended at that time. The update document addresses the LSR wildfire risk, post-wildfire effects and conditions, and recommends treatments adjacent to or within areas disturbed by wildfire.

Forests on the Shasta-Trinity NF have a drier environment and typically lower site productivity compared to the more mesic areas within the NFP. Existing elevated wildfire risk is attributed to changes in the characteristics and distribution of the mixed-conifer forests resulting from past fire protection. Within the Clear Creek LSR, a historic fire return interval of low and moderate fires averaged 14 years. Currently, approximately 51 percent of the late-successional, old-growth (LS/OG) capable lands consist of extensive acreage of densely stocked, slow-growing, small-to-mid-sized hardwood and conifer trees with distinct tree layers creating a hazardous fuel ladder situation. These conditions combined with the existing site conditions result in a high risk for high severity wildfire situations.

A thunderstorm on August 23, 1999, covered a broad area of northern California, and resultant wildfires burned an estimated 3,510 acres of the 83,800-acre LSR (approximately 4 percent). Over a mosaic of current and potential LS/OG habitats, a mosaic of fire effects occurred. On 900 acres, moderate-to-high burn intensity occurred (places where 70-95 percent of the vegetation had been killed and some topsoil damage had occurred). Of the 900 acres, 100 acres had been LS/OG; 480 acres were densely stocked mid-successional forest; 210 acres were open mid-successional forest; and 110 acres were young conifer forest. Over the remaining 2,610 acres, lighter burn intensity occurred. Approximately, 20 percent of the lightly burned mid-successional stands are viable and need no treatment. Fuel hazard reduction treatments are recommended on the other 80 percent to reduce fuel conditions and permit a higher likelihood of the forest attaining its potential for providing LS/OG habitat (Table 2).

The burned areas' hazard rating and mortality risk is generally very high (Table 1). The problem is the current dead fuel ladders and the future fuel loading which occur when most of the dead stems fall to the ground. Fuel loads are estimated to increase three-to-five times of what is desirable. "This situation will sustain extreme wildfire conditions with rates of spread and intensity that would resist control efforts and pose a high risk of substantial habitat loss to the surrounding forests." These elevated wildfire risk conditions are contrary to the desired condition within the Clear Creek LSR which is to promote and maintain LS/OG at a maximum sustainable level through time.

The Update highlighted the extent to which wildfire effects have affected the functioning of the LSR:

• The 1997 LSRA identified high density mid-successional stands as a high priority treatment (risk-reduction and growth-enhancing thinning and post-thinning fuel treatment).
  
• The post-fire situation has magnified wildfire and insect hazard risk conditions both within the fire-affected and adjacent habitat.
 
• Fuel loads have and will continue to increase both vertically (fuel ladders and snags) and horizontally (down wood) CWD.
 
• Connectivity and dispersal opportunities are severely degraded following stand-replacing, high-intensity wildfires.
 
• Treatments are recommended to provide more variable landscape fuel conditions to mimic historic processes of low and moderate intensity fires when they occur.
 
• There is a focus on the concern that "Large stand replacing, high intensity fires are not desirable within the Clear Creek LSR."

Updated recommended actions identify risk reduction, salvage, and fuel break treatments on or adjacent to the fire affected areas:

• Fuel risk reduction actions would reduce future burn intensity, reduce fuel hazards to reduce landscape stand-replacement fires, reduce risks to adjacent stands, and sustain long-term habitat improvement for dispersal opportunities and sustainable LS/OG.
 
• Salvage would permit removal of some dead trees with commercial value and provide funds for restorative treatments.
  
• Fuel breaks (control lines) would be employed to reduce fire and safety hazards along strategic roads for providing anchor lines and facilitation of subsequent area-wide fuel treatments, and to provide locations for suppression forces to initiate suppression actions more safely and efficiently.

A clarification on CWD (down and vertical materials) was noted by the work group:

• In risk reduction areas with materials less than 9 inches in diameter, those fuels should be reduced to an acceptable level (less than 15 tons per acre).
  
• In salvage areas on high capability sites, large (9+ inch diameter) CWD (down wood and snags) materials should be retained to meet the Shasta Trinity Forest-wide CWD down wood/snag levels, or generally average approximately 20+ tons per acre per Clear Creek LSRA Attachment B.
  
• In salvage areas where CWD (down wood and snags) levels are low (below desired levels), fuel arrangement or adjustment (not removal from LSR landscape) is expected for materials greater than 20 inches in diameter. Larger diameter snags and logs persist longer over time and are preferred for retention.

The REO finds that the document updating the Clear Creek LSRA provides a sufficient framework and context for designing future fuel risk reductions, fuel breaks, and salvage treatments on areas within or adjacent to areas disturbed by wildfires.

Within the Shasta-Trinity Forest-wide LSRA (California Klamath Province) fuel reduction treatments are recommended to reduce the risks of large-scale disturbance throughout the landscape, where wildfire potential and fuel loading is high in order to protect LS/OG and/or provide effective fuel breaks or control lines. Treatments are preferably outside LS/OG, in younger stands, and/or those with high fuel ladder risk. The Clear Creek LSRA provides criteria and recommends thinning to reduce risk and enhance growth within overstocked stands (LSRA Criteria, page 26) and landscape risk reduction treatments within or adjacent to areas recently disturbed by wildfire (Update Criteria, page 13). The LSR Work Group suggests the Clear Creek LSRA incorporate, or be incorporated, into the Shasta-Trinity Forest-wide LSRA to clearly address the LSR-wide need for risk reduction treatments projected as likely to be needed across much of the Clear Creek LSR.

Conclusion
Based on review of the documentation and discussions with Forest staff, the REO finds that the updated Clear Creek LSRA provides a sufficient framework and context information for decision-makers to proceed with recommended fuel reduction, salvage, and fuel break project development and analysis within or adjacent to the areas disturbed by wildfire. The silvicultural and hazard reduction, salvage, and fuel break treatments described in the update document are exempted from subsequent, project-level REO review.

cc:
REO
LSR work group
IAC

1625/ly