USFS Cooper Ridge Fuel Break, Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, Washington State

Mason, Bruce & Girard, Inc. (MB&G) worked to establish and maintain a fuel break across 2,600 acres to protect nearby communities, diminish fire behavior, and improve firefighter safety. The team created a stand examination plan with 100 plots, collection forest type, primary fire carrier for vegetation, aspect, slope, tree data, and photos for fuel model analysis. A treatment prescription was created to mitigate the vegetation and thin timber stands. 1,600 acres were determined as needing to be treated. MB&G helped the project meet a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) categorical exclusion (CE).

1. Baseline Studies
Stand examination plan. 100 plots collected data on forest type, primary fire carrier (grass/shrub, timber litter, aspect, slope, tree data, photos) for fuel model analysis.

2. Treatments
Developed treatment based on data collection. Proposed how to treat polygons based on what fuel model is best. Treatments included masticating the vegetation, or if there was timber, thin the trees per acre to reduce biomass. The project ended up with under 1,600 acres that could be treated. White bark pine or white bark pine suitable habitat was avoided because it is an endangered tree species.

3. Predicted post treatment fire behavior
Used the Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS) to calculate vegetation characteristics. FlamMap is a fire behavior model used to model how proposed treatments such as fuel breaks are likely to perform. Based on the outputs of the predicted fire behavior model we saw a large reduction in average flame length, fireline intensity (heat that an individual would encounter while fighting the fire) and reduction in active crown fire activity.

4. NEPA
The United States Forest Service (USFS) needed to comply with the NEPA, which includes a federal public disclosure law, that requires USFS to inform the public about the proposed project and collect feedback used to refine the project. In 2022, a new NEPA CE was developed by federal government to provide an abridged NEPA process meant to speed the application of fuel treatments throughout the country and reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires. NEPA CEs are developed to cover projects that tend to be smaller in scale or have similar, relatively predicable impacts. The fuel break CE requires projects to adhere to certain limits on the proposed action; in particular it limits the width and length of the fuel break and requires it to be associated with an existing feature like a road or powerline. MB&G’s work on the project informed the NEPA process for this project, which ultimately demonstrated its conformance with the fuel break CE.

MB&G’s Environmental Services Group (ESG), Forestry Group, and Technical Services Group (TSG) all worked on this project. ESG completed project management and a NEPA consistency review. Forestry prepared the stand examination plan, completed a field-based forest inventory, and developed the treatment plan. TSG handled the silviculture data, applied FVS, completed the fuels analysis, ran FlamMap the fire behavior model, and prepared GIS maps and figures.