Treatments May Reduce Loss in Future Droughts and Bark Beetle Epidemics

The Northern California Prescribed Fire Council held its eighth biannual meeting on April 25-26, 2013 at UC’s Hopland Research and Extension Center (HREC). Over 110 people attended the meeting, which featured a wide range of research and management presentations on prescribed fire-related topics. Meeting attendees included federal, state, and local agency personnel; ecologists and researchers; fire safe council representatives; private landowners and ranchers; tribal representatives; high school, undergraduate, and graduate students; and more! As usual, the Council meeting highlighted the diversity and passion of northern California’s prescribed fire community. As one meeting attendee commented on their evaluation...

Last week I visited Trinity River Lumber (TRL), a sawmill, in Weaverville, California.  The sawmill was almost totally destroyed by a fire in September 2009 and completed rebuilding in January this year.  The mill is the largest private employer in Trinity County with approximately 115 full time jobs.  The community was relieved that TRL’s owner chose to rebuild the mill after the fire.  The new mill is impressive in its versatility to saw a range of products and in its use of technology to maximize production.  Both the pony (small log) and main headrig saws make use of 3D scanners to optimize lumber yield from each log.  They are currently increasing production to approximately 120,000,000 board feet of lumber per year.  The main...

Wildfire Summit pulls together Tahoe basin residents and agencies on the fourth anniversary of the 2007 Angora fire to improve implementation of defensible space

The Lake Tahoe Wildfire Summit was held in Tahoe City on June 24th, 2011, four years after the Angora fire which started on June 24^th, 2007 in South Lake Tahoe. The summit drew together over 100 basin residents, agency staff and policy makers to focus on ways to reduce wildfire risks to Tahoe homes and communities. Presentations centered on wildfire issues in the Tahoe Basin and how to reduce risk to homes and communities by creating defensible space, improving building materials and design, and implementing forest fuels reduction...

The American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) Committee E05 on Fire Standards is meeting this week in Anaheim, California. ASTM is a standards writing organization. Today many task groups met to review and consider changes to standard test methods. For example, the task group that oversees ASTM E-84, Standard Test Method for Surface Burning Characteristics of Building Materials met. This test is used to determine the flame spread rating (Class A, B, or C) for construction materials, and is one of the measures used to describe the performance of deck boards that comply with Chapter 7A of the California Building Code. Chapter 7A is the state code that applies to new construction in California. Today it was announced that a...