Ishi Fire Restoration Project
Lassen National Forest, Eastern Tehama County
February, 2020
The Ishi Fire Restoration Project is located in eastern Tehama County, approximately 20 miles east of Red Bluff, California. The project area includes the Ishi Wilderness, and is a rugged landscape characterized by unusual pillar lava rock (Tuscan formations), caves, and basalt rock outcroppings. The land is a series of east-west running ridges framed by rugged river canyons, with the highest ridges attaining elevations of 4,000 feet (1,200 m). Deer Creek and Mill Creek are the principal drainages. The diverse landscape includes a mosaic of conifer-dominated stands, oak woodlands, montane chaparral, and grasslands. The area also supports several unique old-growth pine stands (the Beaver Creek “pineries”), sensitive plant and wildlife species, threatened anadromous fish in a key tributary to the Sacramento River, and many culturally significant sites.
The old-growth pineries within the Project area are often cited as contemporary reference sites that contain a forest structure similar to what was likely present in many western conifer forests prior to European-American settlement and the advent of fire suppression.
Recent fire modeling suggests that in the very near future a threshold will be crossed, where the low intensity fire that has historically maintained the heterogeneity and fire resilient structure that makes these stands unique, would no longer occur. It is anticipated that within the next ten years, crown fire could become the predominant fire behavior within the pineries, increasing the risk of irreparable damage to these important reference sites.
Prescribed burning under controlled conditions would reduce fuel loads and maintain the structural diversity within these stands. The use of prescribed fire is also expected to increase these stands’ resilience to future wildfire, insect and pathogen outbreaks, and drought.
Currently, we are in the planning stages for this project.