Plans for securing burned lands --July 6

USFS Burned Area Emergency Response
July 5, 2007

Burned Area Emergency Response
Angora Wildfire -- South Lake Tahoe, California

Background
Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) work is designed to minimize
threats to life, property, and natural and cultural resources from erosion,flooding, and mudslides originating in wildfire-damaged landscapes, and to reduce additional damage to burned areas. The goal is to implement soil stabilizing treatments on the ground before the major rain producing storms arrive. BAER assessment teams are assembled and begin work before the wildfire is fully contained. They survey the burned area, determine if any
values at risk exist, identify priority areas for treatment, and
provide an assessment that guides the implementation of the on-the-ground treatments.

BAER work is focused on short-term stabilization actions to help burned areas get through several seasons, especially the first critical winter. Longer-term restoration and rehabilitation work is also needed. That is done by individual national forests as funding and staffing allow.

Situation at Lake Tahoe

The BAER effort for the Angora Fire is a multi-agency, cooperative
effort. The Forest Service (USFS) BAER assessment team has been established and is working in the burned area. The BAER team is also working cooperatively with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire),California Tahoe Conservancy (CTC) and the Natural Resources Conservation
Service (NRCS), who provide similar work for non-federal lands. These cooperative efforts help to develop the most effective strategies and treatments for the burned area if the assessment team determines an emergency situation exists during the up-coming seasonal storms.

Treatments might include culvert cleaning to insure water passage,
water bar construction along roads and trails to slow and direct runoff, mulching by both aerial and ground methods to protect the soil surface, debris basin cleaning to insure maximum capacity, and clearing debris from bridge approaches to avoid water back-up and damage to bridges. Private contractors and agency employees implement much of the BAER treatments.

The BAER team is sharing the data and information they are gathering with the many Lake Tahoe interagency cooperators.

Current Status

Two Federal agencies, six State agencies, three county departments, and many local agencies coordinate daily on recovery needs. The Washoe Tribe of California and Nevada is also directly involved in the recovery effort.

Of the 3,100 acres that burned from the Angora Wildfire, 2,736 acres were National Forest System (NFS) lands. A portion of the burned lands include 148 USFS urban lots, which total 216 acres.

The BAER team of specialists is surveying the burned area and
developing a soil stabilization treatment plan and will be establishing a BAER implementation team that will install the finalized treatments.

The CTC has 175 urban lots totaling 100 acres that were affected by the Angora Wildfire. They have completed their assessment of those urban lots and are doing data analysis from those assessments.

The NRCS has completed its preliminary assessment that will assist its damage survey teams in assessing the many private property lots and other non-Federal lands, and coordinating recommended treatments with those fire-affected landowners.

The BAER assessment report is anticipated to be finalized by the Forest Supervisor by July 9, 2007. Implementation of the on-the-ground treatments will begin as soon as the report is completed, funding has been approved, and the BAER Implementation team and contractors are assembled. All treatments should be completed by the winter storm season.