Management
Prescribed Fire
The Ashley National Forest conducts prescribed fires in the spring and fall of each year. Our prescribed fires reduce surface fuels, increase height of the canopy, reduce small tree densities, and promote fire resilient trees. Thereby improving our ability to protect communities from wildfire as well as conserve current and future timber values. Additionally, these fires improve wildlife habitat, promote long-term ecosystem integrity and sustainability by reducing the risk of high-severity wildland fire.
Role of Fire
Early Forest Service policy interpreted protection as suppression, and for several decades, fire management focused on suppression efforts. In the 1970s, emphasis began to shift from full suppression to responses that more appropriately reflected values that were at risk. Recent wildfires have prompted the Departments of Agriculture to review fire policy and programs. This direction includes the use of fire to achieve management objectives and consideration of the impacts of excluding fire. Historically, wildfires throughout the Forest would have ranged from ground fire to stand replacing, depending on the vegetative community. Currently, some wildfires create more homogeneous landscapes than those that typically occurred within historical fire regimes.
Population growth within and around Forest boundaries has led to increases in wildland/urban interface. Much of this growth has taken place at lower elevations within or adjacent to dry forest or rangelands. In some of these areas, the risk of uncharacteristic wildfire is high. Often, small communities, isolated subdivisions, or owners of concentrated recreation facilities do not have the resources to address fire risk (protection or prevention) or to assist in the control of wildfires. The growth of the wildland/ urban interface increases the risk of wildfire spreading from private to federal lands, and vice versa.
Wildfires alter watershed conditions and subsequently increase the risk of floods and landslides, compared to unburned watersheds. In the wildland/urban interface, threats to life, property, and municipal watersheds from such events are much greater than in non-interface areas. Protection to the values of the Forest is achieved with fire suppression and fuels management. Vegetation treatments that can reduce wildfire risks in wildland/urban interface areas is accomplished with prescribed fire and through mechanical treatments. In addition, planning and implementing treatments in or adjacent to wildland/urban interface areas depends on collaboration between the Forest Service, private landholders, local, county, and state governments, and other federal land management agencies. All parties must understand the risks associated with wildland/urban interface and their role in reducing those risks.