Overview

The conservation goals and funding priorities of the Catastrophic Fire Recovery ranking pool is to provide immediate resource protection in areas burned by catastrophic fires in the past three years on non-industrial private forestland (NIPF), grazing lands and croplands.

Priority resource concerns for NIPF and grazing lands include immediate soil erosion protection, minimize noxious and invasive plant proliferation, protect water quality, reduce fire hazard due to excess dead vegetation build-up, and restore livestock infrastructure necessary for grazing management. The State Conservationist has determined that the geographic scope of a Forest Management Plan and NIPF does not include areas within 100 feet from a building or a greater distance if required by state law, or local ordinance, rule, or regulation.

Priority resource concerns for cropland include immediate soil erosion protection and protect water quality from pollutants that have the potential to enter local streams and river from lands that have been damaged during wildfires and fire suppression activities.

The immediate consequence of fire is the potential for soil erosion. Intense heat from fire can cause the soil to repel water, a condition called hydrophobicity. The potential for severe soil erosion is a consequence of catastrophic wildfire because as a fire burns it destroys plant material and the litter layer that protects the soil from eroding during severe rainstorms and moving off- site to surface water bodies, roads and other sites.

Immediate action to control soil erosion on burned forestlands and agricultural lands include treatments such as using damaged trees or woody residues to slow runoff water, creating check dams in drainages, conservation covers, erosion control structures and spreading straw to protect the soil and reseeding efforts.

Most post-burn range sites are also susceptible to invasion by noxious weeds. Rangeland noxious weeds and soil erosion can be controlled through management and distribution of livestock to facilitate recovery of burned sites most at risk for erosion and weed proliferation. In some cases, range planting may be necessary if range seed source is absent.

Many existing forestland and agricultural land access roads and culvert systems may be severely damaged during fire suppression activities. In addition, emergency roads created during the fire event may need to be addressed - both are potential sources of sediment and turbidity in surface water bodies. Riparian zones with heavy biomass accumulation are often high intensity fire areas where temporary access trails were built for fire suppression and these trails can be direct sediment sources to riparian streams as well.

Following catastrophic fires noxious and invasive plants often proliferate on post-burn sites. Forests that are not planted with tree seedlings within one growing season of the fire will result in shrub regeneration that can capture sites where natural regeneration is not present. These shrub communities can be very aggressive and within one season will dominate the forest site, increasing the intensity of reforestation practices such as herbicide application, mastication or brush raking to ensure the success of tree plantings.

Trees and other vegetation burned by the wildfire also can be a longer term future wildfire hazard and an immediate public safety hazard related to falling trees.  When large quantities of trees and shrubs are severely burned, the dead vegetation presents a fire hazard due the accumulation of excess flammable woody biomass.  This debris also inhibits fire area restoration efforts, such as reforestation, to reestablish a healthy, fire resilient forest. Practices that remove, reduce or reconfigure the excess woody debris will contribute to achieving restoration and public safety goals.

The following sections include the applicable land uses, resource concerns, and conservation practices for the ranking pool.

Land Uses

The descriptions below are the general NRCS land use definitions - applications should fit within, but do not need to exactly match, these descriptions. Below are the applicable land uses for the ranking pool.

• Forest: Land on which the primary vegetation is tree cover (climax, natural or introduced plant community) and use is primarily for production of wood products or non-timber forest products.
• Range: Land used primarily for the production of grazing animals. Includes native plant communities and those seeded to native or introduced species, or naturalized by introduced species that are ecologically managed using range management principles.
• Crop: Land used primarily for the production and harvest of annual or perennial field, forage, food, fiber, horticultural, orchard, vineyard, or energy crops.
• Pasture: Land composed of introduced or domesticated native forage species that is used primarily for the production of livestock. Pastures receive periodic renovation and cultural treatments, such as tillage, fertilization, mowing, weed control, and may be irrigated. Pastures are not in rotation with crops.
• Farmstead: Land used for facilities and supporting infrastructure where farming, forestry, animal husbandry, and ranching activities are often initiated. This may include dwellings, equipment storage, plus farm input and output storage and handling facilities.
• Associated Agricultural Lands: Land associated with farms and ranches that are not purposefully managed for food, forage, or fiber and are typically associated with nearby production or conservation lands. This could include incidental areas, such as odd areas, ditches and watercourses, riparian areas, field edges, seasonal and permanent wetlands, and other similar areas.