Land stewardship includes thinking about how fuel and vegetation management actions can help protect, enhance, sustain, or improve conditions of your property over time. Improving landscape wildfire risk mitigation and resiliency is a common stewardship objective for many landowners. It is important to remember that not every acre can or needs to be treated to achieve every goal or objective you may have for your property. If fuels reduction and fire mitigation is one of the management objectives for your land, strategically placing fuels treatments can go a long way in mitigating the risk of high severity fire on your property. Understand how you can use fuel and vegetation management strategies (prescribed fire, thinning, targeted grazing, and herbicide) to meet your stewardship objectives by using the resources below.
Prescribed Fire
Prescribed fire is the controlled use of fire under specified weather and fuel conditions to achieve land management objectives. Prescribed fire activities can include pile burning and broadcast burning. Both are important tools for fuels reduction, forest and range management, and other ecological objectives.
Targeted Grazing
Targeted grazing is the application of livestock at a determined season, duration, and intensity to accomplish specific vegetation or landscape goals. Targeted grazing using sheep, goats, or cattle is being used increasingly to manage vegetation in a variety of settings.
Herbicide
The careful application of herbicide can be an effective and relatively inexpensive method to control vegetation. In fuels management, herbicide is primarily used to reduce or eliminate the growth of undesirable species or prepare live fuels for future fuel treatments (e.g., prescribed fire).