The Lick Creek Demonstration - Forest Renewal Through Partial Harvest and Fire

Abstract

The Lick Creek Demonstration Site on the Pomeroy Ranger District, Umatilla National Forest, is a Joint Fire Science Program sponsored project to create a demonstration of the effects of fuels management on forest health. The project was initiated in 2001 and involved the integration of two levels of partial harvest with prescribed fire, a burn only treatment and an untreated control treatment. Biomass utilization was incorporated into the burn preparation following harvest. Objectives of the treatments were to improve stand composition and structure, reduce fuel levels, and enhance wildlife habitat. Units were harvested in 2001. Prescribed fire as applied in 2004. Monitoring of fuels and stand attributes was implemented in 2005. Harvest reduced overstory canopy coverage as much as 70%. Understory tree layers remained intact through the harvest but were significantly affected by the prescribed burn. Herbage production increased in areas of moderate fire intensity but showed little response in areas of high fire intensity. Less than 1% mortality was evident in 2005 among leave trees in the treatment units but tree conditions indicate future higher mortality. Fuels reduction was the most uniform in the commercial yarding treatments but was highly varied in the burn only treatments. Contractor revenue profits from the harvest and biomass fuel were modest and dependent on the provision of service contracts by the USFS Pomeroy Ranger District in addition to the release of the products to the contractors for independent sale.

Parent Publication

• Fuels Management-How to Measure Success: Conference Proceedings

Citation

Zamora, Benjamin; Martin, Melinda. 2006. The Lick Creek Demonstration - Forest Renewal Through Partial Harvest and Fire. In: Andrews, Patricia L.; Butler, Bret W., comps. 2006. Fuels Management-How to Measure Success: Conference Proceedings. 28-30 March 2006; Portland, OR. Proceedings RMRS-P-41. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. p. 501-511