Era of ‘good fire’, collaborative vegetation management is here: “Prescribed Burning" panel discussion Jan 15
Bodega town hall — “Prescribed Burning" panel discussion by Audubon Canyon Ranch Fire Forward Program
Date And Time: Fri, January 15, 202 - 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM PST
Location: Online Event -The meeting will take place on Zoom. The zoom link will be shared by email to all participants on Friday, January 15 no later than 1:00pm.
>> Register:
Town hall meeting and panel discussion about the value and uses of prescribed fire in the Bodega area on Friday, January 15 from 7:00-8:30pm.
This will be a web-based community meeting with panel discussion featuring local experts from fire agencies, ecological organizations and The Northern Sonoma County Air Pollution Control District relating to prescribed burning in the Bodega area.
In this hour and a half event, the first thirty minutes will include panel presentations by expert representatives. After the panel discussion, a moderator will facilitate a question-answer session.
Please if you have any questions email Brian Peterson at brian.peterson@egret.org
Fire Forward: Building Ecosystem Resilience Together
Imagine a North Bay that lives harmoniously with fire and understands its critical role in tending our cherished and beautiful open spaces.
Fire Forward, a program of Audubon Canyon Ranch, brings a unique blend of science-based program design and community organizing to our region as it seeks to become a model of fire-adapted communities tending fire-adapted landscapes.
We are building ecosystem resilience together:
Teaming up with private landowners, public agencies and conservation partners around a shared purpose of effective fuel management.
TALKS & WORKSHOPS: Attend a Good Fire Alliance info session or join a workshop on a range of fuels management approaches, like grazing, creating shaded fuel breaks and home hardening.
Building our region’s capacity to accomplish this work through prescribed fire training and equipment sharing.
TRAINING & EQUIPMENT: Our Wildland Fire Fighter Type 2 training is designed to build a local team of prescribed fire participants. Our mobile unit of prescribed fire and understory thinning tools will be available as a shared resource across the region.
Working with partners to implement ecologically sound fire and fuels treatments on ACR preserves and partners’ lands.
TREATMENTS & FOLLOW-UP: By working closely with CAL FIRE, partners in the Sonoma Valley Wildlands Collaborative, our own preserve managers and other regional landowners, we are making North Bay ecosystems more resilient and our communities safer. Fuels treatments on our own lands are paired with monitoring protocols and data collection to inform management moving forward.
DOWNLOAD THE FLYER (pdf)
fire_forward_flyer-8-27-19-web.pdf
Fire Forward is funded in part by the Farley Family Charitable Foundation, the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, the California Forest Improvement Program, the California Deer Association, Mystery Ranch, True North Gear and many generous members and supporters of ACR.
Frequently Asked questions
What does ‘fire-adapted landscape’ mean?
Fire is a core ecological process in most California ecosystems. For thousands of years, the Bay Area was home to some of California’s highest populations of Native Americans, who used fire for a multitude of reasons: to generate fresh forage for grazing and browsing mammals, to stimulate growth of valuable basket weaving materials, to control acorn weevil populations ensuring delectable acorns for wildlife and people alike, to reduce fire hazard around home sites, to clear walking paths, and so much more.
In the North Bay specifically, nearly all of our terrestrial ecosystems depend on site-specific fire regimes. Here, nearly all plant species depend on regular fire to thrive—each system with its own unique relationship with fire and specific fire needs. Our open spaces are adapted to a specific fre- quency, intensity and timing of fire as a result of those millennia of fire-adapted stewardship by people.
After over a century of fire suppression, however, California landscapes remain in a dire fire deficit.
Why use prescribed fire in the North Bay?
The use of prescribed fire (i.e. controlled burning) builds resiliency in wildland ecosystems, reduces hazardous fuels and may enhance public and firefighter safety. Local communities can benefit in other ways too. When relatively small areas are burned under optimal conditions far less smoke is emitted than would occur during a major wildfire and the potential for post-fire erosion is reduced. Fire management professionals, scientists and land managers concur on the benefits of controlled burning and the State of California is supporting significant increases in its use in the coming years.
