Prescribed Fire

While many forest health projects only thin the forest and do not follow up with prescribed fire, ERRP plans to carry out controlled burns on almost all the acres we are treating.  This follows the guidance of the project Burn Boss Scot Steinbring of Torchbearr, who points out that studies after recent catastrophic fires show that areas thinned and not burned may be more susceptible to stand replacing fire than un-treated areas.  Scot and the ERRP team recruited volunteers from the Mendocino County Prescribed Burn Association to assist with fires last season.  He also won North Coast Resource Partnership funding to support fire trainees from Mendocino County Tribes.  Up to May 2025, Torchbearr had burned a total of 177 acres, and expects to do at least twice that amount that during the upcoming burning season, from October 2025 through May 2026. 

If the forest area to be thinned is not too dense, and there is not an accumulation of dead limbs on the forest floor, then prescribed fire can be applied without treatment in rare cases.  If fuel levels are light, then crews may lop and scatter to set up a prescribed ground fire.  ERRP has several hundred acres in this category, but most treatment is to thin and pile.  Pile burning presents less risk and the plan is that after piles are burned that fuels will be so low that routine ground fire can be applied to maintain forest health on lands treated.  The key to pile burning is building proper piles to allow efficient prescribed fire applications (see Final Burn Pile Specification Document.pdf).

ERRP and Torchbearr are working to recruit volunteers to participate in controlled burns to assist with meeting their current ambitious prescribed fire goals, and to help the community build a stewardship corp.  If benefits of forest health work are to be maintained, prescribed fire should be re-applied every three to five years.  The ERRP project has discrete project areas and it is hoped that volunteers within each of these communities organize to make continued application of prescribed fire a reality at a neighborhood scale. 

Come see the “Good Fire” and/or help make them happen.  For information on how to become an observer or to volunteer to help with burns, email ERRPOutreach@gmail.com or register on-line at https://tinyurl.com/yr7yv9nm. Also, Outreach Coordinator Erin Neuroth is available to answer questions and can be reached by phone or text at 707 272-0832.